One of the major topics in the news at the moment is the GM foods row, so I thought that I’d try to add my two penny’s worth into the argument. I’m not a biologist, I don’t know a great deal about the complexities or Genetic engineering, and I have never understood most biologists’ fascination with cutting up small animals. What I do claim to be is a scientist, and capable of looking at both sides of an argument and using reason on them. I also claim to be an environmentalist, I’ve stood for Mock Elections as a Green Party Candidate and have always tried to do my part. What I’m not is a scaremonger, who prosthesis doom and gloom to all mankind, for instance, I’m actually pro-nuclear power. Enough about me, lets get back to the matter in hand.
In my view, the benefits far outweigh the costs of GM foods, for both the human race and the environment itself. Most of the anti-feeling has been stirred up by the tabloid newspapers, who dub this food, ‘Frankenstein Food’, since the majority of people in this country rely on the Sun, Star and Mirror to make opinions for them, its no wonder why there is such an outcry.
To start with, people have been eating genetically engineered foods for years, did people think that one day while waking through the woods, food company executives found a new for of Mushroom, Quorn, that seemed to taste just like meat, they engineered it to be that way, but nobody minded.
GM foods can grow in places where standard crops can’t, they also can produce far higher yields than conventional crops, and with the world population set to double in the next 60 years, that can only be a good thing. Imagine the problems that can be solved if throughout Africa cheaper GM crops could be grown to feed the staving masses.
The church and groups like Christian Aid can say that these are not God’s work, its man playing as God, not wanting to get into the theology of it all, but surly if God in whatever form he takes wanted gave us the tools to do this, then it must be his work. I can see that my argument falls down if you point out things like nuclear weapons, and I’ll accept that this could be called gods work, but I put that down more to the nature of man, that to anything else.
Christian Aid say that GM foods aren’t suitable for Africa because it’s a political situation rather than a one of lack of food. The reason as far as I can see why there is little food, is because instead of giving Africans grain and crops to plant in the first place, they handed out bread, making the people dependant on the Aid trucks and driving away they’re need to be self sufficient.
I’m no expert, but when people are worried about the spread of modified genes from foods that we eat into our own bodies, isn’t the chance the same of any other gene sequence spreading across?
Genetic foods are more resistant to diseases, and don’t need fertiliser or bugkillers, so crowing them will reduce the flow of toxic chemicals that flow into our streams from the run off from crop fields. These are clogging streams with algae and ruining natural habitats, surly any environmentalist can see the benefits of GM foods here.
I can accept the argument that if this so called terminator gene is developed, which means that seeds from the plants can’t germinate, then farmers and possible whole poverty sticken countries will be in the hands of the GM companies, but this isn't a fault of Genetic Engineering, this is the fault of the human desire to acquire material possessions above all else.
I can perfectly accept that people do not want to eat GM foods, but I feel we should have the choice of what to eat, and that is where the argument confuses me. The anti-GM lobby says that in order to have the choice to eat non-GM food, we must ban GM foodstuffs. In order to have a choice to do something, you must have another option, and to me starvation isn’t one of them.
I say whether you want to eat test-tube food or not, you should have the choice. Get off your high horse, GM foods can benefit the parts of the world that you have destroyed. Let them continue to develop the foods.
Why GM Foods Are Good