May I have a Genetically Modified Pizza Please!

What’s this whole buzz about bio-technology? I mean, we have been doing it for thousands of years, from cheese to traditional brew, and we’ve been enjoying the benefits.  So what are the anti-GMO activists afraid of, that we are finally going to be able to feed 8.5 billion mouths?

 There have been well accepted methods which have been practiced with little intervention. These include natural fermentation, selection and controlled breeding (Conventional breeding), tissue culture; artificial insemination; molecular marker technology; embryo transfer. All these have been practiced since time immemorial, with very little side effects if any at all. We are now at a stage where manipulation of the organism at cellular level to get a new variant. Technology has come a long way to answering the question of food security.

GMOs promise the world higher crop yields. Bio-technology allows for farmers to produce crops that are more resistant to severe climatic conditions, pests, invasive plants and diseases. Crop variants can potentially produce more than organic alternatives. This all make the farmers to produce more at lower cost. Decrease in food prices due to lower costs and higher yield. As people in poor countries spend over half of their income on food alone, lower food prices mean an automatic reduction of poverty. We will finally be able to feed the hungry children of Africa.

One observation that caught my attention on the web recently about the critics of GMCs was that, most of them are actually people who are better of in life. They are more affluent and free from want, which is why they can afford to spend better part of their days protesting against their governments for trying to come up with practical solution to the food crisis. Don’t get me wrong I don’t have anything against freedom of expression or freedom of association. I just think that those spoilt brats shouldn’t get in the way of poor African kids and their next meal.

What we need are some real and practical solutions to food shortage not people who are going to stand in the way of progress. Lord Taverne, former English MP and Minister, said that organisations like Greenpeace do more harm than good despite their "not rational" opposition to genetically modified foods. It is an enormous success story. There are now 148 million hectares on which genetically modified crops are cultivated in 29 countries. 'There are now 15 million farmers in the world who grow genetically modified crops and over 14 million of them are small-scale farmers.'

There are some genuine concerns though!

Some people object to GM technology because it can be used to create unnatural organisms. For example, a plant can be modified with genes from another species of plant, or even an animal. Another concern is that genes used to modify crops could escape into wild plants, creating "superweeds" that are highly resistant to pests, or alter plants in other ways that might cause damage to the environment. Some worry that GM crops themselves might prove to be harmful to either wildlife or the people who eat the crops. Some groups worry that genes escaping from the crops could pollinate non-GM crops that are being grown organically. This could ruin business for farmers whose livelihoods are based on organic produce, and reduce consumer choice rather than increase it.

From my point of view the pros far outweigh the cons. With the cost of living escalating every day, biotechnology can ensure that we pay less and less for more and more food. Question is are you ready to eat a genetically engineered pizza?