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Julia Cooke

Jackie Burr

English 2010

6 February 2020

Genetic Engineering in Agriculture Worldwide

Agriculture is the science or practice of farming. This includes the cultivation of soil for

growing crops and animals to provide food, and animal based products for human use and

consumption. The agricultural industry in the United States is worth billions of dollars every

year, and including the amount of money brought in world wide, it's unfathomable. The

agricultural industry does not just make the country money, it feeds all the citizens, all around

the world. The industry even feeds the animals that are used for food and other byproducts like

fat, fur, wool, and hair, dairy products, etc. All of these products are used in almost everything

manufactured. Almost everything the country consumes and produces has been genetically

modified or includes products that have been genetically modified.

Melvin J. Oliver in his essay, “Why We Need GMO Crops in Agriculture,” says,

“Agriculture is a diverse endeavor, and if we are to be successful we need to embrace that

diversity.” In this quote Oliver is alluding to the use of genetic engineering in our crops. Genetic

Engineering is the deliberate modification of the characteristics of an organism. We’ve done this

as far back as humans have started to farm and produce their own crops. Hundreds of years ago,

when the Native Americans roamed the plains of what is now called the United States of

America, they would breed certain types of corn together until they got just what they liked and

wanted. They were some of the first people to understand how to manipulate a crop into
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something that would be more suitable for the different areas they would range and call home.

Now humans have moved onto doing this same thing, but in a more sophisticated lab based

setting.

In order to produce a genetically modified plant or crop in a lab, scientists will take DNA

from whatever other plant or organism they need, and insert it into a plant’s cells. After this, the

cells will be grown in tissue culture where they will develop into seeds. Once these new seeds

are planted, they will grow into plants that now have the new inherited DNA. Many scientists are

using this method in order to help specific plant breeds be able to grow in many different harsh

conditions. On the website Agricultureandfoodsafety.com, it states, “GM (genetically modified)

crops are going to be an essential part of our life and the enormous potential of biotechnology

must be exploited to the benefit of mankind.” Scientists are excited at the progress that has been

made through genetic engineering. This is because it could lead to fixing so many of today’s

agriculture based problems world wide. One of these problems being the fight against hunger in

third world countries.

Genetically engineering food isn’t just exciting for scientists, it's exciting for the people

who have gone hungry around the world for lifetimes. As of right now, more than four billion

acres of genetically modified crops have been grown in twenty-seven countries world wide. This

is just the start to feed the growing human population of seven billion and growing. It is not only

more developed countries that have started growing genetically modified crops as well.

Pamela Ronald, a plant geneticist, gave a TedTalk called, “The Case for Engineering our

Food.” In this talk she shares the importance of modifying these plants and crops around the

world to help kick start a fighting chance against world hunger. She also brings up the fact that
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food security and malnutrition are currently among the most serious concerns for human health

in developing countries. She says, “The reason is, that sometimes it's the cheapest, safetest, and

most effective technology for enhancing food security and advancing sustainable agriculture.”

By genetically engineering food to be durable against weather, disease, and bugs, there is a

minimized percentage lost to these problems every season. In less developed countries more than

three hundred thousand people die every year to exposure and misuse of insecticides. These

genetically modified plants can also help rid this issue as well.

The amount of food that can be grown and live through harsh conditions worldwide is

extremely useful when feeding people who rely on their own grown crops. Every year 40% of

rice is lost to disease of pests, and it’s the communities especially in third world, developing, and

lesser countries that rely on their own crops for food. This makes the chance of genetically

engineering food and crops to grow extremely useful. Scientists can now make plants that will

survive flood, heat, bugs, and almost whatever else poses a problem in these countries and

communities.

There are many people around the world who are against the idea of genetically

modifying crops. These anti-GMO activists have many personal reasons for arguing against it.

Some of these include concern for our human health when adding ‘unnatural’ genes into

something that will be eaten, the idea of humans ‘playing the role of god,’ by interfering with

what a plant turns into naturally, and some simply don’t think that it will have any use or impact

for them. In Uganda, the anti-GMO activists are so extremely against it, just based on their core

beliefs and values, with no real evidence to their arguments, that they spread myths that
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genetically modified bananas include genes from snakes and pigs, or will cause cancer in

whoever consumes them.

Mark Lynas, while not in Uganda, is an anti-GMO activist as well. Mark Lynas is a

british author, climate change activist, and scientist, and he doesn’t agree with genetically

engineering crops. At the Oxford Farming Conference of 2018, he stated, “I’ve visited numerous

plant breeding labs in the past 5 years… I’ve yet to meet a single one who claims that GMOs are

going to feed the world or magically solve all our agricultural problems.” While Lynas has a

point in it’s not going to magically solve the world’s problems, that doesn’t mean that it won’t do

anything to help. Lynas also comes from a background of being a climate change activist making

him fight against the branches of forestry, land, and agriculture as they add to the world’s

greenhouse gas emissions. This background makes Lynas biased against the agricultural industry

and growing food for the hungry. Even with everything against genetically modifying crops,

scientists still need to be able to use this technology, and this technology has already brought us

to seeing amazing improvement in the countries that this has been implemented.

As for the concern of our own health with the adding of genes across plant species, there

has been absolutely no human harm in the span of the forty years of modification. Also, the

alterations in genomes from breeding plants, like the Native Americans would do, is much more

than that of genetically modified crops.

One of the biggest and most famous successes that has come out of genetically modifying

our crops is the creation of Golden Rice. Many children in the Philippines and surrounding

countries we’re going blind and dying from the lack of a nutrient called ​beta-carotene which the

human body turns into the crucial vitamin A. This is the same nutrient that causes carrots to be
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orange, and it also helps with eyesight. Scientists were able to put in a gene that carried this

nutrient into rice which these countries could produce. This golden rice has helped countless

amounts of people and saved lives.

This is just one example of what genetically modifying food and crops can do for the

whole world. The people in third world and developing countries need this kind of technology,

or access to the products it can create. It’s healthier than normal pesticides, and has a chance of

developing beyond what we even need. The people in first world countries need to understand

the possibility of what this can do for all the hungry people world wide, and how much good it

can bring the world.

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Works Cited

Agriculture and Food Security. Biomedcentral. Website. ​https://agricultureandfoodsecurity.biom

edcentral.com/ Assessed 10 Feb. 2020.

Lynas, Mark. “Speech to the Oxford Farming Conference.” Oxford Farming Conference. 2018.

Speech.​http://www.marklynas.org/2018/01/mark-lynas-speech-to-the-oxford-farming-co

ference-2018/​ Assessed on 10 Feb. 2020.

Oliver, Melvin. “Why We Need GMO Crops in Agriculture.” NCIB. Dec. 2014. Essay.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6173531/​ Assessed on 10 Feb. 2020.

Ronald, Pamela. “The Case for Engineering Our Food.” TED. May 2015. Lecture.

https://www.ted.com/speakers/pamela_ronald​ Assessed on 10 Feb. 2020.