Why do people genetically modify food

Across campus, David Williams, a cellular biologist who specializes in vision, has the opposite complaint. But now anyone in this field knows the genome is not a static environment. Inserted genes can be transformed by several different means, and it can happen generations later. Williams concedes that he is among a tiny minority of biologists raising sharp questions about the safety of GM crops. But he says this is only because the field of plant molecular biology is protecting its interests.

Funding, much of it from the companies that sell GM seeds, heavily favors researchers who are exploring ways to further the use of genetic modification in agriculture. He says that biologists who point out health or other risks associated with GM crops—who merely report or defend experimental findings that imply there may be risks—find themselves the focus of vicious attacks on their credibility, which leads scientists who see problems with GM foods to keep quiet.

Whether Williams is right or wrong, one thing is undeniable: despite overwhelming evidence that GM crops are safe to eat, the debate over their use continues to rage, and in some parts of the world, it is growing ever louder. Skeptics would argue that this contentiousness is a good thing—that we cannot be too cautious when tinkering with the genetic basis of the world's food supply. To researchers such as Goldberg, however, the persistence of fears about GM foods is nothing short of exasperating.

So who is right: advocates of GM or critics? When we look carefully at the evidence for both sides and weigh the risks and benefits, we find a surprisingly clear path out of this dilemma. The bulk of the science on GM safety points in one direction. Take it from David Zilberman, a U. Berkeley agricultural and environmental economist and one of the few researchers considered credible by both agricultural chemical companies and their critics.

He argues that the benefits of GM crops greatly outweigh the health risks, which so far remain theoretical. It has raised the output of corn, cotton and soy by 20 to 30 percent, allowing some people to survive who would not have without it.

If it were more widely adopted around the world, the price [of food] would go lower, and fewer people would die of hunger. In the future, Zilberman says, those advantages will become all the more significant. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the world will have to grow 70 percent more food by just to keep up with population growth. Climate change will make much of the world's arable land more difficult to farm.

GM crops, Zilberman says, could produce higher yields, grow in dry and salty land, withstand high and low temperatures, and tolerate insects, disease and herbicides. Despite such promise, much of the world has been busy banning, restricting and otherwise shunning GM foods. Nearly all the corn and soybeans grown in the U. Ten E. Approval of a few new GM corn strains has been proposed there, but so far it has been repeatedly and soundly voted down.

Throughout Asia, including in India and China, governments have yet to approve most GM crops, including an insect-resistant rice that produces higher yields with less pesticide. In Africa, where millions go hungry, several nations have refused to import GM foods in spite of their lower costs the result of higher yields and a reduced need for water and pesticides.

Kenya has banned them altogether amid widespread malnutrition. No country has definite plans to grow Golden Rice, a crop engineered to deliver more vitamin A than spinach rice normally has no vitamin A , even though vitamin A deficiency causes more than one million deaths annually and half a million cases of irreversible blindness in the developing world.

Globally, only a tenth of the world's cropland includes GM plants. Four countries—the U. Other Latin American countries are pushing away from the plants. And even in the U. In the U. The fear fueling all this activity has a long history. Please enable scripts and reload this page. Quick Links. Why do we use GMOs? Do GMOs harm health? How do GMOs affect insects? How does the regulation process work?

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