1.0 Introduction
It is of no surprise that what we eat changes with time. Our food choices vary season-to-season, week-to-week, and day-to-day. They depend on where we travel, where we work, what we like and don’t like; how we live. But have you ever considered how food itself has changed over the years? How the same types of food we eat today vary from those eaten a century ago?
For thousands of years, humans have practiced the agricultural methods explained by Mendel in the mid-1800s; namely, cross-breeding and artificial selection. These “old” biotechnologies allowed the first domestic farmers to mate the strongest, most pest-resistant and fruitful plants in order to produce healthful foods in large quantities. The ability to
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GMOs are organisms that have been genetically altered to possess uncharacteristic traits and benefits. Genetically modified (GM) foods are powerful tools for the future of agriculture and human health; however, if not regulated carefully, they could be detrimental to the environment and society. Currently, GM foods comprise roughly 80% of the consumer market, with only 20% remaining for organics and all-natural products. Soy, canola, and corn are amongst the most popular and widespread of GMO food products in the world (NON-GMO Project 2015). A careful look into GMO agricultural practices and their effect on the environment, GM foods and their impact on human health, and legal factors surrounding the production of GM foods will lead us to understanding the implications of such technology and how it can be used to better the world we live in.
2.0 GM Agriculture and the Environment
GM crops are highly disputed amongst scientists, farmers, and environmentalists. The potential of GM crops to improve upon current agricultural methods by increasing agricultural productivity and improving pest resistance has been met by claims that GM crops increase herbicide usage and threaten biodiversity.
2.1 Agricultural Productivity
GMOs have the ability to greatly improve agricultural productivity. GM crops have proved to be effective in increasing the amount of crop that farmers can
Because dinosaurs are animals that lived millions of years ago, we are entirely dependent on the fossils that they have left behind for any understanding that we hope to gain. As any paleontologist will tell you, fossil hunting is difficult. There are no certainties, no guarantees. A certain amount of luck is as valuable as any scientific knowledge.
GMO's are simply an addition to the long list of alterations made to the balance of nature. At its surface, GMO's seem to represent food as it's meant to look ripe, shiny, and never corrupted by pests, and these claims aren't wrong. GMO's bring a variety of benefits to the table. They increase resistance to cold, protect from select pests, and can even be used to transfer vital nutrients to other organisms. Various regions, such as Eastern Asia, have greatly benefitted from the use of GMO's, as prominent food, such as rice, lack nutrients necessary for growth and survival. GMO's have also helped farmers grow crops with more ease and less expense. However, these GMO's pack a price. Genes can be transferred to unintended targets, and pests who grow resistant to these GMO's may breed, causing an epidemic. Moreover, scientists believe that the
The governments and scientists were hoping that the GMO’s will provide to the public such benefits as increased food supply, helping underfed nations, assisting farmers, and better overall food taste. Because the crops are already resistant, this would allow farmers to skip steps in the production process, like spraying herbicides and pesticides.
Recently, there has been a huge uprise in reports from all over the world of new diseases that have affected much of the population today. Diseases such as obesity, Alzheimer’s, Celiac Disease, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and so much more have been on the rise. Researchers have suspected the culprit of these diseases to be our food. Along with the diseases, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) has also been on the rise. The more poor food we eat, the greater the potential harm to our health. One of the poor foods we consume is GMO: the altering of genes in food to produce desirable effects. These effects can range from an improvement in nutritional value, texture, flavor, and a longer shelf life. These
The impact on food itself by GMOs results in an increase of the yield, almost doubling the amount of agricultural product produced.
Genetic modified organisms, or GMOs, are living organisms that, through the genetic engineering process, have been altered to withstand certain chemicals and increase the nutritional value of the product. In fact, the majority of the foods found at the grocery store are genetically altered. Genetic modification is becoming increasingly popular on farms throughout the United States and moving into other parts of the world due to their increasing yield capabilities and pest and weed control. However, this has been, and continues to be, an extremely controversial topic of discussion in the world of agriculture and biotechnology, as well as health food critics, because of potential environmental and health risks.
GMO’s can increase food production because it takes effect very rapidly. “Genetic engineering- actually isolating and inserting genes with the desirable trait into plants- can create plants with the desired trait very rapidly and with great accuracy.” (Reyes CR110). The potato blight between the years of 1845 and 1852 was a famine in which GMO’s would have been very helpful. Geneticists could have prevented the famine by genetically modifying the potatoes to be resistant to the disease. In the 1990s the papaya business hit an all time low because of the virulent papaya ringspot virus. Geneticists were made aware of this low and in order to fix this
With all these advancements in genetically modified organisms, we are on our way to what is becoming known as the Second Green Revolution. The First Green Revolution refers to the successful practices in farm production around the 1950s and 1960s. With higher rates of investment in crop research, infrastructure, and market development, the production of cereal crops was able to triple with only a 30% increase in land area cultivated (Pingali, 2012). This second revolution refers to the use of GMOs as the new innovation that will lead the way to even better advancements in agriculture. The use of GMOs is being adopted and promoted by many developing nations and affluent philanthropists. One such example is Bill Gates who is a big proponent of using GMOs to cure world hunger. He has personally donated millions into researching GMOs for this reason
It is a common saying, “You are what you eat.” While many may consider this a harmless persuasion to eat healthily, the soaring popularity of GM food in society has prompted consumers to question their food choices. Ever since the initial modification of genetic material in 1972, GMOs have become an increasingly standard component in the advancement of scientific and agricultural research (Statista). However, the benefits of GMOs come at a costly price, one that is not worth paying for. While it remains true that GM foods present with some economic and nutritional advantages, there is immense retaliation regarding their contribution to sustainable development through their controversial issues. This makes them unfit and unsafe for cultivation
In contrast, the counter argument claims that GMOs are unsafe for human consumption. However, GMOs actually improve human health by reducing the amount of pesticides needed for successful crop production. With the use of GMOs in crop production, the amount of pesticide and herbicide application has decreased. To resume, successful crop production is essential to a farmer’s success, which could be why over 18 million farmers throughout the world utilize GMOs. The successful production of crops can be achieved by genetically modifying crops with resistance against insects, weeds, and other threats. Resistance to different stressors has reduced pesticide applications by 8.1 percent. Additionally, crops that are modified to be resistant to specific
GMO’s, also known as genetically modified organisms, are organisms that contain genes from different organisms to try to acquire desirable characteristics. Although this seems like a good idea; There has been more attention recently on the negative aspects of GMO’s. Studies have shown that the presence of GMOs in food causes health risks; GMOs also cause harm to the environment and has a negative effect on farmers.
The importance of fingerprinting is that it can link a criminal to a crime scene and identify them as the suspect of that crime. The history of fingerprinting began in 1641 where Nehemiah grew studied the fingerprint and was the first to accurately describe the patterns within the fingerprint. The first system formed is the henry system. Sir Edward henry system was used by many English speaking countries. In the henry system the primary focus when examining a print was the whorl pattern. This was done by the eye. The newer systems that many crime labs use is called the automated fingerprint identification system(AFIS). AFIS uses three steps. The first step is data acquisition. The second step is feature extraction. This step points out features
Genetically modified organism (GMO) crops, for the past years have generated a great deal of controversy. The use of biotechnology in agriculture, has caused major ideological and scientific concerns that continue to be reflected in the media and press. With the speed of today 's technology, it has had an important socio-economic impact. Consequently, a vast amount of technical and non-technical commercials and literature are addressing this topic over the past recent years. One can always intervene in the ecosystem and change something in it, but there 's no way of knowing what all the downstream effects will be or how it might affect the environment.
The wide range of GM crops available have a variety of advantages that can monetarily benefit farmers in the developing world. Increased yield as a benefit to GM crops can denote to multiple reasons including: increased plant production, reduced crop loss is related to external factors like insects or disease, plants that can survive in harsher conditions, and extended growing season (Barnett
According to Burger (2008) “Accounting is the language of business. A lot of people think it 's just numbers, but it 's really a lot more than that. There are a lot of areas outside of numbers that need to be looked at, processes and procedures, what the tone of the company is. Accounting will take you in just about any direction in a company." ~ Wade Becker, CPA, Beard, Miller Co.