More about GM food and its use

The most common GM food according to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) in 2008 are GM soybean, GM maize, GM cotton and lastly GM canola. Theses for ingredients are the crops that take up to 99% of the global hectarage of GM crops. Also in 2008 25 countries have been reported by the ISAAA to have been commercially cultivating GM crops. Other countries though not involved in the cultivation of such crops, do have regulatory approvals for GM crops to be imported to their county for food and feed use. Altogether since 1996 to 2008 around 670 countries have been granted the approval to either cultivate GM crops or have them imported.

With the cultivation of GM crops, cost spent on growing these crops should reduce due to the lesser use of herbicides and pesticides and also lesser lost of crops. However due to regulations and consumer’s rights, labelling is in fact mandatory in most countries which increases the cost of the GM food or ingredient. Then cost is not only needed to paste a little sticker on the product but mainly to maintain the credibility of the labelling system. Therefore due to this the cost of GM food or ingredients may in fact be more expensive than non-GM foods or ingredients.

Lina

Contreversial Issues of GM Foods #4 - Religious and Ethical Concerns

GM foods are mainly seen as unnatural foods due to their production by the transferring of genes from one species to another. This could lead to objections of the consumption of animal genes in plants and vice versa. Using genes from animals in plant foods may pose ethical, philosophical or religious problems. For example vegetarians are concerned about consuming vegetables that contain animal genes which will then violate their religious beliefs. Another example eating traces of genetic material from pork could be a problem for certain religious or cultural groups such as the Muslims.

Lina

Contreversial Issues of GM Foods #3 - Food Safety

The non GM foods that contain allergens, pesticide residues and microbiological contaminants used for the extraction of their genes to create GM food can eventually lead to contaminated GM product. There is also the development of resistance to antibiotics. If any of the genes encoded for antibiotic resistance enters the food chain and is eaten by consumers, there is a chance that this can affect the gut micro flora and would adversely affect the efficacy of antibiotics administered orally.

 Lina

Contreversial Issues of GM Foods #2 - Consumer's Rights

Consumer’s right is the right given to consumers to have access to various detailed information regarding GM food so that they would be able to make informed choices upon purchasing of the GM product. However, the problem is that most consumers are denied this access to information needed to make decision on GM foods. This is because of their limited access to education such as in developing countries. In Singapore, a body that watches out for consumer’s right is the Consumers Association of Singapore.

In order to provide customers with their rights, GM foods should be properly labelled.

 

Lina

Contreversial Issues of GM Foods #1 - Environmental Concerns

One of the risks is the risk of GM foods to the environment. With the production of GM crops that reduces the use of herbicides due to their resistance to certain herbicides, there is an increase in the growth of weeds that are now resistant to the herbicides too. This can cause many future environmental problems for farmers in the future such as increase use of herbicides which could eventually lead to water and soil contamination. 

Besides this, another disadvantage that has arisen due to GM foods is pesticide resistant insects. Insects would overcome whatever pesticides used and in this case it is the BT toxins produced by GM crops.

It seems that large scale growth of GM crops can affect the balance of biodiversity, wildlife and also the environment as it may alter the whole life cycles of thing, such as the unintentional poisoning of species of insects that are ecologically beneficial to the plants. Not only that, animals that depend on this insects as food would also be affected this could result in major loss of fauna biodiversity. 

 Lina

Benefit of GM Foods #3 - Better Nutritional Value

One other benefit of the growth of GM crops is the production of foods with better nutritional value. This is also known as nutritional enhancement. With the injecting of certain nutrient genes from other sources into foods commonly eaten, this can improve the nutritional intake and status of developing countries. Also now crops have better resistance to diseases as microorganisms such fungi and bacteria are common causes of plant disease.

Lina

Benefit of GM Foods #2 - Reduce used of PESTICIDES

Another benefit of the production of GM foods is the reduction in the use of pesticides. Major amounts of crops are lost due to insects. To get rid of these insects, farmers apply broad spectrum pesticides to the crops. One disadvantage of using pesticides is that consumers do not like the thought of eating foods that contain lots of chemical on them. Therefore with GM crops that are able to produce toxins such as BT toxins to kill these insects, farmers and consumers do not have to worry about the using of pesticides on crops any more.

Lina

Benefit of GM foods #1 - Reduce use of HERBICIDES

The creation of genetic modified food has brought about a few benefits. One of them is the reduce use of herbicides and reducing damage to crops. The growth of weeds has always been a problem for farmers. Most methods needed to remove them such as tilling are expensive and plucking them and the spraying of many different types of herbicides is too time consuming. With GM foods that are able to resist a very powerful herbicide, farmers would only need to use one application of herbicide which reduces the use of herbicide and also reduce the number of crops destroyed.

Lina