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Monday, June 18, 2007

What are some of the advantages of GM foods?

GM foods promise to meet this need in a number of ways:

1. Pest Resistant
Farmers typically use many tons of chemical pesticides annually. Consumers do not wish to eat food that has been treated with pesticides because of potential health hazards, and run-off of agricultural wastes from excessive use of pesticides and fertilizers can poison the water supply and cause harm to the environment.
Growing GM foods such as B.t. corn can help eliminate the application of chemical pesticides.

2. Herbicide Resistant
It is not cost and time effective to remove weeds by physical means such as tilling. Thus farmers often spray large quantities of different herbicides (weed-killer) to kill weeds. This is a time-consuming and expensive process that requires care so that the herbicide does not harm the crop plant or the environment.
Crop plants genetically-engineered to be resistant to one very powerful herbicide could help prevent environmental damage by reducing the amount of herbicides needed.
For example, Monsanto has created a strain of soybeans genetically modified to be not affected by their herbicide product Roundup. A farmer grows these soybeans which then only require 1 application of weed-killer instead of multiple applications, reducing production cost and limiting the dangers of agricultural waste run-off s.

3. Disease resistance
There are many viruses, fungi and bacteria that cause plant diseases. Plant biologists are working to create plants with genetically-engineered resistance to these diseases.

4. Cold tolerance
Unexpected frost can destroy sensitive seedlings. An antifreeze gene from cold water fish has been introduced into plants such as tobacco and potato. With this antifreeze gene, these plants are able to tolerate cold temperatures that normally would kill unmodified seedlings.

5. Drought tolerance/Salinity tolerance.
As the world population grows, more land is utilized for housing instead of food production. Farmers will thus need to grow crops in locations previously unsuitable for plant cultivation.
Creating plants that can withstand long periods of drought or high salt content in soil and groundwater will help people to grow crops in formerly inhospitable places

6. Nutrition
Malnutrition is common in third world countries where impoverished peoples rely on a single crop such as rice for the main staple of their diet. However, rice does not contain adequate amounts of all necessary nutrients to prevent malnutrition. If rice could be genetically engineered to contain additional vitamins and minerals, nutrient deficiencies could be alleviated.
Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Institute for Plant Sciences have created a strain of "golden" rice containing an unusually high content of beta-carotene (vitamin A). Since this rice was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation 14, a non-profit organization, the Institute hopes to offer the golden rice seed free to any third world country that requests it. Plans were underway to develop a golden rice that also has increased iron content. However, the grant that funded the creation of these two rice strains was not renewed, perhaps because of the vigorous anti-GM food protesting in Europe, and so this nutritionally-enhanced rice may not come to market at all

7. Pharmaceuticals
Medicines and vaccines often are costly to produce and sometimes require special storage conditions not readily available in third world countries.
Researchers are working to develop edible vaccines in tomatoes and potatoes. These vaccines will be much easier to ship, store and administer than traditional injectable vaccines.

8. Phytoremediation
Not all GM plants are grown as crops. Soil and groundwater pollution continues to be a problem in all parts of the world.
Plants such as poplar trees have been genetically engineered to clean up heavy metal pollution from contaminated soil.

References:
http://www.dasc.vt.edu/faculty/jones/GeneticallyModifiedFoods.htm

12:04 PM;