Can Gmos Solve World Hunger?Essay Preview: Can Gmos Solve World Hunger?Report this essay“Man masters nature not by force but by understanding. This is why science has succeeded where magic failed: because it has looked for no spell to cast over nature” (Jacob Bronowski, 1908-1974). Since man stepped on Earth, science has been the key for survival. When it comes to food, however, science has been on a hot debate for past several decades. Can GMOs solve world hunger? The answer turns out not to be as simple as people thought. There are many political and economic forces that may lead us in the wrong direction; however, we should keep on track by interpreting different aspects of the issue. Below, I am going to talk more about why GMOs can/cannot solve world hunger:
Many nutritionists and food experts around the world believe that world hunger can be solved by producing more food at lower prices (www.wisegeek.com). In other words, we should increase food productivity. This process can be done relatively more easily through biotechnology than traditional ways. According to Bill Lambrecht (2001), many scientists believe that biotechnology could raise overall crop productivity in developing countries as much as twenty-five percent and help prevent the loss of those crops after they are harvested. Twenty-five percent more overall productivity literally means saving millions of hungry people from dying annually. Farmers, in addition to quantity of crops, spend a lot of time on protecting their crops. “Crop losses from insect pests can be staggering, resulting in devastating financial loss for farmers and starvation in developing countries” (www.csa.com). As a result, in developing countries, farmers typically use tons of chemical pesticides. GM foods can be a solution to this problem as Deborah B. Whitman argues: “Growing genetically modified foods such as B.T. corn can help eliminate use of those chemicals and reduce the cost of bringing the crops to market” (www.csa.com). Farmers can also grow disease resistant seeds. In Hawaii, the papaya industry was almost completely destroyed by a tiny killer called papaya ring spot virus for which there is no natural resistance. A simple gene from the virus itself acted like a vaccine to completely protect the plant and restore the economy (Lambrecht 2001). Plus, if the old insecticides do not happen to work, the farmers lives would be over. Frederick Tudor discusses that over the next hundred years the population of the U.S. will double and rural population will increase by fifty percent by the year 2050 (quoted in Dinner at the New Gene CafĂ© 2001, p. 297). Consequently, we will have to use more of our land for housing and less of it for food production. On the other hand, Michael Pollick (2010) mentions that, “Many people today live in areas of the world which were never capable of producing sufficient food crops or are nearly impossible to irrigate” (www.wisegeek.com). Taken these two reasons and the ability of biotechnology science, scientists are working (and have succeeded in several cases) on making the impossible possible. They are trying to grow crops in locations previously unsuited for plant growth. Besides that, scientists have created a gene tolerant to cold temperatures. 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 seeds (www.csa.com).
Another way that genetically modification of food can help solve world hunger is by adding more nutrients to the food. By making food more nutritious, scientists reassure that millions of hungry humans, especially children, get the needed amount vitamins, minerals, protein, fat, and carbohydrate from the foods that were previously consumed by them. One bold example of that would be producing “golden rice.” Every year, around one million children die of lack of vitamin A. This new variety of rice produces extra levels of beta-carotene and related compounds that are converted in the human body to vitamin A (Lambrecht 2001). Scientists in biotechnology industry can also insert vaccines and anticancer agents into foods. For instance, they can “put antioxidants
in a glass bottle. Many anti-aging medicine products, like the Zoloft, L’Oreal, and other products formulated on the basis of this vitamin, contain a “natural” flavonoids (Cristons et al 1994). One new approach to the treatment of obesity and heart disease has the goal of lowering cancer risk by increasing its survival rate and reducing blood sugar (Morris 2001); the FDA uses a “natural” vitamin (Bondell 2005) to protect against this protection (Houle 1995). Unfortunately, even the best available scientific evidence suggests that most of the cancer resistant genes of the human body can not be altered with the use of a vitamin. To find a simple answer to: why are so many people dying and many other chronic diseases from these poor diets?
The first major challenge that all scientists face in seeking to improve human health is their ability to understand how to feed the masses. We all have a different understanding of how and by what mechanisms these massive resources of foods and protein are being consumed. That is why so many diseases seem to have an innate tendency to increase their prevalence even when we are making them from scratch. We can, for instance, eat foods with a number of ingredients that mimic a person’s diet from infancy until death. We can use our fingers to cut away the seeds of weeds in the garden, etc.Â
What will happen to the vast quantity of natural medicines we consume if we try to do anything to lower blood pressure? And what will happen even if we did something about some of our greatest fears ? We can use vitamin C (Bondell 2005) or vitamin E (Houle 1995) to lower blood pressure, or we can try something new that will reduce the disease-causing effects of certain foods— like fruit and vegetables. But even with our new knowledge of the processes involved in creating, making, and administering good medicines, we will have to start over from scratch. What is needed is a new approach to producing such things as food ingredients, vitamins/vitamins, minerals, and fats that are safe, healthy, and are naturally safe and that are natural for the human body to obtain.
A better recipe for the future might be a “natural” herb or vitamin that has specific actions that are required without causing harm. In this case, vitamin B6, the main culprit for cancer, has been identified as a potential therapeutic agent. In fact, cancer is one of the most dangerous diseases of childhood onset. It caused the diagnosis of one million American children in 1960. In the following century, cancer rates in this country have declined by 75 percent (Bondell 2005). So how to get that new herb? Unfortunately, few plants, such as apples, bear the name they so use (they just get their names from the fruits. The fruits are eaten as a delicacy to people in India who have to buy apple pie from an Indian vendor). In India, apple pie usually comes in about 15 varieties