Biotechnology: Genetically Modified Crops
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Assignment 4 & 5: Biotechnology
Question:
What is your understanding of the issue of GM crop? What is the Malaysian Government position on the issue of GM crop? What are the rules and regulations that Malaysia has compared to countries which are advanced in the area of biotechnology such as the European Union and USA in regulating and monitoring the growing of GM crop in Malaysia?
Essentially, Genetically Modified Crops in Malaysia are put on the Ðheavily discussed section of the parliaments agenda and is taken into serious consideration as Malaysia itself is trying to build its biotechnology industry as stated in the Malaysian Ninth Plan. At the current moment the biotechnology industry is going through a crisis of ethics regarding the research and application of the ÐGenetically Modified Organisms, and the issues of Genetically Modified Crops is one of the issues at the core of ethics debate.
Interestingly, the concept of genetically modifying has its roots in history through other technology. Ages ago farmers called it cross-breeding through animals and plants. Cross-breeding at the same time is also a naturally occurring process, where two different sub-species share the same genetic base code are able to reproduce a totally new sub species. For example horses have been cross bred in hopes of retaining wanted genes and losing the unwanted genes in the process. Although, there are many other techniques have persevered through out the ages like fermentation for the formation of beer and wine, or the usage of yeast for the ability to make bread rise. Therefore the human need to change its surrounding to fit it has been a concept that has stuck in human kind for a long time, and now it is in the current form of genetically modifying our own future.
Before we go any further we should actually try and stick with a definition of Genetically Modifying, which is pertaining to a living organism whose genetic material has been altered, changing one or more of its characteristics; bioengineered. Therefore when we go through the word genetically modifying (GM) is pertaining to the definition above.
Therefore, in the current decades there are so many specialized methods of actually getting the best parts for antibiotics, medicine, and what not. Therefore agricultural biotechnology has actually come a very long way from the original miss and hit technique where it would take generations hit the jackpot for the right desired characteristics.
The idea of GM food would be the advance class of agricultural technology/cross breeding. GM food and crops in general is actually the derived from organism that are genetically modified by inserting the wanted genetic code and then cultured to a full grown living organism. Therefore along with this you can generally transferred genetic codes from similar plants to be able to find the best characteristics that will fit in your interests, that is if you have already identified their genes. Given they are plants they should have very simple genetic maps and shouldnt be that hard to identify which gene is responsible for which characteristic. Therefore GM Crops have the advantage of bearing characteristics that enable them to survive scenarios which their relative or unmodified versions cant. Generally understood GM food is a designer crop which essentially can withstand overbearing heat, pests, drought and diseases that attack plans them.
The thing that makes GM crops such a feasible idea for many farmers out there is because of the fact of mainly three reasons. Firstly the weather is out of sync, we have bouts of phenomenon like the El Nino and the El Nina, where there are long periods of droughts in and rain. Which many types of crops are very vulnerable to, imagine having a crop that can essentially survive anything except extremes of droughts long enough to create a desert and/or rainy periods long enough to flood valleys. These situations can be devastating to many farmers around the world especially in countries where farmers have to contend with the four seasons like Canada and Europe. Since they have to plan for three years and if the environment is out of sync for at least two year then they are essentially doomed. On top of that they have to fend of pests, which farmers use chemicals and what not to spray on their plants called pesticides and herbicides. Farmers tend to spend a fortune on finding the right combination of pesticides and herbicides which will lead them to kill pest like locust and weeds. Though not all of the chemicals are legal according to law and sometimes the ones that are really effective harm the outside environ at the same time. Therefore the lure of GM crops is that they are able to naturally produce toxins that will kill or deter pests from feeding on them. This is naturally true for maize, which in previous times very vulnerable to insect pests like locust and what not. Imagine a crop that is able to naturally deter these insects by producing toxins that will harm these insects. The last reason is that GM crops will be a guarantee to flourish no matter what the circumstances, and food will in general always be in demand. Imagine have crops with no blemish, or riddle with pests and worms. You would essentially be selling around about a hundred percent of your crops. These are the issues that make GM crops such a feasible idea to many farmers themselves.
Though, such blessings do come with their fair share of problems themselves. One of the main issue of the GM Crop is that since its genetically similar to a fully loaded tank, these characteristics may and most probably will be passed on to its wild relatives. Which in turn will and most probably be pass around so that we come across a super weed that no herbicide can eradicate the weed itself. Now on the other hand even if we do find a herbicide strong enough to counter its growth that herbicide will be so strong that is can be considered as a poison to the outside environ. The best example to put in is the situation in England itself, where the Ðoilseed rape and Ðcharlock has pass on certain genes that make it a prime example of being a super weed. Even though they calculated that oilseed rape and charlock were to distant to be able to pass its successful characteristics along to merge and become a very persistent annoying little weed. Then again sugar beets which have been genetically modified have already shown a very troubling question. Since they were made to resist a certain type of herbicide they have accidentally acquired to an ability to resist another type of herbicide. Ladies and gentlemen this goes to show that everything in nature is connected and that is the law in general to. A philosopher once said that a butterfly flutter