Genetic Engineering. A blessing or a curse?
There are some advantages. First of all it could be an incredibly powerful tool if it's used properly. Don't use any chemical pesticides or fertilisers and we try to work with nature as much as possible. The beans are much more profitable to grow than conventional beans and they have become the country's biggest export. Their crops suffer from much lower levels of insect damage and they have to spray much less pesticide. If anywhere needs to benefit from farming technology, it is here. No-one is saying GM is the total solution to all these problems. But if there is a chance it can provide some of the answers, then we need to pursue it.
Also thus making the plant resistant to the herbicide. Fields of altered crop plants could then be treated with the herbicide and all no engineered plants—the weeds—would be killed. Without the weeds, the crops would grow better and yield more, thus decreasing the amount of land that must be used for agriculture. The bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis produces a protein that is poisonous to insects but not to humans. It is relatively easy to transfer the gene for this toxin into plants, creating what are known as bt plants. btCorn has already been genetically engineered this way and the plants resist damage caused by chewing insects.
On the other hand there are some disadvantages. it is a dangerously untested science that threatens environmental disaster. Many smaller farmers have been squeezed off their land by the expansion of the mega-farms and huge areas of natural forest are being cleared to make way for more Soya. The genetically modified genes may spread into other non-GM crops. If we ended government subsidies and price support systems that distort the true need for foods, food would not be grown just to be warehoused or discarded. Vast amounts of toxic pollen blow away from corn fields, landing on the leaves of other plants, coating them with a poisonous "dust."
Finally as a conclusion there are benefits and risks about Genetic Engineering. So be careful!
See the handout for my comments.
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