GMO’s are the latest chapter in 10,000 years of agriculture
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were introduced commercially for agriculture in the United States in the mid 1990s, and they have been adopted by most farmers here. Nevertheless, anti-GMO activists and entrepreneurs have called for labeling of foods made from GMOs or for their outright ban. Among the numerous reasons for opposition is that GMOs are products of science, not nature, and therefore they pose health risks. However, agriculture is by definition the manipulation of nature to meet the desired ends of people.
GMOs are made by inserting a foreign gene into a plant or animal with the goal of conferring properties that have some agricultural benefit. At present, only GM plants have entered our food supply. In the United States, commonly used GM corn and soybean varieties contain a bacterial gene that confers resistance to the herbicide glyphosate, marketed under the brand name Roundup. Roundup kills weeds but not the GM crop. Other GM corn, soybean and cotton varieties produce a bacterial protein called Cry with insecticide activity that lessens the need for application of toxic chemicals that pollute the soil and groundwater.
The creation of GMOs is indeed sophisticated, but in fact agriculture is a high-tech revolution in progress that began 10,000 years ago.
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