What first comes into your mind when you hear the word ‘GMO? ‘GMO’ is an abbreviation for ‘genetically modified organism’. It is in the branch of biotechnology which its goal is to increase crop production. In order to do so, GMO is a crop that is made to have fewer requirements. In order for a crop to grow, there must be adequate climates, no insects and no weeds. GMO can be divided into major three branches based on how they can manage to live with fewer requirements; climate-resisting GMO, insect-resisting GMO and herbicide-resisting GMO. Because of those advantages that GMO crop has, optimists say GMO can solve food crisis in Africa. However, reality is far different from ideal world. There are complicated benefit-loss relationships of people with one another within GMO business. Primarily because of what happens in reality is different from what we imagine, I disapprove of GMO usages in reality.
First, there is a problem within the herbicide-resisting GMO due to its advantage. The herbicide-resisting GMO was at first made to reduce the weeds that grow around the crop. People use the herbicide to kill weeds, but because it can also kill the crop, people were passive and put little herbicide on the ground. However, the herbicide-resisting GMO enabled the crop itself to endure more with more herbicide. Therefore, this brought people to use more herbicide. Those herbicide components as a result accumulated in GMO and those components go through humans and livestock which ate those GMO crops. The potential possibility of harms that the herbicide components in human body can make is uncertain for now.
Second, the insect-resisting GMO leads humans to accumulate insect killing genes. The insect-resisting GMO has the modified gene which is made to kill insects when it is swallowed by insects. There are a lot of controversies about these insect-killing genes. Based on simple logic that insect killing GMO might function similarly in human bodies, critics and experts say that those GMO can be dangerous to humans. Even though there are some GMO crops that have passed regulation and safety tests, critics say there will be abundant kinds of GMO made out from laboratory and simple mistakes or unrevealed side-effects may come out that could lead human race to extinction.
Third, patent seeds of GMO limit the access of African farmers and thus cannot solve the food crisis in Africa. Nowadays, GMO is largely made by companies such as Monsanto Company. Because their primary goal is to make a profit, they claim patent in those GMO seeds. For farmers who grew natural seeds, they have to buy those GMO seeds in order to compete with others. To make more profit, companies like Monsanto made terminator seeds. Those seeds are designed to grow for only once, having no ability in reproduction. These seeds made it possible for companies to have annual profit and gave burden for farmers who now have to buy seeds every year. Because of the expensive price of GMO and patent rights that companies claim, it makes hard for African farmers to buy those seeds. The food crisis in Africa cannot be solved with a plan that has no possible access for farmers.
Fourth, GMO crops destroy the consumer rights to buy the one that he or she prefers. Every man and woman deserves to choose the product by preference. In order to do so, there must be coexistence possible among products. However, the GMO crop harms the consumer rights by eliminating other non-GMO crop to withstand. Once GMO is planted in the land, the land carries out GMO genes. And these GMO genes pollinate non-GMO crops that are planted near that land. Once GMO genes are swallowed into non-GMO crops, it is no longer non-GMO crop. Thus when GMO crops come out to the market, this in the other side means that it eliminated non-GMO crops available in the market. Without solving consumer right problems, GMO crops should not be sold in the market.
Fifth, the weak regulations among GMO crops make us hard to believe safety of GMO crops. Recently there was the bill passed in US Congress called Fast Track Bill. This in a nutshell means that there is no need for companies to tell their consumers whether their products have GMO included or not. Furthermore, there was another bill passed in the Congress called GMO amendment bill. In a nutshell again this allowed GMO companies to have their own regulation program. In other words, GMO is self regulated by the industry. These, by some critics, are perceived as a result of lobbies of GMO companies. If GMO is considered really safe by the CEO of GMO companies, why would they help politicians to make a bill that lowers the transparency of GMO safety? Those bills in the other hands can be the sign that GMO companies itself don’t trust their products’ safety.
Even things that seemed good enough in our minds causes bad effects when it comes to the ground. Ideal logic cannot be the same as we hope them to be in the reality. And GMO is one of them. Even though it was at first expected to increase crop productions and bring salvation to Africa about food crisis, it is proven to be no longer a solution for such situations because of problems within the herbicide-resisting GMO and the insect-resisting GMO, patent in GMO seeds, consumer rights, and the weak regulations causing doubts on the safety of GMO. Thus GMO should no longer be treated as a savior for our world, but as a potential killer which we should manage to control well.
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