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For thousands of years, human beings have modified nature’s organisms for usage in agriculture. Use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has prompted controversy, especially for its role in ensuring food security. As such, the use of transgenics merits a serious discussion.
We believe that biotechnology has great potential to bring about many benefits to provide for food security, especially in the third world. These benefits include, but are not limited to, the reduction of crop loss to environmental stress, the prevention of vitamin deficiency through more nutritious crops, the alleviation of soil degradation in the Third World, the potential to create plants built to bioremediate contaminated soils, and the potential to create plants that thrive in rooftop or vertical farms. However, although promising, agricultural technology has not yet delivered on the aforementioned fronts.
One problem with biotechnology is that it is not currently built for poorer regions, as most plants are only engineered for herbicide and pesticide tolerance, with the needs of developed countries in mind. Biotechnology today is largely driven by agricultural corporations such as Monsanto, whose seeds are expensive to poorer farmers.
However, if a rigorously tested and reliable source of transgenic seeds is found that does not require dependence on large agricultural firms, will permit the farmers’ traditional practice of saving their seeds, and is approved by the local government, we are open to providing farmers with the seeds under the condition that existing non-transgenic seeds be saved in a food bank and still be available to local farmers.
Our ultimate stance on this issue is to wait for greater availability of biotech organisms unassociated with large agricultural corporations, and for additional scientific data.
Read full, original post: Genetically Modified Crops
