Introduction
World Food Situation

The current population of the world is slightly over 6 billion people. Over the next 50 years, this number is supposed to increase to somewhere between 10-12 billion. At the present, we have no way to feed such a large number of people, given the diets of most countries. Without a radical change in the amount and types of food that people eat, this will mean that we will have to increase the amount of food produced.

This is what we have been doing in order to get where we are today. During the last 30 years, we have experienced a "green revolution". Changes in agricultural methods, along with the development of hybrid species of crops, has allowed us to increase the amount of food grown on the world's farmland so that we have not experienced a downturn in the amount of food per capita. In fact, from 1960 to 1990, we actually increased the amount of food per capita, even though the world's population increased from about 3 billion to 5 billion. However, some people think that we have pushed these developments about as far as we can. The amount of food per capita has begun to level off during the latter half of the last decade. The amount of grain per capita has actually begun to decrease.

GMO vs. Transgenic

In order to increase the amount of food that is produced, some people claim that we will need to rely on genetically modified organisms. Genetically-modified organisms (GMO) have been with for quite some time.  A GMO is a plant or animal that has had its genes altered in some way by mankind. This can occur in a variety of ways.  One way is through selective breeding, such as what we find in most domestic cats and dogs.  Other ways include things such as grafting in plants that helps us to produce seedless varieties of fruits.

More recently, this type of work has begun to use gene-splicing techniques that take a segment of DNA from one organism and place it inside of the genes from another organism. When this is done, we more properly designate the organism as transgenic to distinguish it from other types of genetic modifications.  For example, Bt corn refers to a transgenic variety of corn that has had the a piece of DNA from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) spliced into it. The Bt bacterium is a natural bacterium that kills certain insects, including corn-boring caterpillars. By splicing the genes from it into the corn, the corn becomes toxic to the caterpillars.

This idea of splicing genetic material from one organism into another, though, does not sit well with all people. In doing this, the claim that new organisms are being created that we have no idea as to how they will affect the environment or ourselves when we eat them. In the case of the Bt corn, one of the issues that has been raised is the effect of the corn on the monarch butterfly, a species that is protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. In its larval stage, the monarch is a caterpillar that feast on leaves, even those of corn plants. If the corn is Bt corn, this results in the death of the caterpillar, which will reduce the population of monarchs. People opposed to the spread of Bt corn have pointed to this issue as one reason why we should not introduce this so called "Frankenfood".  Another reason given for opposing transgenic foods is the possibility that the new varieties will introduce new allergans to people.  Some transgenic varieties of soybeans have had pieces of peanut DNA spliced into them.  Peanuts are a well known allergan to some people that cause anaphylaxic shock and death.  By splicing their DNA into other foods, we might be spreading the allergies that people have to peanuts to other foods.

Some of the reasons for opposing transgenic organisms, though, have to deal with their environmental effects.  If the traits given to a new plant make it a superior grower, this trait might be spread to other plants by cross-pollination and make organisms that now outcompete their neighbors and upset the balance in the ecosystem.  For instace, Monsanto recently developed a variety of canola that is resistant to its herbacide RoundUp.  Canola is actaully a fairly new term that refers to a variety of rapeseed plant.  Through cross polination, this RoundUp Ready Canola could easily spreads its immunity to herbacides to weeds, and thus produce super weeds that could not be killed by conventional means.

The following websites will give you more information about GMO's and the controversy surrounding them. Read through them and answer the questions below.

Information about GMO's

FDA
PBS
BBC

Pro GMO

AgBioWorld Foundation
Monsanto

Anti GMO

Keep Nature Natural
Greenpeace

After reading through these and any other sites that you might find, answer the following questions:

• One of the statements made by detractors of transgenetic foods is that we do not know if these foods are safe to eat. Have studies of the effect of these foods on humans been done to determine potential and long-term health effects?
• Should the labelling of GMO foods be mandatory? Why or why not? Should the labelling of transgenic foods by mandatory?
• Is there a scientific consensus on the safety of GMO on humans and the environment?
• Given what you have learned, do you feel safe eating GMO foods? Why or why not?