The genetic modification of organisms started with the green revolution, when it was necessary to modernize agriculture to increase food production. The GMOs promise to increase nutrition and the efficiency of agriculture while lessening impacts on the planet’s environmental system. However, they also may pose risks that are not yet well understood, and this concern has given rise to protests around the globe from consumer advocates, small farmers, environmental activists, and opponents of big business.

The genetic modification of crops and livestock is one type of genetic engineering, a process whereby scientists manipulate an organism’s genetic material in the laboratory by adding, deleting, or changing segments of its DNA. GMOs are organisms that have been genetically engineered using recombinant DNA, genetic material patched together from the DNA of different organisms. In this process, scientists break up DNA from multiple organisms and then splice segments together, placing genes that produce certain proteins and code for certain desirable traits -like rapid growth, disease and pest resistance, or higher nutritional content – into the genomes of organisms lacking those traits. An organism that contains DNA from another species is called a transgenic organism, and the genes that have moved between them are called transgenes. To se an animation of the transgenic mouse, click here.

Genetic alteration of plants and animals by humans is not something very new. Mendel was actually the first one. However, there is a difference between Mendel’s GMOs, selective breedings, and the ones from genetic engineering, and it lays is on the technique:

  • Selective breeding mixes genes from individuals of the same or similar species, while with recombinant DNA technology, scientists mix genes of organisms as different as viruses and crops, or spiders and goats.
  • Selective breeding deals with whole organisms living in the field, and genetic engineering involves lab experiments; it deals with genetic material apart from the organism.
  • While traditional breeding selects from among combinations of genes that come together on their own, genetic engineering creates the novel combinations directly.
  • Traditional breeding changes organisms through the process of selection, while genetic engineering is more akin to the process of mutation.

The impacts of GM crops are many, however, there is no study or research yet to prove them, nevertheless, some of these consequences have been already seen in some places. Eitherway, the concerns are:

  • That the new foods might be dangerous for people to eat, since the transgenics are a mix of genes of different species. Apparently speaking, transgenical food is the same, however, genetically speaking, they’re different from eachother despite the fact that the genes of the transgenes are the same in all transgenic. That happens because the place on the transgenics DNA where the intruders gene is put is not aways the same. The genetic engineering haven’t found a way to do that yet. Therefore, the consequences that these new DNA combinations might cause to our organisms are still unknown;
  • That pests would evolve resistance to the supercrops and become “superpests”;
  • That the transgenes would be transferred from crops to other plants and turn them into “superwheeds”;
  • That the pesticides (insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides) used become stronger and stronger to fight pests, and pollute the water, the air, and the soil.
  • That transgenes might ruin the integrity of native ancestral races of crops;
  • That the transgenics monocultures might reduced biodiversity, because many fewer wild organisms are able to live in monocultures;
  • That natural seeds might disappear, substituted by GM;
  • That food supply might be dominated by a few large agrobiotech corporations that develop GM technologies. Those corporations would be Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer CropScience, Dow, DuPont, and BASF;
  • Much of the research into the safety of GM organisms is funded, overseen, or conducted by the corporations that stand to profit in their transgenic crops are approved by regulators.

Knowing about the possibilities of these problems, critics argue that we should procced with caution, adopting the precautionary principle, the idea that one should not undertake a new action until the ramifications of that action are well understood. In a few words, we could think of GM as a medicine, a medicine that might “cure” all our problems. However, if we look at the side effects on it’s package leaflet, well… they’re pretty bad…

People of different cultures have reacted differently to GM. European consumers have expressed widespread unease about possible risks of GM technologies, so their governments demand that GM food is labeled as such. In the US, however, consumers have accepted the crops approved by US agencies, and they don’t realize how much of their food contains GM products. Yet, there are still many things to be studied and thought… that’s polemic that has to be discussed.