pro gmo essay

Why GMOs matter — especially for the developing world

Genetically modified food still holds great promise of improving conditions for the world's poor: a second response to our 'panic-free gmos' series..

Editor’s note: After we ran What I learned from six months of GMO research: None of it matters , Nathanael Johnson’s essay concluding his “Panic-Free GMOs” series, we heard from a lot of people who think that GMOs really do matter. We’re publishing three  two responses: one from Tom Philpott , whose work long graced these pages and who is now at Mother Jones ; and, today, one from Ramez Naam , author of  The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet .  (We’d planned to run another response from  Denise Caruso ,  author of  Intervention: Confronting the Real Risks of Genetic Engineering and Life on a Biotech Planet  but that piece did not materialize.)

The folks at Grist have kindly allowed me to pen a guest post here with a few thoughts on Nathanael Johnson’s excellent series on genetically modified foods and in particular his most recent piece on what he learned from 6 months investigating the GMO debate: that none of it really matters .

This most recent piece nails several key points that often go completely missed. When we get down to the specifics, we find that today’s GMOs are neither planetary panacea nor unbridled poison. The passionate, emotion-filled debate is more about the lenses through which we see the world as it is about genetically modified foods themselves. The GMO debate is often an emphatic and barely-disguised metaphor for our larger debate about whether technology is destroying the world or saving it, whether we should try to control nature or live within it.

That’s not to say the debate, when it touches on GMOs themselves, is balanced. The scientific consensus is that GMOs are as safe to eat as any other food , that they reduce soil-damaging tillage , reduce carbon emissions, reduce insecticide use , and reduce the use of the most toxic herbicides in favor of far milder ones. GMOs have limitations, and some of their benefits are threatened by the rise of pesticide resistance. Even so, on balance, GMOs are safe and produce real benefits. As I wrote at Discover Magazine last year, GMOs achieve many of the goals of organic agriculture . (To balance that out, let me state that I also wrote there that GMO supporters should embrace sensible GMO labeling .)

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But Johnson is also right that, in the U.S., the stakes are not at present world-changing. U.S. farmers could likely get by without GMOs. We might see upticks in toxic pesticide use and river runoffs, in soil-harming tillage, and in carbon emissions, but none of those would prove catastrophic. There might be a very slight reduction in crop yield, but not by much, and not for long. The vast majority of us would never notice.

Even so, I think there are two important reasons we should care about GMOs, and view them, certainly not as panaceas, but as imperfect but important tools that can improve the lives of millions of people right now and possibly have an impact on billions of lives and millions of square miles of nature in the decades to come.

Why We Should Care — The Long Term

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN estimates that we need to grow 70 percent more food by 2050 . Either we do this on the same land we have today, or we chop down forest to create farms and pastures to meet that demand, something no one wants to do.

Jon Foley at the Institute on the Environment points out, quite rightly, that it’s meat consumption, not population, that’s driving global food demand. So we could, instead, reduce meat consumption . That’s a noble goal. Unfortunately, meat consumption has roughly quadrupled in the last 50 years , primarily driven by increasing wealth in the developing world, with no sign of stopping. I welcome any practical plan to reduce meat consumption worldwide, but until then, we have to find a way to keep boosting food production.

Another way to feed the world is to close the “yield gap” between farms in the rich and poor worlds. Farmers in the U.S. grow twice as much food per acre as the world overall, largely because they can afford farm equipment, fuel, fertilizer, and pesticides that many farmers in the developing world can’t . Some of this gap, undoubtedly, will be closed as poverty drops around the world. But it’s unrealistic to assume that all of it will.

What are we to do? On the horizon are some GMOs in development that could provide a dramatic boost here.

• Better photosynthesis. Corn and sugarcane grow nearly twice as much food per acre as the crops humans eat most: rice and wheat . Why? Corn and sugarcane have a better way of doing photosynthesis — of turning light, plus water, plus CO2 into carbohydrates. This newer system is called C4 photosynthesis. Researchers around the world — funded by nonprofits like the Gates Foundation — are working on creating C4 Rice and C4 Wheat. Those crops could grow 50 percent more food per acre.
• Self-fertilizing crops. Fertilizer boosts plant growth by adding nitrogen, and access to fertilizer is one reason rich nation farms grow so much more food per acre than their developing world counterparts. But fertilizer runoff is also responsible for the Gulf dead zone and similar zones around the world. Some crops, though, can fertilize themselves by pulling nitrogen from the air. Legumes, like soy, peas, and clover do this. Another nonprofit funded GMO research area is to transfer this ability to cereal crops, creating self-fertilizing wheat, corn, and rice . That would have two advantages: It would boost yields for poor farmers who can’t afford additional fertilizer; and it would cut down on nitrogen runoff that creates these ocean dead zones.

These are just two projects among many, along with creating more drought-resistant crops, more salt-resistant crops, and crops that have higher levels of vitamins and minerals that people need.

Now, let me be very clear. Most of these are research projects. They’re not in the here and now. They’re not going to arrive this year, and probably not in the next 10 years. And we do continue to make great progress in improving crops through conventional breeding. But we’re unlikely to ever get to, say, C4 rice or C4 wheat through conventional breeding.

The bigger point here isn’t that we absolutely need GMOs to feed the future world. If we banned all future GMO development and planting, we’d most likely muddle through in some way. Humanity is good at innovating, particularly when our back is to the wall. But we’d be fighting this battle to keep increasing food output with one arm tied behind our back. We might make less progress in boosting yields, without GMOs, meaning food prices would be higher, hunger would be higher, or we’d have more pressure to chop down forests to grow food.

Or maybe we’d be just fine. But given the size of the challenge, and the absence of any credible evidence of harm from GMOs, robbing ourselves of this part of our toolkit strikes me as foolish.

Why We Should Care — The Here and Now

The future’s easy to discount. So let’s come back to the present, and in particular, the present reality for the 6 billion people who live outside of the rich world.

Until recently, the majority of the acres of GM farmland in the world have been in rich nations. Today, the U.S. ranks first, followed by Brazil and Argentina (what we’d call middle income nations), and then Canada (another rich nation). That means that when we look at how GM crops perform, we tend to focus on how they do in countries where farmers have access to farm equipment, fertilizer, pesticides, irrigation, and so on. And in those countries we see a real but modest benefit.

In the developing world, it’s markedly different.

India allows only one genetically modified crop: GM cotton with the Bt trait, which makes the cotton naturally resistant to insects and reduces the need to spray insecticides. In the U.S., there’s a broad consensus that Bt corn has reduced insecticide spraying (which is good) but less evidence that it’s increased how much food is actually produced per acre, at least to a significant degree. In India, where quite a large number of farmers can’t readily afford pesticides, and where they lack farm equipment, meaning that pesticides must be applied by hand, the situation is dramatically different.

For the decade between 1991 and 2001, cotton yields in India were flat, at around 300 kilograms per hectare (a hectare is about 2.5 acres). In 2002, Bt cotton was introduced into the country. Farmers adopted it quickly, and yields of cotton soared by two thirds in just a few years to more than 500 kilograms per hectare.

Between 1975 and 2009, researchers found that Bt cotton produced 19 percent of India’s yield growth , despite the fact that it was only on the market for 8 of those 24 years. The simpler view is that Bt cotton, in India, lifts yields by somewhere between 50 percent and 70 percent. You can see for yourself in the graph below.

Why does this matter? There are 7 million cotton farmers in India. Several peer reviewed studies have found that, because Bt cotton increases the amount of crop they have to sell, it raises their farm profits by as much as 50 percent , helps lift them out of poverty and reduces their risk of falling into hunger . By reducing the amount of insecticide used (which, in India, is mostly sprayed by hand) Bt cotton has also massively reduced insecticide poisoning to farm workers there — to the tune of 2.4 million cases per year.

You may perhaps be wondering: Don’t GMOs lead to more farmer suicides in India? And while farmer suicides in India are real, and each one is a tragedy, the link is false. Farmer suicides have been going on long before GMOs, and, if anything, the farmer suicide rate has slightly dropped since the introduction of GM seeds.

In China we’ve seen similar impacts of Bt cotton , with multiple studies showing that Bt cotton increased yields, boosted the incomes of 4 million smallholder farmers, and reduced pesticide poisoning among them.

All of this is to say that GM crops have more impact in poor countries than rich ones. Where other types of inputs, like fertilizers, farm equipment, and pesticides are harder to afford, GM crops have more to offer. That can help increase food, reduce pressure on deforestation, and lift farmers out of poverty.

But the world’s poorest countries, and in particular India and the bulk of sub-Saharan Africa, don’t allow any GM food crops to be grown. India came close to approval for a Bt eggplant (or Bt brinjal). Studies showed that it was safe, that it could cut pesticide use by half, and that it could nearly double yields by reducing losses to insects. But, while India’s regulators approved the planting and sale, activists cried out, prompting the government to place an indefinite moratorium on it. Similar things have happened elsewhere. The same Bt eggplant was supported by regulators in the Philippines who looked at the data, but then blocked by the court on grounds that reflected not specific concerns, but general, metaphorical, and emotional arguments that Nathanael Johnson describes as dominating the debate.

That’s a pity. Because if Bt food crops could produce similar size gains in the developing world, that would be a tremendous benefit. Insect losses are a tremendously larger challenge in India and Africa than in the U.S. Boosting the amount of food that a farm produces by half or more means less hunger, more income for farmers (still the majority of the population in the world’s poorest countries), and more ability of people to pull themselves out of poverty.

The same arguments that kept Bt eggplant out of the Philippines  have also been used, often by western groups, to keep GM crops out of virtually all of Africa, as documented by Robert Paarlberg in his powerful (and to some, infuriating) book Starved For Science .

I have absolutely no doubt that the opponents of genetically modified foods, and particularly those campaigning against their planting in the developing world, are doing this with the best of intentions. They fully believe that they’re protecting people in Africa, India, the Philippines, and elsewhere against poisons, against corporate control of their food, or against destruction of their environment. Yet I wish more of them would read Nathanael Johnson’s carefully thought-out series here and in particular his argument that most of the debate is highly inflamed .

Most of the perceived ills of genetically modified foods are either illusory or far smaller than believed. And what the data suggests is that the benefits, while modest in the rich world today, might be quite substantial in the future, and are already much larger in the parts of the world where the battle over GMO approval is most actively raging.

GMOs are neither poison nor panacea. What they are is a toolkit, a varied one, with real benefits to the environment and millions of people today; with the real potential to have a larger positive impact immediately if they’re allowed to; and with the possibility of a dramatically larger benefit down the road as the science behind them improves.

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Crop flops: GMOs lead ag down the wrong path

Panic-free gmos, finally, a gmo debate without shouting, ok, gmos matter — but the noisy fight over them is a distraction, what i learned from six months of gmo research: none of it matters, 20 gmo questions: animal, vegetable, controversy, mexico city’s metro system is sinking fast. yours could be next., the downballot races that could transform energy policy in arizona and nebraska, the lowly light bulb is the biden administration’s latest climate-fighting tool, a climate pledge verifier said it would allow more carbon offsets. its staff revolted., modal gallery.

Rebecca Rupp: I’m Pro-GMO and Here’s Why

We all know that there are topics that are best to avoid at public dinners..

Religion and politics usually top the list because we’ve all seen the awful effect these can have on family Thanksgivings. Invasive inquiries about age, weight, and personal finances are no-nos, and asking someone if they’re pregnant, especially if they’re not, can be a fast track to social disaster.

Increasingly, though, these days, another addition to the to-be-avoided list is the touchy subject of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) —predominately in the form of bioengineered foods. Impassioned rhetoric between pro-GMO and anti-GMO camps brings to mind the murderously hostile Montagues and Capulets, Campbells and MacDonalds, and Hatfields and McCoys.

So—I might as well be right up front here—I’m pro-GMO. I think the potential positives greatly outweigh the potential negatives. (We’ll come to those. First, let’s talk.)

Everything is Genetically Modified, Always

Since the dawn of agriculture, human beings have done nothing but genetically modify their food. Everything   we eat today has been genetically modified—traditionally by selecting peculiar varieties that we like and propagating them—which is why we’re no longer eating potatoes the size of peanuts, cucumbers as prickly as sea urchins , cyanide-laden lima beans, or peas so tough that they have to be roasted and peeled like chestnuts. Nowadays, however, we don’t have to wait around, kicking our heels, for a beneficial mutation to serendipitously show up in the field. Useful genes can be biochemically snatched from any organism and plugged into another where they have a chance of doing some good. (See “ That GMO Cancer Study—It Gets Worse “)

An example is Golden Rice, created by Ingo Potrykus at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Peter Beyer of the University of Freiburg , by co-opting a couple of genes from daffodils and one from a bacterium that enable the rice to produce beta-carotene—the stuff that makes carrots orange, an essential building block of Vitamin A. (Normal white rice contains no beta-carotene.) Vitamin A deficiency is common in the U.S. in low-income groups –an early warning sign is trouble seeing in the dark—and is a serious problem elsewhere, notably in Africa and Southeast Asia, causing over a million deaths annually, and half a million cases of irreversible blindness. Despite its potential, however, Golden Rice—an easy dietary fix to this wholly preventable problem—has, primarily for political reasons,   failed (so far) to get off the ground.

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Genetically modified papayas , on the other hand, engineered to resist the devastating papaya ring spot virus that nearly wiped out the Hawaiian papaya industry in the 1990s, are thriving. Last year, when Hawaii’s Big Island (somewhat ungratefully) passed a bill banning GM crops, they exempted their lucrative and highly productive GM papayas. GM crops, present and future, include fruits and vegetables that carry vaccines—we may prevent cholera and hepatitis B, for example, by simply eating bananas; crops containing genes that allow them to flourish in poor soils or in conditions of drought or high salt; or plants with genetic batteries that allow them to combat pests or—like Hawaii’s GM papayas—fatal diseases.

GMOs Aren’t All That Odd

To a lot of people, GMOs sound freaky. Unlike traditionally hybridized plants, they’re transgenic—that is, they’re cobbled together using genetic material from sometimes widely disparate organisms. Researchers have implanted jellyfish genes in potatoes, which makes the plants glow when they’re thirsty, thus helping to conserve water. Rat genes in lettuce boost the plant’s Vitamin C content by 700 percent, and fish genes in tomatoes confer resistance to cold.

Frankly, this isn’t as odd as all that. Our own genome, the sum total of DNA coding for any one of us, is an evolutionary patchwork of weird foreign genes. About 8 percent of our DNA comes from viruses. We share about 18 percent of our DNA with baker’s yeast; 47 percent with fruit flies; 65 percent with chickens; and 88 percent with mice. And the human genome—far from being set in stone—is changing all the time. Each one of us is born with somewhere between 100 and 200 mutations—that is, new and quirky changes in our DNA sequences. Nature continually mixes things up, which is a tried and true survival mechanism.

GMOs: Feeding 9 Billion

And no, just because nature does it, doesn’t necessarily mean that we should, too. Worries about GM food include the movement of transgenes into the environment, perhaps infiltrating non-GM crops or creating unstoppable “super-weeds;” the creation of new allergens, carcinogens, or toxins that may have adverse effects on human health; and GM-generated unexpected or unpredictable harm to ecosystems. But all new technologies have potential dangers, and these—like everything from antibiotics to the ubiquitous mobile phone—call for caution, care, and a lot of well-designed scientific tests.

The vast bulk of reputable evidence currently shows that GM food is healthy and safe and that GM crop plants are productive and able to grow in places where non-GM crops die. I think it’s important to remember that genetic modification–despite a lot of outraged rhetoric to the contrary—is not solely the purview of supposedly unscrupulous corporations out to take over the world. There are some big-business dealings here that have left bad tastes in all our mouths—but there’s a lot more to GMOs than manipulative monopolies. There are researchers who are trying to solve global problems . There’s some real hope for the future here.

By 2050, we’re going to have over nine billion people to feed , and small traditional farms simply aren’t going to be able to do the trick.   People are hungry. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.

This story is part of National Geographic’s special eight-month   “Future of Food”   series.

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Home — Essay Samples — Science — GMO — The GMO Debate: Weighing the Pros and Cons

The Gmo Debate: Weighing The Pros and Cons

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Published: Feb 7, 2024

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Introduction, argument 1: increased crop yield, argument 2: environmental and health concerns, argument 3: improved nutritional content, argument 4: reduction in chemical pesticides, argument 5: contribution to medical advancements.

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Genetically Modified Organisms: Views on GMOs

In my understanding, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are the needed help in resolving shortage of food throughout the world. Scientists create a more robust and better version of the current vegetables, fruits and other items humans consume. For example, as far as I know, the current version of bananas is GMO since, in the wilds, bananas had large seeds, were green and looked utterly dissimilar to the yellow delicious fruit people are familiar with. GMO enhances the taste of a product and the amount of the product, which is why it can be a possible solution to resolving the worldwide hunger issues.

For the reason that I was interested in GMOs and did my research before, the article did not change my perception of it much since I have already known what GMOs are and that they are a predominant source of food presently. Moreover, as the population number will increase in the future years, the GMO industry will have to expand and adopt new methods of cultivating food (Uji, 2016, p. 78). Therefore, humanity will progress and benefit from the usage of such technologies.

The way a GMO was created does not matter to me as much because I trust scientists. They would not release a vegetable or an animal that would be hurtful for people since they do their research and check their specimens for safety. Therefore, a released and cultivated GMO, whether created through intragenesis or transgenesis, are safe for humans.

I feel proud that humanity has gone so far in improving nature’s gifts and improving the quality and quantity of cultivated foods. GMO technologies are on the right track since they aid people in ending the problem of hunger worldwide. Moreover, GMOs are more affordable and accessible since they can survive more than their natural counterparts.

Uji, O. (2016). European and American views on genetically modified foods. The New Atlantis , 49, 77–92. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2023, November 21). Genetically Modified Organisms: Views on GMOs. https://ivypanda.com/essays/genetically-modified-organisms-views-on-gmos/

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1. IvyPanda . "Genetically Modified Organisms: Views on GMOs." November 21, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/genetically-modified-organisms-views-on-gmos/.

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IvyPanda . "Genetically Modified Organisms: Views on GMOs." November 21, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/genetically-modified-organisms-views-on-gmos/.

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Genetically Modified Foods (GMO), Essay Example

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Whether individuals are okay with it or not, we live in a world today where genetically modified foods (GMOs) are everywhere. What is meant by this is that unless an individual only eats organic foods day in and day out, he or she is invariably putting GMOs into his or her mouth every day. After becoming cognizant of this actuality, individuals often worry that they might not be buying the correct and safest products for their families. Therefore, it is imperative that all individuals become aware of the pros and the cons that come with GMOs. (WebMD)

To start off, individuals must come to grasps that at this time and age, it would be increasingly difficult to live a life eating only foods that do not contain GMOs. While this may seem alarming to some, there must be room for clarification as to what exactly are the purposes for GMOs. Often times, food is genetically modified for simple reasons, such as to grow grapes without seeds inside of them. However, other times, modifications are much more drastic, such as changing the color or the taste of a specific pepper. What this means is that scientists are able to acquire a desired taste by combining science with nature.

Despite the fact that there have been a variety of tests by the Food Administration in order to ensure that the food that farmers are growing is safe, there have been numerous reports where the food has not been reported in pristine condition. In general, it has been found that the consumption of a variety of foods with GMOs have been proven to increase the likelihood of an individual developing a food-based allergy. While this is not something grave, it is certainly something that should be taken a look at, given that a food that is being produced deliberately directly affects someone’s personal life. (“Pros and Cons of Genetically Modified Foods.” )

Genetically modified foods should not be regarded as dangerous, for individuals would never produce something that puts someone else’s life at risk. However, one should be cautious about what she decides to consume because of the fact that one does not always know what is inside the food that is being consumed.

A setback about producing GMOs is the fact that they do not have much economic value. This is due to the manner in which GMOs take just as long to grow as normal fruits and vegetables, amongst other foods. What this means is that there is no increase in production, so farmers do not have the ability to distribute their merchandise at faster pace. Perhaps the only advantage that GMOs would have within a market is that fact that they would prove to be great competition against other distributors. Other than that, however, GMOs could prove to be incredibly unprofitable.

An upside to GMOs is that often times, they contain more nutrients than the ordinary, unmodified product. This happens because when the fruits and/or vegetables are being modified, new nutrients must be injected into the foods in order to ensure that the foods will indeed be modified.

It is imperative that all individuals become aware of the pros and the cons that come with GMOs. Because of the fact that not many people are aware of what exactly they are putting into their mouths, it is the farmer’s and distributor’s responsibility that they are able to provide individuals with the best product that is available. One’s safety should never be put at risk just so that a profit can be made from selling something that will only make individuals sick. Therefore, individuals should be more wary of what they put into their mouths and consume.

Works Cited

“Pros and Cons of Genetically Modified Foods.”  HRF . HealthResearchFunding.org, 4 Dec. 2013. Web. 2 July 2015.

WebMD. “The Truth About GMOs: Are They Safe? What Do We Know?”  WebMD . WebMD, n.d. Web. 2 July 2015.

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Pros and Cons of GMO Argumentative Essay Example

For this assignment I will be defining the pros and cons to GMO. However when I first got this assignment, I had no clue what a GMO was or what GMO stood for. First let’s start off with what a GMO is if you didn’t know already; it is where an organism or DNA is modified by engineering. For example it can be plants, animal’s, bacteria and it also can get sprayed on crops, so pesticides do not eat away the crops. After realizing what a GMO was, I came to find out that there are a lot of pros and cons to it.

They say 70-80% of foods in America are GMO. So, you can imagine more than half of the things you eat have been modified. So that means they are going to be a lot of pros and cons on whether GMO is good or bad for you. First let's start off with all of the pros to GMO. One pro is that over the last 30 years of lab testing and 15 years of field research there has not been a single health risk associated with GMO consumption which is a good thing because we do not want to put our health at risk. Another pro is GMO helps reduce the cost of food and increases nutritional content which helps world hunger which is a plus because we always need nutrition in our body and not only that but it can help people in 3rd world countries who need nutrition too.

Another pro is environmental benefits such as reducing the amount of water and lower carbon emissions and it helps reduce some of the pesticides that could contaminate our crops if we lower the amount of water we have to use to treat our crops could help us in the long term for saving water. Also reducing pesticides is a great thing so they do not eat away the crops and some pesticides carry bacteria. One of the most well known con to GMO is preserving food like chickens and meats which cause it to last longer and taste better. Those are some of the main pros to GMO however all pros will have a con to it. 

For all the Pros listed there are still Cons to all the good things. For example even though there has not been any health issues in the last 30 years we still do not know the long term risk of using GMO. We do not know the long term risk because 30 years is still in some way new because GMO could take a lifetime to cause a health issue or risk to people. For another example is even though helping world hunger and getting more nutrients is great but there is a risk like if there is something over in a 3rd world country that is not over here a unknown toxin could not interact right with a GMO product which could cause people to get sick.

Also a con to spraying crops with chemicals to kill the pesticides is that those chemicals could have harmful bacteria that could hurt people in the long run. Also a con to Preserving foods like chicken and meats is that to preserve chicken or meat you have to give it chemicals to keep its taste and not to go bad also chickens that are injected with hormones to keep it from going bad suffer from ammonia, bronchitis and weakened immune system and I think it is safe to say no one wants to eat a chicken that suffers from those things. Those are some of the main cons to GMO everyone will have different opinions on if GMO is good or bad.

After all there are so many pros and cons to GMO. I think that everyone's opinion on it will be different. I think I lean more to the side of GMO is ok because I have never experienced any health issues caused by GMO. However it is always good to realize what is happening to your foods before they are cooked or before you ever eat them.

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