Image via Wikipedia What do you think of when you hear the phrase “genetically modified?” Is it good things? Is it bad things? What pictures come to mind? Do you see pigs that produce methane free manure? Do you see cattle that grow to enormous proportions? Try something along the lines of corn that produces its own pesticides. These are real examples of what scientists are doing to food products in the agriculture industry.
Let’s talk about the product changes that are considered to be in the light side on the black & white scale of ethics. The author, Alyssa Opar, in her article (http://t.co/7MBYsvJ) explains that in the plum tree industry, there has beenan arch-enemy that threatens to put an end to all things purple and delicious: the PPV virus. It has already taken out several plum orchards across Europe, and has threatened to take a hold in the United States. Since there is no spray or cure for the virus, scientists turned to genetic engineering to solve the PPV problem. They inserted the virus into a plum genome and voilà! You have plum trees of the exact same breed and hardiness, with one exception: the PPV virus cannot affect them. The author explains that some environmentalists have been against the genetic modification of plum trees, apple trees, etc. for the resistance to viruses because they are afraid that the GM trees will cross pollenate with wild non-GM trees nearby. The scientists say that there is no danger of any bad changes to the wild because the cross-pollination would actually cause new trees in the wild to become resistant to viruses as well and cause the wild trees to become better off in the long run. “It’s not something I would lose sleep over.”
Now let’s talk about GM products that are little found a little in the gray part of the ethics scale. Scientists get into shades of gray when they begin to create products that would cause damage to people, the environment, and to the economy. Let’s take corn that produces its own pesticides for example. There is a line of corn that produces Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which is an organic pesticide that works very well in killing worms, monarch butterfly caterpillars, and other pests that would destroy crops. Sounds good, right? Well wrong. There is a little known fact in the agriculture community that when you overspray your crops, or keep a certain pesticide present in a crop for too long, the pests and critters will quickly evolve and soon become resistant to that pesticide. Since the release of Bt corn, there have already been reports of Bt resistant monarch butterfly caterpillars and other pests. The organic food community is in turmoil, because Bt spray is the best organic line of defense against pests. Once Bt is gone, organic farmers will have a harder time managing their crops.
So you decide! Should we shun Genetic Engineering? Or should we embrace it with open arms? Or should we allow GM into our society but only with certain ethical boundaries?
Comment below and let me know what you think.
