Better food and more of it: Genetically modified Golden Rice grains (right) are easily recognisable by their yellow to orange colour, the stronger the colour the more vitamin A (β-carotene). Conventional white rice is on the left.
Credit: Golden Rice Project
For example, Golden Rice – enhanced for b-carotene to help fight vitamin A deficiency – is not needed where people have sufficient vitamin A from leafy greens, or ready access to vitamin supplements. But where this is not the case, the crop may significantly improve nutrition.
Similarly, herbicide-resistant soybeans can reduce demands for local labour. This may be devastating if a community relies on wages from manual weeding. But it may help communities struggling with a labour shortage due to high prevalence of diseases such as HIV/AIDS.
Scientific and other evidence must be central in the debate, and over the past few years evidence about GM crops has grown.
The role of research
For example, according to a recent news report in the U.S. journal Science, soon-to-be-published research will clarify the amount of Golden Rice a child would need to eat each day to prevent vitamin A deficiency. This kind of research is vital if governments and farmers are to make informed decisions about GM crops. Indeed, before new research is funded, national and regional bodies in developing countries should be consulted about their priorities for crops and desirable GM traits.
In the United Kingdom, the government has committed £150 million (A$367 million) over the next five years to research aimed at making agriculture more resilient to the pests and diseases affecting poor farmers, and increasing smallholders' agricultural productivity.
Research efforts are also growing in the developing world, with South African scientists developing and working to commercialise virus-resistant maize, and countries like Kenya and Nigeria hosting projects to develop virus-resistant varieties of key African crops.
Many people worry about possible environmental risks from GM crops, such as gene flow to other plants, and this is something that scientific research must clarify. But alarm-raising without evidence is as helpful as calling 'fire' in a crowded theatre.
Striking a balance
Similarly, demanding evidence of zero risk before allowing a new technology is fundamentally at odds with any practical strategy for investigating new technologies. Mobile phones or aeroplanes might never have seen the light of day if such stringent demands had been placed on them.
In the case of GM technology it is clearly crucial to ask what the risks of adopting GM crops are. But it is also important to ask what the risks of not doing so are. Realistic cost-benefit analyses that consider local social and environmental conditions and development goals are needed on a country-by-country basis.
Heated debate about the food crisis must not detract from an evidence-based assessment of biotechnology's potential for improving agricultural productivity in developing countries. The benefits of GM crops must not be overstated. But neither can poor arguments be allowed to obscure strong arguments for a good cause.
Albert Weale is chair of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics and Professor of Government at the University of Essex, United Kingdom.
GMO FOODS
Dear Cosmos: We are a nation of disease. We are so removed from our earlier foodstuffs, we hardly have an idea what they once were. If it is not for control, and profit why would anyone want to tamper, with that which is not broken? Chemical fertilizers, and certainly science, today by researched practices, are increasing yeilds. To genetically modify a food from a species, that in some cases that even is not related is not a sane practice- nor a safe one.Already alergies are on the uprise-are you going to now take chemicals, to help you relax?.
Dear Albert, Great article
Dear Albert,
Great article and lets hope the debate can move forward past those who love to yell 'fire'!
love to yell 'fire'!
Americans have been eating GM food for years.Look what it has done to them.
Do I want to weigh 200 pounds?.No thanks.
200 pounder
I think you will find obesity problems occurred long before GM crops were invented... and have more to do with a lack of exercise and a high energy diet... by the way, there are proportionally more obese people in Australia than America.
You do love to yell fire don't you?
GM Crops
I recall watching a documentary on GM foods, in particular crops, and seeing a Canadian farmer state that he was perplexed when one season his cattle stopped reproducing. He had always had many new offspring from his herd and couldn't explain it, as veterinary advice seemed to suggest all was usual. He said it occurred to him he'd been feeding them a different feed - a new, genetically modified feed - and so he reverted to the usual (more expensive) natural cattle feed: following spring, new calves as expected. No actual "scientific proof" - just anecdotal evidence. In most western countries there is no legal obligation to specify on packaging which foods are genetically modified yet we wonder at rising obesity levels, falling fertility rates and many more "modern" diseases. Yes, majority world (third world) populations need feeding - but surely with the same quality food that the first world enjoys.
I agree, gm food is not the way to go..
I totally agree with the last comment. In 2009 there is still no law in Canada (and many other countries) to specify on packaging if it's GM food. That is terrible. How can we be forced to buy food that may be unsafe, only because some powerful companies are strong enough to convince governments that our health is not as important as the money they make.
Ashley from beef recipes and proud to be against GM foods!
GM crops are not a solution..they're a problem
Go research Arpad Pusztai who studied GM potatoes and found horrifying results. Go read "Seeds of Destruction" by F. William Engdahl to see how bad GM food really is. BT corn has a pesticide IN THE FLESH OF THE CORN and YOU EAT IT. It Causes liver and kidney problems and is linked to cancer. Why have cancer rates soared since the introduction of GM foods?
Ethics and GM food.
My 2 main concerns are: (1) the transfer of genes from one organism to another may also result in allergens being transferred from one organism to another, with potentially disastrous consequences for people with food allergies; (2) if rumours about the 'Terminator' gene(s) are true, how can it be ethical to produce GM plants that do not produce their own seeds and put farmers at the mercy of big biotech companies?
Non-scientific nonsense.
To the viewer who wrote "Americans have been eating GM food for years.Look what it has done to them. Do I want to weigh 200 pounds?.No thanks". You are connecting 2 unrelated pieces of information to make an unsubstantiated and invalid point. This is typical of the emotive and unscientific scaremongering surrounding the GM issue.
As for Arpad Pusztai, the fact that he went to the press over a year before he submitted his alleged findings to proper peer review shows that his methods and conclusions were suspicious. Moreover, no-one has managed to replicate his 'findings'.
Let's have more science and less irrational hysteria, please.
GM and cancer.
To the viewer who said "Why have cancer rates soared since the introduction of GM foods?", I would suggest it is because the research has been done by innumerate fools with an anti-GM agenda. Where have you seen any evidence linking an alleged rise in cancer rates with an increase in consumption of GM foods? Nowhere, I'll bet.
Confusion between correlation and causation is one of the easiest mistakes to be made by sloppy researchers, especially if they have a pre-set agenda. I can show a correlation between the increase in the amount of icecream consumed and suicide rates in New York. It does not, however, mean that icecream makes you suicidal. It does mean that any two unconnected bits of data can be connected by unscrupulous or lazy researchers.