ARTICLE: Genetically-Modified Crops Are The Future: Here’s Why
The following is an excerpt of an article on the Indian website Swarajya explaining some of the basic facts about GMOs.
This is in response to Viva Kermani’s “honest” write-up about Genetically Modified (GM) crops that betrays half-baked knowledge about agriculture, modern genetics, and almost total ignorance of the art and science of GM crops developed through the gene splicing technology. The article seems to be borrowed from the manifesto of the global anti-GM propaganda machinery that has been in vogue for as long as the GM crops have been around.
Kermani’s contention is that modern day GM crops are unnatural organisms, and therefore, raises questions about their safety for human and animal consumption. A simple answer to that is that they are safe as determined by all leading regulatory agencies in charge of assessing the safety of food in the United States of America(US), Canada, the European Union, Australia and New Zealand, Japan, South Africa, India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Egypt, Israel, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, and the list goes on. Their safety has also been vouched for by leading scientific organisations like the US National Science Academy, the United Kingdom’s Royal Society, Indian Science Academy, Brazilian Science Academy, the Pontifical Academy, and German Science Academy, among others.
Kermani must realise that in the 10,000 year history of human effort to grow food, people have artificially modified all that was growing wildly to adapt them to their needs. Therefore, there is nothing natural about agriculture. If there is one human activity that is environmentally most devastating, that is agriculture. But, can we live without agriculture? Now, the efforts are under way to undertake climate-smart agriculture, but that requires and demands greater and not lesser intervention from science and technology.
That the agricultural industry has saved more lives than all pharma industries put together can be asserted by a simple fact that the green revolution saved millions from starvation and death in the middle of the last century. GM crops are being cultivated in almost 30 countries for the past 20 years without a single proven instance of any harm to any human or animal being. How much more proof does one need of its safety?
Moreover, GM crops are the most highly regulated agricultural products on this planet. Consumers need not fear GM crops.
To read the entire article, please read Genetically-Modified Crops Are The Future: Here’s Why
