Question

Give a brief background on GMOs. What are they? What role do they play in our food production?

What are the Benefits/Drawbacks?

Do you think genetic modification experimentation is “unnatural” or interferes with the “balance of nature”?

Some genetically modified (GM) traits can also be produced by conventional crop breeding. In such a case is the GM crop bad and the conventional one good?

Why do you think the use of GMOs is still such a divisive topic?

Answer 1

GMOs are genetically modified organisms. Basically the natural genome that they are born with is modified with usually an addition a gene from another organism/species to enhance a particular trait of interest like fortified rice, wheat.

In food production many GMOs have been introduced to increase the foliage to increase the available mass of the food/crops to meet he increasing needs of food. Moreover, some are fortified with vitamins to increase their nutrition value and some are modified to protect them from pest infestations.

They are beneficial as they help us fight some of the major problems with the modern society hunger, pests etc. They do come with drawbacks, modification of genome is unatural. Releasing and incorporating these organisms in the natural environment can lead to uncontrolled gene flow. These inserted genes can be inserted in other organisms with harmful effects.

It's such a divisive topic because GMOs have some major disadvantage and they can unstabalize an environment