Can new foods be discovered using Genetically Modified seeds, explain!?

Question

What is the benefit of having science involved with food production today? what could happen in the future with GM foods??? I need some websites about these questions.... Enviromentally and Politically, what could happen?? THANKS!

Answer 1

Genetic engineering cannot discover new foods. Basically the genetic engineer can only work with existing plants and animal genes and the changes made to any particular organism are relatively small. The primary use of genetic engineering is to introduce pest resistance or herbicide resistance. BT corn for instance is a GM corn that has a built in gene to make an insecticide. The gene was taken from a bacteria that naturally made the insecticide.

The main benefit is to make crops that are cheaper to grow because fewer insecticides need to be used and grow faster because they are healthier and it may be possible to control weeds better.

GM foods could have lots of different consequences. One is that many of the adaptations introduced by genetic engineering become ineffective as insects and weeds evolved resistance. Another is that threated species can be harmed accidentally by built in insecticides. Crop diversity could be reduced by a focus on few kinds of crops. The new genes could escape into the wild population of related plants by cross fertilization and possibly upset the environment. They might make people sick. They might improve food production quantities.

Politically GM foods are very controversial. Companies that make them stand to make a lot of money if they can sell seeds for high prices. Poor countries are looking for ways to grow more food for their people but are also concerned about becoming dependent upon big agrochemical companies. Environmentalists are very worried about possible unintended consequences. If genetically modified organisms escape into the environment and start causing problems, we would be in big trouble because it would be impossible to round up these escaped genes so the damage would be irreversable.