Could Genetically modified food fight hunger?

Today, a total of about 842 million people in the world suffer from hunger worldwide. This means that one in every eight people on Earth goes to bed hungry each night. Now, genetically modified food seems to be a promising way for solving this huge problem. Sadly, this is not the case.

This becomes clear when looking at the world's top genetic engineering companies, such as Monsanto, which do not appear to be developing genetically modified crops that are aiming at feeding the hungry and solving the world hunger problem. If they would,those companies would be developing seeds with certain predictable characteristics, such as, for instance, seeds that were used for crops that feed people and not animals. 

Another example, which can be mentioned here, is the fact that if such companies wanted to fight or at least reverse world hunger, they would bring higher yields. However, study results of some companies producing modified soybeans show that the yields have increased instead of rising. For Monsanto, for example, the yields of genetically modified soybeans were 10 percent lower in comparison with those of conventional varieties grown under the same condition. 

According to Dr. Vandana, one of the world's foremost experts on world hunger and transgenic crops, the argument that biotechnology could help to solve the world hunger problem is great deception. The genetic modification of plants have only one major aim, namely the rising of chemical sales and of the monopoly control. All this is being done in the private domain, by corporations which are not at all in the business of charity but in the business of selling, often at extremely high prices.

Even though genetic modification is one of tomorrow's tools we dispose of today, it is a luxury that the hungry world and poor, starving people can't afford.  This is what I find the most shocking part of the complete genetic modification industry and technology!

It's not nice to fool with mother nature- ethical issues concerning GM foods

As we should also include some ethical issues in our blog posts concerning our CAJ, I decided to consider some aspects a bit more closely. After having done some research on the Internet and read several useful links, I, first of all, learned that humans have actually modified crops long before newer techniques of genetic modification were introduced. Farmers have always selected which plant they wanted to plant or grow. In short, they ever since chose plants that grew well or at least better than others. The age-old techniques were simply extended through the introduction of genetic modification. Both the traditional as well as the modern way of changing the characteristics of a plant or any organism would not have existed without human intervention. As already mentioned in previous blog posts, this intervention causes lots of controversies resulting in people opposing to or being in favor of genetic modification of plants.

What I came across during the research and found very interesting are the following two paragraphs which demonstrate that language plays an extremely important role in this ongoing debate.

"Allowed to ripe on the vine naturally, this ruby tomato comes to your table with more homegrown taste. By drwaing on the best tradtitions of crossbreeding, biotechnology has created a better-tasting tomato, available year-round."

"Although it may be as pretty as a plastic fruit, this tomato has been produced by introducing modified organisms into the plant's natural genetic material. It is the product of laboratory manipulations whose consequences for consumer health and for the environment are unknown."

Both paragraphs, one for and one against GM food, describe the same tomato and show how language is part of the problem. In general, it can be seen that opponents are good at creating bad images of GM food and at  spreading doubt about it.

Apart from language used in different ways to achieve different aims concerning genetically modified food, the opinion of people, especially of the religious ones, differs very much from people being in favor of it.

The first named group believes that this modern technology changing the genes, the basic building blocks of lives, of any organism interfere in God's creation. 

"Many opponents believe that the genetic code of every organism has evolved over millions of years and that tampering with it is an act of hubris."

Due to my traditions and Indian roots I can understand people who think in that way. What I ask myself is that if it's okay to genetically modify a plant by, for instance, inserting genes of meat to it and then not mentioning this modification on the packaging of a product because it doesn't exceed the 0.9 treshold. In my opinion, this is simply not okay as it leads to the cheating of people and their strong religious beliefs.

Monsanto Company- World's Largest Genetically Modified Food Producer

Monsanto Company is an American mutlinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation which was founded in 1901 by John Francis Queeny. It is headquartered in St. Louis in Missouri and the leading producer of genetically engineered seed. Monsanto was among the first companies to genetically modify a plant cell and also the first to conduct field trials of genetically modified crops.

Despite the company's success, its history is full of the following controversies, which are only a few of the many related issues:

• One of the probably most shocking facts about Monsanto Company is its production of herbicides, especially of Agent Orange, which was used during the Vietnam War (1961-1971). It contained the highest levels of dioxin and contaminated more than three million civilians and servicemen. As a consequence, nearly 500,000 children were born deformed and never compensated. 
• Monsanto Company was also ordered to pay 41.1 million $ due to hazardous waste dumping.
• It operated a nuclear facility for the U.S. government until the late 1980s.
• The company is among the top ten U.S. chemical companies. 

As Monsanto regularly deals with the U.S. government, it has to comply with FDA (the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) food and drug safety regulations and it also receives federal funding for research. This leads to the the company's high levels of  involvement with federal agencies. Several people working for Monsanto have attached themselves to state-level politicians and have successfully taken up high-level posts in the government. The following examples illustrate this fact:

• In 2009, the Obama administration appointed Michael Taylor, a precious vice president of Monsanto and current Monsanto lobbyist, as senior advisor to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner. After serving a year as an advisor, he was named the Deputy Commissioner of Foods for the FDA- a boom for Monsanto.
• Roger Beachy, the Director of the Danforth Plant Science Center (a Monsanto affiliate), was appointed by the Obama administration  as the Director of the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). NIFA focuses on funding research and innovation in agriculture  and also has the abilty to grant or reject agricultural research grants. This presents another advantage for Monsanto which will most likely result in favorable consideration for themselves during their pursuit of government research grants.
• Margaret Miller, who worked as a Monsanto researcher, contributed to a scientific report for the FDA on Monsanto's genetically engineered bovine growth hormone during the time she worked for the company. Shortly before the report was submitted, she left Monsanto to work at the FDA, where she had to review the same report. The FDA accepted Monsanto's findings, which then became the basis for its approval of Monsanto's genetically engineered bovine growth harmone. 

Again, these examples are unfortunately only a few of the appointment of people to high-federal posts. As this is development is unlikely to stop any time soon, it seems as if Monsanto will have great power influence on the American Agriculture and food policies. 

The Labelling of Genetically Modified Food

In April 2004, new regulations for the labelling of genetically modified foods came into effect. When compared to the old regulations, which were introduced in 1997 through the EU novel food regulation, these newer ones focus themselves on a different field.

According to the old regulations, genetically modified food required labelling only if GM content could be detected in the final product. In contrast to this, the new regulations are based on a different principle. According to these, all food products that make direct use of GMOs, no matter at which point in the production, have to be labelled. Also, it does not make any difference in this principle whether the genetically modified content is detectable in the end product or not. 

Despite these newly introduced regulations and the obligation of labelling products, consumers nonetheless rarely find labels indicating the use of genetic engineering. The reason for this is that labels, in general, are interpreted as something negative or as warning. What many consumer do not understand is the fact that labels aren't used to frighten them but to simply present information about the application of genetic engineering. 

Due to this wrong assumption, producers don't want to risk losses in sales and damage to their reason. In order to avoid this, they choose to produce products without GMO labels and often simply replace genetically modified substances with conventional ones. Some of them even make sure that the GM content does not exceed the 0.9 % treshold by which they forgo the GM label. Particularly shocking is the fact that even produtcs such as milk, egg, meat and other animal products (logically from animals fed GM plants) can contain those substances without informing consumers about it. 

The Debate on Genetically Modified Food

There are definitely countless people out there, such as scientists, researchers, and people just like you and me, you have tried to find verifiable, solid facts on the debate of genetically modified food which prove those who are in the right and those who are not. Is it they who are against the "Frankenstein" food and warning of its dangers or those who are in favor of it and support this type of food production?

However, the facts, which do exist in the present period and  have done in the past as well, show that millions of people have been eating genetically modified food over the past twenty years without suffering from any obvious illness or other critical symptoms. At the same it could be possible that the effects or symptoms may have been that subtle and occurred in small parts of the population so that they were simply not noticed.

This shows that the question about the safety of genetically modified food or genetic engineering in general is hard to answer. In other words, it's not a yes- or- no question. 

Margaret Mellon, a science policy consultant (Washington D.C. Metro Area), says the following concerning the GM debate:

"It doesn't appear that there's any risk that applies across the board to all genetically engineered food and to all people. Each plant is different, each gene insertion is different, each person's respond is different."

What she is trying to say is that GM food could be healthy and of no risk for a person but at the same incompatible with the immune system of another one. Despite uncertainty about the outcomes, which sometimes, occur, people should not be paralyzed by unknown risks as this will lead humanity ending up "huddles in their basements wearing tinfoil hats". 

How instant photographs work

While regular cameras need their film to be processed separately, Polaroid Instant Cameras already contain a film which is equipped with chemicals necessary for photo development. This special type of film has three colour layers which are respectively sensitive to blue, green and red light. Underneath each of them, a developer layer containing dye couplers can be found. All of these layers are stacked on a black base layer and are, at the same time, positioned underneath the image, timing and acid layer. This certain arrangement is of great importance as it is a chemical chain reaction waiting to be set in motion. The component that starts the whole process is called reagent. It is a mix of opacifiers, alkali and white pigments. Before the button on the Polaroid camera is pressed, all of these substances are gathered in the white frame of the later developed photograph. In this way, the film is prevented from exposing prematurely as all of the developing chemicals are kept away until the proper time. After you have taken the picture, the film sheet passes out of the camera through a pair of rollers. These spread the substances of the reagent out into the middle of the film sheet which then react with the other chemical layers in the film. The opacifiers are particularly important for this step as they stops light from filtering onto the layers below so that the film is not fully exposed before it is developed. When the substances are moved downward by the rollers through the many layers of the photo, the exposed particles in each of the layer are changed into metallic silver. Also, the chemicals dissolve the developer dye which begins to diffuse up toward the image layer. These move up from the unexposed layers to the image layer. Simultaneously, other substances of the reagent are working their way down through the film layers. The acid layer in the film reacts with the alkali and opacifiers in the reagent so that the opacifiers become clear. This leads to a visible image in the end. The timing layer slows the reagent down on its way to the acid layer so that the film is given time before being exposed to light. It must be remembered that the first image coming out of the Polaroid camera is initially still grey. It slowly appears because of the refined chemical developing process inside the camera. 

                      

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Abstract of CAJ - Genetically Modified Food

The basis of the CAJ project was to demonstrate the benefits of genetically modified food and to show why regarding this type of food as completely harmful or dangerous is incorrect. 

To do this, the advantages of GM food in the fields of society and world population, development and modification of plants, pharmaceutics and the improvement of harvest were considered. An internet-based research was carried out during a five-week period. Numerous websites presenting the advantages and disadvantages of genetically modified food as well as blog posts, encyclopedias and the homepage of the Monsanto agriculture company were read carefully.  The most important and relevant information was evaluated, extracted and finally texts were composed. Those were then posted as a blog post on blogger.com. 

Upon examination of the relevant information found and the texts posted, it becomes clear that genetically modified food has several advantages in various fields and that its disadvantages cannot be taken seriously as there is no concrete evidence.  Despite the fact that the CAJ project was successful, it is recommended that enough time should be scheduled for planning and for working on it as carrying out research is very laborious and time consuming. 

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