Several people in different parts of the world in both developed and developing countries go without or with little food every day. This is attributed to the fact that there exists not enough food to supply the needs of the people in these countries. As result of factors such as war, political feuds, poor economic prosperity and poor infrastructure, hunger and poverty are generally witnessed in such countries. Therefore their use of genetically modified food is seen as a source of relief to the starving population. It has to be understood that the use of Genetically Modified food may not alleviate poverty or political turmoil but it however influences a larger percentage of the main picture (Dobson, 2007).
The main idea is that agriculture plays a very integral part in the development of these developing countries especially to provide employment and income as well as food security to the poor people and their national food security. Therefore considering this necessity, GMO has always played a crucial role in the cure of the food shortage menace. It is confirmed that majority of the GM crops are often produced in the developed countries to address the needs of their ever growing population and those of their farmers hence the need to adopt the GM crop productions. For instance, over 16 million hectares of land are being used in the developing countries by close to five million people to produce food crops, majority of the farmers being from China and South Africa, specializing in the production of the GM cotton (Acevedo, 2013).
Likewise, it is viewed from the school of thought that in the attempt to increase agricultural production, the possibility would be expanding farmland an idea that is barely achieved as the feasibility of the idea is never realized as it is considered environmentally friendly due to the fact that it explores destruction of forests. In this case, the farmers are left with the choice of finding alternative ways of increasing the crop production using the same piece of land. Thus raising foodstuff of staple crops would be considered better in the production of more food and creation of more employment hence providing more income to buy food. However, the physical conditions for the agriculture are worsening as farmers are faced with the problem of increasing water shortages and constant poor soils. Since the often used conventional cross breeding approach has failed to address these problems, there have been indications that GM technology may provide sufficient and new approaches with the specific approach directed towards agricultural problem with the aim of increasing yields thereby the increase in the GMO engineered crops (Bebchuk & Jesse, 2004).
However, it has to be understood that GMO crops and GMO crop related products may not be sufficient enough to solve the food crisis as GMO crops barely increase yield potential despite the promises. It has been noted that GMO has only been able to increase the yield potential of the commercialized crops. According to various studies, it has been proven that the mostly widely grown crops such as soy and other GM crops have suffered a reduced yield. Likewise, the use of the GM crops has been associated with an overall increase of the pesticide infections in areas of the GM production. We therefore believe that there are numerous better ways to feed the world than relying on the GMO food production and be able to tackle the world challenges such as hunger and poverty as well as climate changes (Libby &Thorne, 2007).
However, despite the increasing support for the GMO, there have been endless critics from the environmental activists, religious leaders and different people of various public interests who have shown their concern on the GMO food. It is thus evident that majority of the people have formed a very strong opinion about the GM food, opinions that are either due to environmental hazard or human health risks as well as the economic effects.
GMO have been identified to cause unintended harm to other organism. For instance, during a lab experiment, it was clear that pollen that was dispersed from corn plant caused the highest death rates in other caterpillars that consumed and depended on milkweed plants. The B.t toxins from the pollen is believed to kill numerous species of insect larvae without discrimination and it’s unfortunately not possible to design a B.t toxins for crop damaging pests only while they remain harmless to all other insects. Therefore the use of GMO and production of crops through GMO production has had a drastic effect on the environment (Arnold & Andres, 2013).
Similar to the case with the mosquitoes and the DDT, majority of the players in the agricultural sector are concerned about the fact that insects will soon become resistant to the B.t or other crops that have been through the genetically modified. This will therefore have an effect on the effectiveness of the pesticides that are used for taming the pesticide that are a threat to agricultural production. Likewise, there is possibility of a gene transfer especially to the non-target species of the crops. This is possible due to the fact that crops that are engineered for herbicide tolerance and weed control will cause cross breed that results into the transfer of the herbicide’s resistance gene into the weed from the cross crops. Therefore the new formed crops will be considered herbicide tolerant. In addition, the non-modified crops planted close to the GMO crops may be affected by the introduced genes due to cross overs. To confirm possibility of the interbreeding, the defense of the farmers against several lawsuits leveled against them by Monsanto is quite clear. The company has in several instances filed patent infringement lawsuits against farmers who are believed to have in several cases harvested GM crops. The farmers in their defense always claim that the farmers obtained Monsanto licensed GM seeds from the sources hard to disclose but may have not paid royalties to the Monsanto Company. The farmers therefore claim that the crops were often cross pollinated from someone else’s GM modified crops planted in the nearby fields. In order to ascertain the facts behind this claim, more investigations need to be set underway (Acevedo, 2013).
The use or production of GMO foodstuff is also associated with the allergy to many people. For example, many people across the world notably Europe and the U.S have been diagnosed with life threatening allergies especially in peanuts and other foodstuff. Therefore there lurk high chances that the genes introduced into some plants often create allergen or may cause an allergic reaction to various people who are easily affected with the allergens. For instance, there was a proposal to incorporate a gene from Brazil nuts into the soybeans had to be abandoned due to the fear of possibility of harming consumers with good allergies. Hence labeling of the GM food and their products was considered a necessity to help distinct the GMO and the non GMO crops and crop products (U.S Dept. of Labor, 2010).
Likewise, there have been various levels of concern about the effect of the introduction of the foreign genes into the food plants that may have resulted into negative effects on the human health. This has been proved through various publications. For instance there have been evidences of these effects of the GM potatoes on the digestive tract of the rats. The study indicates unpredictable differences in the intestines of rats fed GM potatoes and rats that are fed with the unmodified potatoes. Therefore the gene that was introduced into the potatoes was supporting the presence of snowdrop flower lection, a substance known to be toxic to the mammals. Therefore, through this observation, it is relevant that GMO has a substantial effect on the animals (Arnold & Andres, 2013).
Availing a GM food to the market is a lengthy and costly process thus agro biotech companies often wish to a profitable return on their investment. Thus many plant genetic engineering technologies and GM plants have been patented and as a result patent infringement has always been a concern to the agribusiness hence influencing the income of the farmers resulting to the economic wellbeing of the people involved hence influencing their livelihood. These often influence the health status of the farmers (Davis, 2008).
In conclusion therefore, genetically modified crops are not the only way to address the world’s challenge of food security, hunger and malnutrition. It is thus upon governments and various individuals to proceed with caution and avoid causing harms that are not intended to the general population’s health and environment due to their enthusiasm for the technological application on this agricultural field.
References
Acevedo, A. (2013). But, Is It Ethics? Common Misconceptions in Business Ethics Education. Journal of Education for Agriculture, 88(2), 63-69.
Arnold, Denis G; Valentin, Andres (2013). Corporate Social Responsibility at the base of the Pyramid. Journal of Agricultural Research. 66-70.
De Cremer, David; de Vettignies, Henri-Claude (2013). Pragmatic Business Ethics. Journal of Business Strategy Review. 64-67.
Dobson, John. “Applying Virtue Ethics to Business: The Agent-based Approach.” Electronic Journal of Business Ethics and Organizational Studies Vol 12, no. No.2 (November 12, 2007).
Libby, T., and L. Thorne. “The Development of a Measure of Auditors’ Virtu.” Journal of Business Ethics Vol. 71, no. No. 1 (March 2007): pp. 89-99.
Lucian Bebchuk & Jesse Fred (2004), Pay Without Performance, the unfulfilled Promises of Executive Compensation. Harvard University Press.
Michael L. Davis, (2008) Executive Compensation: The professional’s Guide to current issues and practices.
National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates 2011.
United States Department of Labor, 2010
