Abstract
Genetically modified organisms have large impact on our environment. Although there is not much proved evidence against it but still the amount of evidence available is enough to discuss it with its implications. GMO crops affect nearly crops by gene follow which could be minimized to some extant will the help of designing separate places for different crops. GMO also effect natural cycle of nitrogen and Carbone reproduction. GMO crops could be a risk in long time that it could alter some properties in human DNA. Steps should be taken by government and other organizations to minimize its effects to human and its environment.
GMOs Implications for the Environment
First GMOs expressing a bacterial antibiotic resistance gene produced in 1983. Now a large variety of plants are been reproductively from genes of isolated plants, microbes, animals and human gene is also included in this change. This makes the available gene pool so enlarge that it includes genes in entire biodiversity. The existing genes can be changed at molecular level and new genes can also be synthesized. The knowledge about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) has help people for the ability to digest food which has been change from its natural state. There are direct and indirect effects of genetically modified plants on the environment. Concerns about GMOs can fall under three categories first environmental which also include food and feed safety, second social and lastly economic. Bio-safety concentrates on the first issue, Bio-safety risk assessment consists of molecular human health, characterization and the impact on living and non-living components of the environment.
First taking consideration of direct impacts there are two main direct impacts of GMOs on environment first is by gene flow, and second is by Non-target species. Gene flow from GM crops is done by pollen of open-pollinated varieties meeting with other crops. Gene flow fundamentally exists between traditional bred crops and land races, for matter of fact this process is expectable that it could also occurs with transgenic crops. The tendency of outcross of each crop varies and the ability of outcross depends upon the presence and functioning of sexually compatible crops. Most of the Scientists do not agree on that gene flow between transgenic crops and other relative crops really matter a lot or it does not matter. If we consider the case of a resulting transgenic hybrid has competitive adds over the wild crops it could harm the ecosystem. If the flow begins in opposite direction from transgenes to land races crops and to traditional varieties it will also constitute environmental problem. Because traditional crops have interacted a lot with land races by gene transfer.
Wideness of the situation refers to a cultivated crop or its hybrid involve as established as weed in an invasive species. Although there is minimum risk in domesticated crops turn into weeds because the traits involve in their conversion are desirable because it make them less competitive to survive. Weeds hybridize from herbicide resistant crops acquire herbicide-tolerant trait. We can only prove an advantage of the herbicide. Many experiments on GMOs crops have demonstrated investigated trills of transgenic which have insect resistance and herbicide tolerance but still it does not increase chances of fitness of plant for semi-natural crops. Some of transgenic traits like diseases resistance and pest can be as advantage but we still got not much evidence of it. Genetic methods and management are developing to overcome the process of gene flow. Currently it is not practically possible to grow crops on such commercial scale so that isolation of GM crops and non GM crops can be achieved. But we can still minimize the gene flow to some extent. We should avoid planting transgenic crops in the center of biodiversity where other relative could be present. Another view is to make buffer zones for isolation of transgenic and conventional crops.
Genetic engineering could be used to change the flowering period to minimized cross pollination. It is also recommended that in case of GM crops production for medical or industrial usage should be design in such a way to minimized gene flow to food crops. Some transgenic traits like pesticide toxins which are made by Biotech genes it may also affect non-target species and crop pests because they used for intended to control. Scientists also agree that it could be happen but they also disagree that how likely it is intended to control in GMOs effects on environments. An experiment of monarch butterfly demonstrated that it is far difficult to explore from studies to real-time field conditions.
Some Field studies have shown many differences in air, community structure and soil between GM and non-GM crops, these are in normal range of variation that found between same crops cultivars and it does not provide much evidence that GM crops can be damaging for soil health for long term periods. While no significant effects put on non-target wildlife and their soil health have seen in the field. Most of scientists disagree that how much evidence required to demonstrate that production of GM crops is sustainable for the long term. Scientists should be monitored impact on non-targeted species and compare it with the effects used in current agricultural practices. They need to make better procedures for ecological studies and take more data to compare new crops. Insertion of genes into the genome could also result in harmful effects in the human body. When a genome is genetically modified it hardly affect the sequence of DNA.
This change in sequence of DNA may result in negatively reaction to the new genome. Scientists are also concerned about potential for immune effects of proteins and food allergies. The issue with proteins is that scientists are still unable to differentiate any difference between allergens proteins and other proteins. Young children have devastating effects of food allergy which can cause them several diseases such as chronic diarrhea, effecting nutritional growth and status. Food allergy is also a cause of acute allergic reactions which is called as anaphylaxis. There is no documented proof of humans dying by using GMO’s as food but still the harmful effects are devastating and it is the main reason and cause of allergic reactions.
Indirect environmental effects
GM crops also have indirect effects on our environment which is also a cause of agricultural change or practices that are associated with new varieties. These effects can be beneficial or can be harmful it depend upon the nature of Issue raised. Scientists agree to that the use of herbicides and conventional agricultural pesticides has much damaged habitats of farmland birds while insects and wild plants have reduced in numbers. GM crops are making a change in farming practices, land-use and chemical patterns but still scientists do not completely agree if the net effect of such changes could be positive or negative for our environment. Scientists do have a consensus that use of transgenic for insect-resistant in GM crops is lowering the frequency and quantity of insecticide which are used on cotton, soybean and maize. These results are especially significant in case of cotton producing countries. The benefit for environmental is less contamination of water and less damage to non-target insects. Herbicide use is also changing which is as a result of rapid adoption of High tech crops. It has marked a shift away from much toxic herbicides to lesser toxic field. Still herbicide use in total has increased. Most of the Scientists agree in beneficially of HT crops for soil conservation. There could be more benefits in biodiversity if herbicide changes allow weeds to remain longer in farmers' fields and emerge, which will provide food other species and for farmland birds.
The usage of herbicides should be in required quantity. The Royal Society published results of much farm-scale evaluations and impacts of HT maize, transgenic, sugar beet and spring canola. These studies help in the main effect of these crops compared with conventional cropping practice and with consequent effects on the populations that feed on it they find that these groups were showing negative effects. Most of Scientists do agree that extensive long-term use of GM crops can help in the development of resistant insect pests and weeds.
Breakdowns have occurred with both conventional crops and pesticides. There are over 120 species Worldwide of weeds which have developed resistance for the dominant herbicides which is used with GM crops. New transgenic crops which have higher tolerance to various stresses are developed which may allow farmers helps to cultivate soils which were before not arable. Many forms of Biotech toxin affect only those pests specific for that crop under treatment, which is lowering risks to harm those insects which are beneficial for others. These toxins are harmless to other mammals and humans. Genetic engineering is helping to make new strategies for plants to better defend themselves against harmful pests on their own. Biotech toxic are very specific but still there are some chances of affecting other non-target insects. But recently research work in Germany and in Switzerland, found no impact of non-target insects as the organisms under observation included lacewings, beetles, spiders, earthworms and hover flies. Genetic modification has generated theoretically to create unintended changes in the plant, which has resulted in addition of new allergens and increased expression of endogenous allergens. There are many government agencies that regulate GMOs.
Crops are tested in micro level for toxicity and macro/micro nutrients. Now GMOs do not consists of known toxicities. It is difficult to test them on humans so there is always a potential chance that these modified organisms that we consume as our food on daily basis could be cause of serious illness. So we can say that our health is potentially at risk. Using GMO’s on regular basis can cause harmful effects after any time period as it can alter DNA which could effect to human behavior and can cause serious issue to human health. There is not much scientific research has done on the impacts of GMO’s on human health. We can reorganized that potential benefits are countless, genetically, Economically engineered crops are less expensive to farmers and also help to get more crops by efficient use of land. GMOs crops require fewer amounts of pesticide and herbicide applications then crops without GMOs. It also provides more yield per acre. GMO’s are also used to fight hard climate conditions. In our world there are many factors that contribute to healthy crop which includes Soil nutrient status that helps plants to grow faster and healthier, Nutrient cycles are very important to all crops. But there has been growing concern about genetically modified plants affecting soil and nutrient cycles.
A lot of experiments have made to test how much a transgenic crop can change the amount of nitrogen and carbon in the soil. With a better understanding of nutrient cycles by experiments on GMOs and traditional crops, future yields could have less uncertainty. Nutrient Cycling (Carbon) is a process which is affected by GMOs as Plants are contributing to the cycling of nitrogen and carbon on earth and in the soil. These nutrients become part of soil through different processes. Carbon is a part of soil through biomass decomposition.
This process involves living organisms as they take in the carbon after they die the carbon is deposited back into the soil and become important part of nutrients. This organic carbon which is part of the soil is useful for microscopic organisms which also contribute to soil health. Similarly Nitrogen gets to be part of soil. The major part of nitrogen on the earth is located in the atmosphere which can be transferred into the soil by the use fertilizers and lightening. Most crops need nitrogen to live and grow and as the plant dies it also become part of soil providing it Carbone and nitrogen. These nitrogen and carbon cycles are natural cycles but they got disturbed as when we grow a crop on this soil and after growing in several years on same field the health of soil become nitrogen deficient as nitrogen is not recycled through natural cycle so we need fertilizers which are necessary for a crop to grow in faster and so it disturb natural cycles of nitrogen and carbon. To check the effect of genetically modified crop on these important nutrient cycles, we can look at a case studies .This case study was conducted to check the effects of GMOs and traditional crops on nitrogen mineralization and soil. There were three case study objectives.
First they wanted to point out the difference in quantity and composition of Biotech maize and traditional maize while grown under field conditions. Second taking extracts from different soil textures for evaluation of effect of the maize residues on nitrogen mineralization. Third they wanted to differentiate between Biotech residues and conventional residues on soil with inorganic nitrogen. The study of case was divided between aerobic incubation study and field study.
They perform multiple tests and got the conclusion that non-Biotech maize and Biotech maize had very small differences including yield amount. No significant differences observed in their roots, leaves, and stems in the multiple soils. Further more research is needed to know the effect does GMOs plants have long-term impacts on health of the soil. The use of GMOs is become hard topic but we still not idea where and how much stronger the risks are and does the use of GMO indeed reduces the use of pesticides or not. These crops should reduce pesticide use but if you look at reality the small amount of research so far shows dual results. While summarizing the effects of GMOs on environment we can conclude that Gene flow to other crop, land races, traditional wild, varieties, weedy related species are leading us with the loss of biodiversity. GMOs are also lowering the resistance mechanism of transgenes to insect which is leading to more different insect biotypes. GMO is the cause of development of more virulent viruses and increased invasiveness. It also increases the Effect of toxic to the transgenic products which are gained through insects.
GMOs have Non-foreseeable effects on earth’s ecosystems. Allergic reactions also a cause of many disease which is mostly cause of use of food produced by GM crops and products. GMOs have also long term impacts on human nature and its behaviors which some time lead to anger or laziness. Transfer of antibiotic resistance genes, used as selectable markers in the process of developing transgenic, to other organism’s effect badly. The possibilities of the risks cannot be null out on the basis of only scientific knowledge. The risk-benefit analyses can be considered by the probability of the count of risk to overall benefits of the technology. As we can now see that except the gene flow, the probabilities of these risks are extremely low. Moreover, if any events lead to major changes they will be identified in early generation and during biosafety evaluation. The GMO crops are widely accepted in all over the world. Some environmental groups in Europe have started campaigns in against the GE crops. They believe that as God’s created life and they say that “humans have no right to tinker with the genetic material which is the creation of God” so they explain it as “GE is against nature”.
These ideas have now founded more support in public and more and more peoples are moving towards this idea and started thinking about impacts of GMOs on environment. While day by day green political parties are gaining considerable power in Europe and becoming ruling parties or part coalition Governments. Human populations are stable or declining in many countries, so the requirement of crops is not much as that was before and productivity is high which includes part of products from forms, which are produced by heavily subsidized farmers. While in other countries such as India and most developing countries populations is growing and need for food is also growing but some other countries like Russia population is decreasing day by day still the overall impact of populations is much lower than the change in crops yields per acre.
Biosafety regulations for safety of environment
- Each transformation event, crop-gene combination, should be evaluated independently.
- Risks and environmental benefits should be evaluated with correct baseline
- Risk is dependent on the trait
This has lead Science Academies of China, Brazil, India, Mexico, U. S. National Science Academy, London, Third World Academy of Science, and the Royal Society, after considerable deliberations it brought out a common report for GE crops. Many others have also considered it as socially sensitive issues, ethical and such as transfer of human genes into animal. It has brought much of public acceptability from different societies. The main issue of food safety is also extensively examined by others.
Conclusions
GE crops are approved for cultivation only by the regulatory agencies are considered as safe as any other conventionally cultivars for our consumption and for the environment. Although the gene transfer, nitrogen and Carbone cycle disturbance are still considered hot issues among environmental activists and public. But it happens occasionally that they may transfer genes into wild related species or other neighboring fields or by out-crossing. Cross-pollination is even high in self-pollinated species which is a part of the nature to advance biodiversity. There are several actions that should be taken to ensure that GMO is not a threat to the humanity, the rest of creation and environment itself. Use of this technology is exploding each year but we do not know that where and how devastating the risks involved in it.
Even we do not know that who can benefit and who will lose. We need to act knowledgeably and responsibly to this technology. We require strong funding to meet the experimental challenges, reduce the risk involve, Proper regulatory and frequent communications. We also need to put public into this changes and development about GMO so that in case of any danger or harmful impact public can be notified on time which can reduced impacts.
References
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Ferry, N., & Gatehouse, M. R. (2009). Environmental Impact of Genetically Modified Crops. Food & Agriculture Org.
Jepson, C. (2006). Genetically Modified Organisms in Crop Production and Their Effects on the Environment. Food & Agriculture Org.
Mooney, A. (2009). Introduction of genetically modified organisms into the environment. International Council of Scientific Unions.
Romeis, J., Shelton, A. M., & Kennedy, G. G. (2008). Integration of Insectresistant Genetically Modified Crops Within Ipm Programs. Berlin: Springer.
