Methods of Genetic Modification

Different types of food required different type of genes modification, for example it would be more appropriate to use bacterium gene (Agrobacterium Tumefasciens) for plants; for cereals, 'gene cannon' and for animals, viruses.


Biological Methods

1.Modification using bacteria gene

Its is acheived by inserting the bacterium gene into the DNA of the plant, the gene will then be hooked on to the bacterial DNA. Plant cells that are exposed to it will be infected. The bacterial DNA and the engineered gene will then be inserted into the plant cell.

2. Modification using viruses

Viruses DNA are encapsulated in a protein shell. The engineered viruses proceed to the cell nulceus, unlike normal viruses the engineered virus do not force the cell to make copies of the virus; it will only introduced the desired DNA and some virus genes into the DNA of the recipient similar to Agrobacterium Tumefasciens.


Mechanical methods

1.Modification using 'Gene Cannon'

The selected gene is introduced to the surface of very small golden beads. The beads are then shot into the cell.

2.Microinjection

The selected gene is in a solution form and is then injected into the cell nucleus.

Benefits of GM food

Benefits to consumers

Nutritional Level

People from the developing countries are often malnutrition. They mostly rely only on their staple food such as rice, but rice does not provide them with enough nutrients they need. GM food on the other hand is able to provide them with more nutrients than the normal food. One example would be the ‘golden’ rice that contain high amount of beta carotene. This will help the large number of people suffering from Vitamin A deficiency. Furthermore, the ‘golden rice’ is made to increase the uptake of iron from the soil and when taken will increase the absorption rate of iron in our body solving the iron deficiency problems in developing countries.

The ‘golden’ rice has greater yields compared to the normal rice hence beneficial to the nutritional levels of the people in developing countries, solving problems like food shortages that lead to starvation and malnutrition.

Environmental tolerance

1.1 Cold tolerance
1.2 Drought tolerance

Cold tolerance

GM crop consists of seedlings that are tolerance the very low temperature, hence prevents them from being destroyed in unexpected cold weather. It is done by introducing the genes of fishes that can withstand cold temperature into food like tobacco,

Drought tolerance

Creating GM crops that can withstand drought can help developing countries with dry weather conditions. It can solve the problem of starvation and malnutrition and the problem of land constrain.

Pharmaceutical

Vaccines are always too costly for people in the third world countries, and often require certain storage condition that is not available. Hence researchers are creating GM foods that have the ability to act as vaccines. This will solve the problem of the cost and the storage conditions of the vaccines; example of such food is tomato.

Phtoremediation

Toxins like heavy metal are often present in the soil. Trees are genetically modified to clean up the heavy metal.

Labeling GM food

Labeling GMO products

GM food is said to be required for labeling when the food contains a novel DNA or protein. It does not require labeling when it has no novel DNA or protein but was produced from GM plants as long as there is less than 0.1% of GM food concentration present in the food; this is a problem to consumers who are abstaining from all GM food due to ethical reasons. This would mean that the consumers would not know which of the conventional foods are accidentally mixed with GM food, since it is not labeled.

Certain GM food may cause allergy to some people, failing to label the GM food product would put the consumers’ health at stake. Consumers would buy the product thinking it is safe for their consumption.

Labeling of GM food is to let the consumers know what they are buying and consuming. Maximum labeling is to protect the consumers’ rights to the information on the products they are buying.

Labeling the GM food also lets the consumers know that they are buying food of a better quality. They will then know that GM food contains higher nutritional levels and would be able to find out which food contains medicinal benefits, e.g. bananas with bacteria antigens, or tomato with longer shelf life. Labeling with also let them know that the GM food that they are purchasing has lesser chemical application. This then might change the concept on GM food

GM food

GM food are foods that had gone through genetic modification of the DNA, this is made possible by the use of biotechnology.

Examples of GM foods in the world are:


Soybeans: Herbicide tolerance

Corn: Pesticide resistant

Cotton: Pest resistant

Tomatoes: Longer shelf life

Rapeseed (Canola): Pesticide resistant

Sugar cane: Pesticide resistant

Sweet corn: Pesticide resistant

Rice: Enhanced nutritional levels

Advantages on the environment

Pest resistance

Yields are often low due destruction by insects pests, which results in poor income and even starvation in some of the developing countries. To prevent such incidents from happening farmers would usually use a lot of pesticides on the crops to kill off the pests. Since consumers do not prefer to consume food that were treated with excessive pesticides as it might affect ones health, profit for the farmers will still be low. Excessive use of pesticides might also cause pollution to any water supply nearby.
GM food however will prevent such situations from happening as they have the ability of being pest resistance. This not only solves the pest problems, but also helps the farmers to reduce the cost of farming by cutting down on the pesticides used.

Herbicide tolerance

Many farmers spray herbicides to destroy weeds since it is more labour and cost effective. For every different type of weed, a different herbicide is needed to eliminate the weed. Hence there will be many cases in which over herbicides are used. Over using herbicides will not only incur high cost, but also harm the environment. GM crops have the advantage of being resistant to very powerful herbicides that could eliminate all of the different species of weed. Farmers only need to use one type of herbicide instead of multiple types. Farmers can then lower the cost of production and at the same time reduce the damage cause to the environment.

Disadvantages on the environment

The two traits being introduced to crops; herbicide tolerant (HT) and insects tolerant (Bt).
Herbicide tolerant (HT) involves altering the genes of the plant so that they are resistant to a very strong herbicide.
Insects tolerance (Bt), involves having the plant to produce the insecticide themselves so as to reduce the need of spraying pesticides. This is done by introducing a Bt gene into the plant. Bt gene is a gene from a bacterium that can produce natural insecticides.

Harming other insects

GM crops such as Bt corn helps to eliminate the problem of crop harming pests. Since there is no way to make Bt crop kill only the crop harming pest whenever a pollen of the Bt crop landed on a natural habitat it may wipe out a number of species of insects that were not targeted.

Stronger Pests and weeds

GM crops mostly have a short lifespan because the Bt crops are always overused. When the Bt crops are overused it will lose it effectiveness against the pests and virus. Insects and viruses will evolve into stronger species that are resistant to the pesticides.
Weeds have also evolved to become herbicide resistant; an example would be mare’s tail (resistant horseweed), the weed was known to resistant to glyphosate. The Glyphosate resistant horseweed showed up in soybeans and cotton and was spreading quickly through the United States.

Soil Toxicity

Since the GM crops are resistant to toxic herbicides and pesticides it means that stronger herbicides and pesticides and be introduced to the crops and they could be sprayed onto the entire crops rather than just on the weeds. The large amounts of herbicides and pesticides sprayed will result in soil toxicity. These herbicides leaches out into rivers and ponds causing excessive growth of weeds until the surface of the ponds are completely covered; plants in the ponds will not get enough sunlight for photosynthesis to produce oxygen for the organisms living in the pond.

Pesticides stay in the soil for many years, degrading the quality of the soil. It will also affect the animals like birds, chicken that feed on insects that live in/ on the insecticides and eventually affecting us, after consuming the affected animals.

Labeling GM food

A comic about the controversial issues of labeling GM food.