by In the 19th century, the innovation and introduction of GMF’s into American farms changed the agricultural system forever. As we read, these new genetically modified foods, or GMF’s, were created in order to drastically increase the yield of various crops. This novel idea was done mainly in the 1950’s and 60’s through the various techniques of “backcrossing” and “linebreeding” in order to grow crops that expressed more favorable genes and mutations, such as resistance to insects, larger size and other genes that increased the overall yield of the crop. This was done mainly to solve growing food shortages in the US and all over the world as the population began to exponentially grow due to increased industrialization. While these various experiments were widely successful in doing so, do the ethical questions of which this widely influential technology and techniques has brought up overshadow its success? I argue that they do, but due to different factors, an alternative path to make the use of GMF’s more effective, equitable and generally more ethical remains unclear.
There are a number of key ethical issues of which have arised due to these “superfoods’ . First, the question of who are these GMF’s really benefiting. As we previously read, the consumer’s, or the people that are eating the foods, are only indirect causes for the creation of this technology, but in fact the farmers and sellers of such crops are the ones who truly benefit from them. The second large issue is the relative health of such foods. It can be argued that the gene modifications, like the first issue, are only to produce a higher yield for the farmers, and may not take into account the health of consumers, and could actually be harmful for them. Another issue that has arisen from these genetically modified foods is their detriment to the environment and the new genes’ potential negative effects on surrounding vegetation. Lastly, ethical issues such as religious grounds and economic side effects have also come to light. However, are the genetic modifications did increase overall yield in the crops, which alleviated food shortages to a large extent, against the potential future health concerns worth the risk of having some of the country left starving? This problem shows the double edged sword issues that GMF’s inherently have.
While these ethical issues are still quite prevalent today, it is also undoubtedly true how much these GMF’s are now a large part of our lives, not only as just food, but also many other ways of which they are used. Let us take corn for example. Most of the grown in the US is genetically modified. And with it being the most vastly grown crop in the country, along with its very diverse uses, it has been intertwined with almost every aspect of daily life. It can be used for food in the form of sweet corn, corn-on-the-cob, popcorn, High-fructose corn syrup, cornstarch, turned into ethanol which is used in gas for cars, and even used in some toothpaste and gum. While the ethical questions have still become apparent, the diverse uses and unsubstantiated health concerns have lost some of its overall potency due to wide-spread uses and general acceptance of GMF’s, like corn, in society. Also, because the creation of these ‘superfoods’ was the product of technological innovation in genomic editing done by cross breeding and forcing favorable mutations, it is hard to say of any alternative paths that could alleviate some of these ethical concerns regarding genetically modified foods so long as there isn’t another technological innovation like it. Thus, because of these new foods’ large involvement in various parts of society as well as heavy institutional investment into their continued use, it is quite difficult to say if there will be an alternative solution to make this field more effective and equitable through healthier, safer and overall better ethical means.
Sources:
https://www.fda.gov/food/agricultural-biotechnology/gmo-crops-animal-food-and-beyond
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/time-to-rethink-corn/#:~:text=Corn%20can%20be%20used%20for,or%20even%20bio%2Dbased%20plastics.