The advantages of GM food

The world population has topped 6 billion and is predicted to double in the next 50 years. To ensure an adequate food supply for this booming population is going to be a major challenge in the years to come. However, GM foods may be able to meet this need in a number of ways.

:. AdvaNtaGes of GM foOds?

1) Pest resistance:

Crop losses from insect pests can result in devastating financial loss for farmers and starvation in developing countries. Farmers typically use many tons of chemical pesticides annually. However, consumers do not wish to eat food that has been treated with pesticides because of potential health hazards, and these large amount of fertilizers and pesticides used could poison the water supply and cause harm to the environment.

2) Herbicide tolerance:

For some crops, it is not cost-effective to remove weeds by physical means such as tilling, so farmers will often spray large quantities of different herbicides (weed-killer) to destroy weeds, a time-consuming and expensive process, that requires care so that the herbicide doesn't harm the crop plant or the environment. Crop plants genetically-engineered to be resistant to one very powerful herbicide could help prevent environmental damage by reducing the amount of herbicides needed.
Disease resistance There are many viruses, fungi and bacteria that cause plant diseases. Plant biologists are working to create plants with genetically-engineered resistance to these diseases.

3) Cold tolerance:

Unexpected frost can destroy sensitive seedlings. An antifreeze gene from coldwater fish has been introduced into plants such as tobacco and potato. With this antifreeze gene, these plants are able to tolerate cold temperatures that normally would kill unmodified seedlings

4) Drought tolerance/salinity tolerance:

As the world population grows and more land is utilized for housing instead of food production, farmers will need to grow crops in locations previously unsuited for plant cultivation. Creating plants that can withstand long periods of drought or high salt content in soil and groundwater will help people to grow crops in formerly inhospitable places

5) Nutrition:

Malnutrition is common in third world countries where impoverished peoples rely on a single crop such as rice for the main staple of their diet. However, rice does not contain adequate amounts of all necessary nutrients to prevent malnutrition. If rice could be genetically engineered to contain additional vitamins and minerals, nutrient deficiencies could be alleviated. For example, blindness due to vitamin A deficiency is a common problem in third world countries. Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Institute for Plant Sciences have created a strain of "golden" rice containing an unusually high content of beta-carotene (vitamin A). Since this rice was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, a non-profit organization, the Institute hopes to offer the golden rice seed free to any third world country that requests it.

6) Pharmaceuticals:

Medicines and vaccines often are costly to produce and sometimes require special storage conditions not readily available in third world countries. Researchers are working to develop edible vaccines in tomatoes and potatoes. These vaccines will be much easier to ship, store and administer than traditional injectable vaccines.