Farming has been around for a long time, ten thousand years according to many experts. And ever since the first humans learned how to plant and harvest crops, they've steadily been improvements over the years. These improvements helped them to get more food out the same piece of land. And as the world's population has grown, farming has helped out by continuously increasing the capacity of a finite piece of land. The latest technological developments in farming include genetic engineering, which promises to not only increase the amount of food grown, but to increase it's nutritional value as well. But is this a good thing? In this article I'll go over the advantages and disadvantages, so that you can decide for yourself.
First of all, farmers have been genetically engineering crops for centuries. Whenever they mix seeds together to produce different plants, that is genetic engineering. One of the benefits of genetically engineered crops is to increase the nutrition of today's food. It's no secret that by eating a diet rich in carbohydrates can lead to diabetes, heart disease, and other ailments.
However, with genetic engineering, it may be possible to alter the carbohydrate/protein ratio, giving allowing for grain based foods that don't contain an overabundance of carbohydrates. Modern plant oils are another problem. Most modern plant oils don't contain the proper balance of fatty acids, which can lead to high cholesterol. However, with genetically altered foods, these modern plant oils can contain a much better blend of fatty acids, which can lead to better cardiovascular health.
The genetic engineering of today is much different than it was in the past. In the past, it took several years to make small changes. One small change per year, and then it took farmers several years after that to include the altered food in their crops, just to make sure there wasn't any hidden dangers. However, today, genetic changes are made much quicker, and some feel that this might make it much harder to see any negative effects.
The benefits of genetically altering plants historically was a much slower process. The changes were easier to see, as well as their effects. By dramatically changing a plants genetic makeup with radiation, these changes might be hidden for some time, and might cause diseases that we don't even know about yet.
To be sure, there are, and there have been, plenty of benefits to growing genetically altered food. However, scientists must be careful not to make changes too quickly, or else unfortunate, and unintended consequences may result.