Should we Grow GM Crops?

Instructions: Read the page and click YES or NO, reach the next...click YES or NO...etc until you’ve read all the arguments -- You will need to do this 12 times in order for your votes to be tallied. Navigate the site, each of the bold headings below are links within the site


1. What is a GM Crop.

A GM crop is any food that has been modified genetically, to improve its production or solve the crops' problems.



2. List 2 arguments FOR the growing of GM crops

It will lead to the end of pesticides, which are used at a rate of 970 MILLION tons a year. Instead of spraying poison, scientists can genetically engineer resistance to bacteria and viruses that may destroy a whole harvest. Also, GM crops can be male-sterile, leading to no pollen, which incurs less allergies to people.

It can lead to the gradual end of world hunger, due to the possibly huge harvests from GM crops. Right now, 1 in 12 people are malnourished. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics feels that this possibility is enough to justify continuing research in bioengineering. If scientists can create crops that grow twice the size in half the time, then, theoretically, there could be 4 times of the capacity of agriculture.


3. List 2 arguments AGAINST the growing of GM crops.
Health risks may come up, and a new allergen may be created through engineering. It also might cause bacteria in our stomachs to somehow acquire the antibiotic gene in some GM enzymes. Also, the genes changed may take over all other natural flavors of food, because of higher sustainability of its changed species through natural selection.

The economic impact may interfere with old mom-and-pop farms, that are not able to keep up with large corporations that can afford genetic engineering departments who can better their crops. Also, it may lead to loss of culinary diversity because the small farms that create exotic foods will go out of business because they won't be able to charge a premium when other people can produce cheaper food.




*Read some of the reader’s responses.



Engineer a Crop

4. Practice this simulation until you get the largest ears of corn. How many times did it take you?

It took me once, and I had to go through 4 rounds of breeding.


What’s for Dinner?

*Click on the foods on the table to see what research is being done to bioenginner the foods.

5. List two foods and desribe how they are being modified.

Cheese is being GMed, by having rennet injected to curdle cheese quicker. Also, coffee is also being modified to not be caffeinated on the genetic level, and the post-germinated coffee will not have to go through a full decaffeination process.


Viewpoints

*Read the article titled “Are GM Food Sufficiently Regulated in the US?”

Do you think food should be labeled if it has been genetically modified? Why or Why not?

I think it should. The consumer has a right to understand any unnatural occurrences to the products they are buying. However, education should be done to tell the public that GMed products are approved by the FDA, and go through a rigorous approval process. Also, any labels applied to it should not have to be overwhelmingly large; eating GMed foods is certainly not equivalent to the huge health problems incurred by smoking, which has huge signs on its boxes telling consumers about its toxic properties.





Finished? Go to www.yahooligans.com and type "genetic engineering" in the search field. Browse some of the sites that pop up.

(Yahooligans is better than yahoo, the sites tend to be picked for education rather than for scientists and universities, you'll find more understandable and interesting sites on yahooligans than you will with Yahoo)

Write down any of the sites you visited below.

http://www.eco-pros.com/genetic_engineering.htm
http://www.foodmuseum.com/issues.html
http://www.eurekascience.com/ICanDoThat/gen_eng.htm