Genetically Modified Foods – Pros and Cons

There are many issues and benefits relating to the subject of Genetically Modified Foods. Many believe that this will solve the problem of world hunger and will create a surplus of foods and end for the worry of food shortage. But although this should be just a environmental issue it is not. Genetically Modified Food has issues in many different areas in global affairs such as environmental, economic, and political. The political and economic issues should be touched upon although I wont do much in this article but if you would like to know more they are in some of my sources. The politics of using GMFs is quite controversial in the sense of governments paying farmers and other producers to NOT produce the food. This decision affects the economy of nations in which the government is controlling the prices of food to keep businesses and other sellers running. With that said we now have to go into the environmental aspect of using GMFs and their affects on the world and its inhabitants.
The environmental benefits of using GMFs is quite simple but is very important to sustainability of growing populations around the world. One of the major benefits of GMFs is the fact that the crops being grown is maturing much faster than normal crops creating a lot more food and making it more available to the population. Another benefit of using GMFs is the dramatic reduction of pesticide use in societies using GMFs. These pesticides normally damage the surrounding environment and possibly run off into underground streams or nearby water sources and contaminate human drinking water for example. Natural effects on crops during the dry and cold seasons are no longer effective against GM crops due to the genetic change making these crops resistant to frost and drought conditions. GM crops can also carry medicines and vaccines to parts of the world where it is currently too costly to store and prepare them Genetically altered foods can also be manipulated to carry vitamins, minerals, and proteins that they otherwise would not have, increasing their healthiness.
However, many people criticize the use GMFs because of their negative side effects. GMFs can unintentionally harm other organisms, can reduce the effectiveness of pesticides with the danger of pests growing resistant to even GMF pesticides and harming the crop and gene transfer to non target species. Also there is an ongoing debate about the nutritional value of GMFs. Some scientists argue that the sped up process of producing crops causes them to not have complete nutritional values and thus less healthy than the other organic crops. Lastly there is no knowledge of the consequences of new genes being introduced into the human body or an increase in being allergic to GMFs.