We explain what genetically modified foods are and what genetic modifications are for. Also, its advantages and criticisms.
What are genetically modified foods?
Transgenic foods are plant organisms modified by genetic engineering and other bioengineering techniques in order to give it new properties and achieve more resistant, abundant crops and/or with larger products.
Transgenic foods are obtained as part of species improvement projects only no longer through traditional methods of natural selection or hybridization (whose products are usually sterile), but by inserting genes from another similar species into the species, to introduce specific changes in the reproduction of the species.
The first transgenic plant produced was born in 1983 and three years later the multinational company Monsanto was already marketing it. It was a tobacco plant in which a gene had been inserted to make it resistant to the antibiotic Kanamycin. In 1994, the Calgene company began marketing the first transgenic product: Flavr Savr tomatoes.
These types of genetic modification techniques are currently applied with corn and soybeans among other vegetables for mass consumption, through the sale of transgenic seeds “manufactured” by large agrotechnology corporations. The five countries that produce the largest amount (almost 95%) of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are Canada, the United States, Brazil, Argentina and China.
See also: Nutrition
Criticisms of genetically modified foods
The genetically modified food industry has often been accused of marketing unsafe foods, with greater allergenicity or toxicity. The research by Exwen and Pustzai in 1999 was famous in this sense, in which they fed two groups of rats with natural and transgenic potatoes respectively, evidencing greater deterioration in the case of the latter. However, flaws in the experimental procedures and designs incurred by these scientists discredited their results.
The results regarding the eventual long-term toxicity of genetically modified foods are contradictory and inconclusive. However, this It is not the only concern in this regard.
A controversial point regarding genetically modified foods has to do with the gradual replacement of natural strains with those intervened by man whose artificially induced resistance would give it unfair advantages in competing with wild strains. This would eventually lead to the impoverishment of the gene pool and also involves complicated intellectual property issues, which would force farmers to pay royalties to the company that provides them with the genetically modified seeds.
Advantages of genetically modified foods
The genetically induced advantages of this type of food have to do not only with the achievement of species with larger size and greater profitability which could serve to combat hunger in a world with an increasing human population; but also with obtaining plants that are more resistant to pests and other substances for agricultural use.
This would allow the intensive cultivation of plant species and the increase in production and distribution in local and regional markets. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that due to climate change, agricultural productivity would decrease between 9 to 12% by the year 2050. Transgenic foods could constitute a way to combat the coming famine.
Continue with: Biotechnology
