The world's population has been exponentially rising for the past decades, causing an increase in the demand for food which gives major challenges to the food security of the world. Food security is achieved when most people have economic and material access to adequate, safe, and healthy food. Unfortunately, this reality is non-existent for the majority of the world's population. Approximately 900 million people are still malnourished and don't have access to quality and nutritious food (FAO, 2012). According to the World Health Organization, malnutrition and hunger are major crises and pose a grave threat to humanity thus we need to find another solution to feed the increasing number of hungry stomachs. In response, many industrialized countries have included the biotechnological concept of Genetically Modified Organisms or GMOs to improve their food productivity and quality enhancement. However, this goal is still debated controversially and it takes a series of criticism and careful observations from the scientific community themselves.
Genetically modified organisms according to Bodnar (2016) are organisms created through the biotechnological transfer of selected genetic material from one organism to another which aims to produce novel selections of flora and fauna with chosen characteristics. Since humans have interfered in the genetic development of plants and animals over the millennia, these new bio-engineered interventions are a new way of approaching and fixing an organism to bypass natural penalties such as diseases and limitations and more specifically, to create a new type of food or GM Food which is sustainably be reproduced at regular short intervals with its quality being competent with the commercially available one.
Some examples of GMO food are 'Golden rice' and 'EAHB Ugandan sweet banana'. Ronald (2013) claims that Golden rice produces beta-carotene, which helps people get Vitamin A and the creation of this rice is justified because Vitamin A deficiency causes blindness in 0.5 million people every year according to Belcher (2007). This deficiency most significantly affects people in developing countries living in poverty. These populations also rely on rice as a staple food source, so it makes sense that this golden rice is distributed by governments free of charge (Sharma 2015). The creation of the genetically modified sweet banana is justified because the fungus Black Sigatoka causes leaf spot disease that reduces the yield of the plant by 50%. Modifying the banana makes it resistant to this fungus, which is essential to eliminating the threat to food security because Uganda relies on bananas as a staple crop thus increasing the output yield for this product.
With this, GMOs can provide a solution for malnutrition in countries where their main staple crop is rice by incorporating vitamins and minerals into rice plants (Sharma, 2015). One great example is the Philippines. Here we use to deal with genetically modified rice such as violet rice, brown rice, and red rice to supply our daily needs of Vitamin C and E which are needed for healthy skin and a strong immune system. There is also an enhanced wheat species cultivated in the Cagayan Region according to the Department of Science and Technology Region 2 which is incorporated in some proportions to commercial noodles such as Lucky Me and Pancit Canton. The product with raw materials being GM wheat is labeled with HALAL or the Philippine Fortification System of food, essentially indicating that the product is fortified with additional nutrients compared to those without the seal.
When it comes to taste, a group of food scientists from Brazil, the Institute of Food Sciences and Technology – ICTA instituted by the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul's Academic Council conducted a survey to test whether a commercially available GM tomato is way tastier than the normal one. The survey tells that over 70 percent of the respondents or roughly 76.88 percent say that the modified one tastes even better, near likely a cherry compare to the conventional one. This indicates that changing the structural DNA of a food item is directly changing its taste as well, with some variations depending on the series of genetic information inserted into it.
Whitman (2014) believes that GMOs have various advantages for t society's welfare. For example, GM crops can have the property of pest resistance and geneticists used a bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis, or B.t which is a pest to plants to put this characteristic. Simply put in this context, the thing which can give you protection against the venom of a snake is that specific venom itself. Having the pest resistance trait built into the crop will allow farmers to lessen the amount of pesticide they use on their plants, thus preventing too many chemicals from getting into the water supply and food chain. This can be seen in B.t corn in 2014, where farmers used on average 30% less pesticide which gives fewer chemicals to the environment, lowering the risk of contaminating the soil and destroying its natural pH value as observed by Andersen (2018). She also discusses the advantage of engineered crops on drought/salinity and possibly a tundra-like tolerance, making once inhospitable places able to grow food. This, in turn, could provide more food across the world. For example, crops such as potatoes and carrots have been introduced with a gene from cold-water fish, making the crops able to withstand the cold and frost (Ronald et.al, 2013).
These transgenic modifications also offer a new path of progressive revolution in the production of food and pharmaceuticals and even herald the possibility of ending world hunger as discussed by Ecol Econ (2005). In connection with this, Dr. Anita Bakshi, author of 'Potential Adverse Health Effects of Genetically Modified Crops' states the health benefits of GMOs and one of these is the maintenance of food supply and raw resources. She further claims that the world's population is expected to increase by 2025 to more than 9.5 billion people and that GMOs can offer the only feasible and fastest solution to this by producing engineered animals and plants with a very short span of growth for food production, pest and virus protection and increasing their ability to withstand factors such as poor soil conditions and drought for plants and extremes of temperatures for the animals.
However, the potential effects of genetically modified organisms on income, poverty, and nutrition in developing countries continue to receive criticism and scientific analysis from the community to test their effectiveness. An example of this is the effect of B.t Cotton which has already been adopted by millions of small-scale farmers in India, China, and South Africa (Belcher 2007). On average, farmers benefit from minimizing insecticide costs, higher product yield, and significant income gains. Insights from India suggest that GM cotton generates employment and reduces the poverty rate. Also, it shows that the 'Golden Rice' circulation in India reduces the health-related problems associated with Vitamin A, significantly minimizing pediatric death by up to 40,000 per year. These demonstrate that it can contribute to maintaining and improving the economic and nutritional stability of a country however to realize such social benefits on a larger scale, it requires more public support for research targeted to the poor as well as a more efficient regulatory and technology delivery system.
In a similar vein to ethics, there is a religious aspect to the GMO phenomenon. Many faith-based communities as well as private sectarian groups are studying GMOs and have already formulated their statements. As people of faith, they believe that life is from God and not subject to human ownership and domination. The National Catholic Rural Life Conference and Roman Catholic Church have called for a freeze on the proliferation of genetically engineered foods while the questions around GMOs are still being studied. A statement by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), accompanied by Archbishop Antonio Luis Tagle supports the international effort to declare the 'common heritage of humanity' with the understanding that the preservation of genetic makeup is a sacred thing to God and He designs each creation with such limitation to draw the connection to others and fill that imperfection.
In conclusion, weighing all the arguments presented, I am in favor of GMO food because as a student, I believe that GMOs, like anything else, can still be improved and are lacking in some aspects, such as finding a way to eliminate pesticides in agriculture and that they need to be studied more for any sort of developing side effects. However, I understand with any technology it is impossible to know everything long-term about something and that no one will truly know until this technology has been around for a long period of time. I like the fact that we can create overall safe crops that can develop cold and pest-resistant genes. It is an amazing and revolutionary technology in the agriculture industry. It is also a good thing the fact that we can incorporate minerals and vitamins into a country's strand of rice to help prevent malnutrition is completely life-changing, as it can offer huge benefits for so many people. The fact is that scientific research is always developing and studies can be proven inconclusive at times, as is the case with Janoska's (2016) example of the study done on B.t bacteria possibly transferring into the gut. GMOs in my perspective are something which is needed to be continued and further supported financially to create more research and studies on the subject to help possibly eliminate underlying controversies. However, it is still a fairly new conceive concept of technology, and with any new idea comes some initial problems that have to be overcome. But with the overwhelming advantages, I think it is worth taking the time to fix the problems. Extensive public awareness campaigns are also required to address the concerns consumers have about the new technology and to highlight biosafety measures and the benefit of genetically modified crops. Integration of modern biotechnology, with sustainable conventional agricultural practices, sound discipline, ethical consideration, and practical application of skills and knowledge can achieve the aim of attaining food security as well as environmental stability.
I also see the benefits to the developing world, the greatest being the possibility of better nutrition where before their diet didn't sufficiently meet their nutritional needs. I also recognize that the population is rapidly growing, which leads me to worry about the amount of food we are producing and food security for the future. The 1960s Green Revolution tripled the world's food production (Brooles G. and Barffot F., 2014) and I consider we need this again to catch up with our increasing population. Additionally, I realize that the world is urbanizing at a greater rate than ever before which means that there will be a decrease in available land because more houses are needed to be built to sustain the growing cities and we need GMO foods because they can produce more food and with less space. Finally, I stand on the idea that genetically modifying food is critical because climate change is increasing extreme weather and climate conditions which is negatively impacting plants. We need plants that can combat these extreme conditions. Although I believe that the benefits outweigh the risks, I think that research is still needed to fully evaluate GMO food's nutritional benefits, environmental impact, and any adverse effects on consumers.
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