Biology GM foods

Essay by Nicolaus.KochHigh School, 12th gradeB, February 2004

download word file, 4 pages 3.8

Biology essay: The advantages and disadvantages of genetically modified food

For thousands of years we temped with genes of plants by traditional breeding, but only within the same species. Genetic modified food start to take place all over the world in the 20th century. This is the movement of genetic material from one organism to another but the type of organism does not have to be the same, which means that it could be a movement from a gene of the human organism to a gene from an organism from a tomato or another vegetable. The number of food on the EU market increase and round 1995 was the percentage of gene manipulated soybeans at 2% while in 2000 it was over 80%.

The main reason why they actually used gm food was that the world hunger increased and especially in the third world countries it is very helpful. The world population increase strongly and the size of the yields can't compensate that.

A lot of people don't like to eat food which is full with pesticides. The gene manipulated Bt-176 maize is resistant against pests so do not need that much pesticide. In addition this lower coasts because the farmers don't need to buy those pesticides.

When using "normal" vegetables farmers need also other kinds of pesticides for example herbicides against weeds. This is also high in coasts and can even damage the crops and has agricultural waste run-off. In this case the big firms like the most famous one Monsanto created products which get applied to the crops once and then will totally protect them from weeds.

Another example is that potatoes and tobacco can die because of frost. An anti freeze gene from a cold water fish helps to stop that so the farmers can earn all...