GMOs; What Are the Reasons of Both Sides?

This process creates combinations of animal, plant, bacterial and virus genes that is not a natural process and do not occur through traditional crossbreeding methods. GMOs affects many of the products, foods, fruits and so on, that we consume on a daily basis. Scientists, consumers and environmental groups have warned many health and environmental risks with foods containing GMOs. Soil degradation is also another problem produced by GMOs. As the number of GMOs available for commercial use grows every year, the Non-GMO Project works diligently to provide the most accurate, up-to-date standards for non-GMO verification to inform people about its losses.

Pros and cons of GMOs

GMOs is a controversial technology to change genes structure to improve it. The benefits and harms of this technology and its outcomes have been debated. While most of countries in the world rejected planting and consuming GMOs or treated them with great hesitation, the US has somewhat embraced GMOs. However, here we try to show the reasons both sides have for their treatment.

Advantages of GMOs

1. Less soil and more crops

The first reason that pros of GMOs bring is a tremendous growth in crops. GMO crops can be engineered to produce higher yields from the same croplands. In some instances, the crop yields can potentially double when the transition from traditional crops to GMO crops is completed by local farmers. This process allow governors and food producers to meet the food demands of the future generations, we are going to face. By 2050, upwards of 10 billion people are expected to be living on our planet and feeding this amount of population is impossible without GMOs. Oxfam currently estimates that global food production is enough to feed about 8 billion people.

2. Reduction of Global warming

Global warming will be reduced as farmers plant GMO crops because they will be able to farm more plants and crops specially growing those that they were not able to be planted as “unsustainable crops”.  More plants and crops at more areas causes increased oxygen in the environment and decreased carbon dioxide and finally reduction of global warming. British economists noted in a study that genetically modified crops have made significant contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by over 10 million tons, which is equivalent to removing 5 million cars from the road each year. May be this is a permit for people for having their personal cars during the day.

3. More nutritional value to crops

The GMO method can boost nutritional value to crops that lack necessary vitamins and minerals. Considering that there are places in the world relying on rice or corn as their daily staple, plant genes may be added to these crops to increase their nutritional value. This method allows malnourished populations to improve their malnourishment by receiving more nutrients from their diet.

4. Positive environmental impact with GMO crops

As a matter of fact, GMO crops require fewer in-field operations and applications to save the quality of the crop. For this reason, fewer passes over the field are required. It also decreases the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are produced through fossil fuel combustion with different farming equipment such as: tractors, combines and… Carbon dioxide is also dumped in the soil, so fewer passes means less of a release occurs there as well.

5. Less time and more benefits

GMOs have become a very effective methods for farmers to make larger profits and make more money, as it allows them to spend less time on resources. It has also some economic benefits that these organisms are designed to be pest-resistant, eliminating the need to use pesticides, which means more savings.