Topic 7: Difference between crop domestication through selective breeding and genetically modified agricultural crops

    Farmers have used selective breeding for ages to increase the robustness and output of their crops and to produce and encourage other desirable traits. But there are some pretty huge differences between the techniques they’ve traditionally used and the high-tech ones being implemented today on mega farms that produce GM corn, cotton, soy, and canola. If traditional selective breeding is like two people with two different sets of genes being paired up by a matchmaker who thinks they’ll have pretty, healthy kids together, then modern high-tech GM breeding is like Victor Frankenstein slicing ‘superior’ body parts out of fifteen different corpses and using them to sew together his powerful, yet frighteningly unpredictable, monster. The most critical difference between natural and GM breeding is that natural breeding crosses only organisms that are already closely related—two varieties of corn, for example—whereas, in contrast, GM breeding slaps together genes from up to 15 wildly different sources.

      To make a GM plant, scientists need to isolate DNA from different organisms—bacteria, viruses, plants, and sometimes animals. They then recombine these genes biochemically in the lab to make a "gene construct," which can consist of DNA from five to fifteen different sources. This gene construct is cloned in bacteria to make lots of copies, which are then isolated. Next, the copies are shot into embryonic plant tissue, or moved into plant tissue via a particular bacterium that acts as a vector. After getting the construct copies into the embryonic plant tissue, whole plants are regenerated. Only a few plants out of many hundreds will turn out to grow normally and exhibit the desired trait—such as herbicide resistance.

     And it’s not just cotton, corn, soy, and canola that are being genetically modified anymore—GM alfalfa and GM sugar beets are on the way.  Many food safety activists are, like Holdrege and Mendelson, concerned about the effects these six major GM crops will have on ecosystems, on agricultural production, and on our bodies. All that aggressive lab work, they argue, has the potential to bring consequences we can’t anticipate. Genetic modification has certainly upped agricultural output, which is a plus when food prices are high and many parts of the world are experiencing or are at risk for famine.

     In my opinion, Through the mass genetic modification of nature via GMO crops, animals, biopesticides, and the mutated insects that are created as a result, mega biotechnology corporations are threatening the overall genetic integrity of the environment as well as all of humankind. As the production and consumption of GMO crops continue to soar, it is becoming increasingly apparent that consumers worldwide are unknowingly participating as ‘test subjects’ in a massive experiment on the long-term effects of GMO crops and ingredients. In fact, nearly 93% of US soybeans are genetically modified in order to resist powerful weed-killers that were found to be killing the actual soybeans as well as the weeds. So it turns out that the weedkiller was actually strong enough to kill the soybeans, yet it is considered safe for consumption. After the genetic alteration, these powerful weed-killers now simply drench the genetically modified soybeans.