Safety must come first. Ironically, the biotechnology industry has done and is doing an excellent job in this respect, yet the thought of manipulating the very hereditary substance of plants and animals - our food - is hard to be accepted by traditionalists. While scientists deem genetically modified food safe, the public, particularly in Europe, will not eat it. Many consumer advocates and environmentalists are convinced that this wide production of GMO should be stopped.
There are supporters and opposers of this developing field of science. Ethical and practical concerns therefore should be considered. Caught by our grown up traditions and as dictated by the society, many of us tend to lag behind the progressing ideas of life and science.
Biotechnology as an application of biological knowledge can help improve industrial processes and food production. As a subset of genetic engineering it employs isolation of desirable genes from other organisms. These genes are then manipulated and incorporated to target products. Basically, genetically modified organisms (GMO) are organisms whose genetic material has been altered to come up with relatively more beneficial products. This is in response to increasing demands of people in time that should be satisfied.
Advocates of genetic engineering believe that advances being made with regards to GM foods offer a way to quickly improve crop characteristics such as yield, pest resistance, or herbicide tolerance often to a degree not possible to traditional methods. In turn, it can increase food security for growing populations and in poor countries which rely on crops as main staple of their diet.
A lot of worries on this concern also arise pertaining to fears that it is ethically unacceptable to interfere with nature and that it is against the very essence of humanity. Opposers also believe that there are potential negative impacts in biotechnology when in fact nothing has been proven.
Come to think of it. People tend to look and find faults whenever something new is discovered. Biotechnology has a lot to offer in medicine, agricultural and food industries. Isn’t time for us to move out of our bins and support biotechnology?
From the works of it, it does seem that the potential for biotechnology is boundless, thereby implying magnitude of power that’s in the hands of its advocates and practitioners. This is why it is faced with a range of controversies about its possible negative effects but scientists working in Biotechnology are not blind to these apprehensions.
Genetic engineering requires great precision. A large part of science involves learning how to make things better. Do we stop all scientific research because learning how to make things better also teaches us what makes them worse? God gave us intellect and it depends on us on how to use it. Biotechnology stands to give us better and brighter future. There’s nothing wrong in availing and accepting its wonderful products. Risks notwithstanding, biotechnology has more benefits to offer to humankind and it is time to support this field of science.
John Mark Katindig Torres
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