• Question: What is so good about GM crops? And what is so good about them?

    Asked by wookiee to Amelia, Clem, Izzy, Sarah on 13 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Isabel Webb

      Isabel Webb answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      Genetic modification involves taking a gene from one species and inserting that DNA into another species. This could be taking the gene for an entire protein and putting it into a crop. Or it could involve taking the bit of DNA before a gene and putting it into a crop – for example a bit of DNA that makes the plant make lots of a certain protein.

      We can use GM to develop lots of different positive traits for crops. This could be making them use water better, or making them produce a chemical that scares away predators (this is being done in the UK right now!). It might allow them to become resistant to certain diseases – people where I work are trying to make potatoes resistant to a major disease called potato blight. It can also help to improve the quality of food. Someone else where I work made PURPLE tomatoes (they are exciting – google them!). These purple tomatoes might have heart-disease fighting benefits, which is pretty cool!

      People worry that growing GM crops means that the new genes will spread into the environment and kill off other species. Often people who don’t understand GM think that we are creating poisons or unhealthy foods, or only doing it for the money. This isn’t true. All GM research in the UK is funded specifically to improve crops for the better and improve the lives of farmers and the public. One problem is that people don’t understand the science and so get scared – when in fact, the science is pretty exciting and has lots of potential to make amazing things!

    • Photo: Amelia Frizell-Armitage

      Amelia Frizell-Armitage answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      I often like to tell people that actually all the crops we eat are in some way GM. For example, if wheat was left alone to grow naturally in the environment it would be much smaller than it is now, produce much less grain, and look more like thin blades of grass. 10 000 years ago people discovered that wheat was good to eat and started to farm it. The process of farming actually modified the genes of the plant to make it into what it is now. So, the wheat we eat IS genetically modified, only this modification took thousands of years! Now with new methods in the laboratory we can do this same process in days rather than years.

      In order to make GM plants now, instead of breeding them for thousands of years, we are able to put a new gene straight into the DNA of the plant. If used in the right way GM crops could be a really great thing for us to use. Some examples:

      We can introduce genes that make the plant produce important vitamins that the plant doesn’t normally make . This would be good for people living in countries where they get very ill because can’t have access to the right nutrients in their diet. We can introduce genes to make the plants more resistant to pests so that we don’t have to put so much pesticides on our crops. This would be great as pesticides are really bad for our health and for the environment. We may even be able to introduce genes that turn the plant into a factory for producing medicines. We could one day have super plants that you just eat to cure cancer or other serious diseases.

      I think one of the problems with GM crops are how expensive they are to make. This means that they are often made by big companies that are only interested in making money and not interested in helping other people and the environment. Therefore they put a very high price on the GM seeds and the people that really need the GM crops can’t afford to buy them. It is no use making a plant that produces lots of vitamins when the people in need of the vitamins can’t have it! This problem could be solved if the government gave universities more money to do GM research. This way GM crops can be made by scientists like me that are not interested in making money but want to help people instead!

      Wow long answer! Sorry about that.

    • Photo: Clemence Bonnot

      Clemence Bonnot answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      if we consider GM as plant in which foreign genes have been introduce most of the plants that we use for food are natural GM but in fact lots of plants are natural GMs.
      Plants have this great ability to cross with other plant species and give viable offspring more often than animal.
      Talking about wheat, this plant is actually a mix of 3 different grasses of the same family but not same species.
      Colza (Brassica napus) is also a mix of 2 species the mustard (Brassica nigra) and the turnip (Brassica rapa)…
      In the case of Wheat we think that these crosses occurs from humans but in the case of colza this has happened in the wild.
      GM crop themselve are not so GOOD. You cannot talk about all GM in one go. One GM is a plant in which a specif gene is introduced so all GM are different.
      Usually a gene giving to the plant an advantage is introduced, for example being more resistant to a pest.
      Making a GM is in fact a faster way to introduce a specific gene in a plant than the usual crosses that human have used for centuries.
      So in this context GM would not be worst or better than all the fruits that were not existing before humans (banana, clementine etc…).
      In fact GM (bacteria GM) are already used a lot to produce medicines. In this case we can imagine that it is better to have organisms able to produce huge amount of these important compounds rather that cutting a lot of trees to get one plant than have a little of it… it also allow to have more of this coumpound and to have it cheapest so more accessible for the population.
      In lab GMs are used to elucidate the role of the genes and are very usefull tools as well as mutants are.
      In an agricultural context they could be use to get plant that resist to more difficult environment or pest or produce more yield without spending years in crossing and selecting and adapting… this could answer food security problem faster.
      BUT because we can introduce whatever gene we could imagine in plants and make that happen very quickly with the technology of the GM plants, we have to be more carefull than with crosses.
      Crosses takes time so their is plenty of time that the plant adapt to the environment and to study if they are not any danger for human consumption and environment. GM are made faster so we must not forget these studies. If they are done than their is no more risks than the one of crossed plant and maybe even less risks for or health and the environment than spreading pest control chemical on the fields.
      GM and organic food are not incompatible and could even be more compatible than non GM crops because more resistant so able to produce more in a non chemically fertilized environment (organic culture method).
      Spread of the inserted gene would not spread faster than the genes introduced by crosses and scientist can control the fertility of crops cultures.

    • Photo: Sarah Harvey

      Sarah Harvey answered on 14 Mar 2014:

      Wow, great answers by the others already 🙂

      I just have one thing to add, which is that there is a huge amount of anti GM protesting in the UK and Europe, however it’s not always the case around the world. I heard about some GM bananas which were resistant to a disease called Black Sigatoka, I think it was in Uganda but people were stealing the GM crops – not to destroy them like they might try and do here but instead to use them so that their bananas didn’t get killed by disease! People have different priorities when their livelihood is on the line!

      So that’s basically why I think GM technologies are great.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      For me, GM is a good thing, I feel, whilst considering the population rising and an increased need for food, GM can help to provide food as we enter an uncertain future.

      What makes them so good? I believe that we are still in the early stages of finding out what is good about them, there may be plenty more we could used them for as we discover more.

      Genetically modifying a plant is a lot quicker than breeding a plants for what we need them to do, given the nature of the world time is of the essence, and plants grow very slowly

      This is why it is important that we keep an interest GM plants.

      Many of the fears surrounding GM stem from a lack of understanding, this is why I feel we should learn and discover more about what makes them so good. Or even to discover what make them bad, at least we’d know for sure!

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