Genetically Engineered Crops: Improvement or Potential Disaster? Worldwide, more than one billion people are plagued by hunger (Zalik). According to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications, more than 800 million of those are malnourished. It also predicts that over the next fifty years the total amount of available farm land per person will be halved, meaning that global cereal yield will have to increase by 80% over the 1990 amount to feed the burgeoning population (“Benefits . . .”). Genetically engineered crops offer one solution to this problem, as they can produce bigger harvests with less fertilizer, allow fields to be farmed continuously, and in the future may be able to grow in conditions unsuitable to natural crops. However, food biotechnology has many critics who claim that genetically modified (GM) plants are untested, immoral, unsafe, and therefore should be regulated more strictly or outlawed altogether. While humankind can by no means afford to abandon biotechnology, from this point onward we should proceed with considerable care with these modified plants that could permanently harm the environment.At least in theory, GM plants can produce more, better, more nutritious food for less money, and they require less fertilizer and pesticides than their natural counterparts. Some of the many beneficial modifications being planned or tested right now are: grains and fruits with more vitamins and minerals, rice with extra Vitamin A to counter blindness, allergen-free rice and peanuts, bananas with oral vaccines for diseases like Hepatitis, and fruits and vegetables that are simply better tasting and stay fresh longer. Many of the problems caused by vitamin deficiencies, which plague developing countries, could be easily solved by making foods such as rice produce more of the needed compounds (“Health . . .”).Although some disagree, many scientists hold the opini...
