It is known to all that the technological and scientific advances have made great changes to the range and quality of our food. Some people regard it as an improvement while others believe that the change is harmful. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.

Yesterday’s fiction is today’s reality. Such colossal developments have taken place in range and quality of food which we could not even think of earlier. It is a highly debated issue as to whether these advances are a blessing or a curse. This essay shall delve into the merits and demerits of these developments.

The proponents claim that genetic modification of foods has given us such species which need little or no insecticides and no fertilizers. GM crops do not require spraying with toxic insecticides and as a consequence environmental damage such as the indiscriminate killing of insects and the contamination of soils and rivers is avoided. Moreover, since age old times, farming methods have always involved selective breeding and methods of cross-pollination. In that sense genetic modification is nothing new.

What is more, the quality of food has also improved. For example, fish gene has been added to tomato to make it frost resistant. A nut protein has been added to soya bean to increase the protein content. Finally, technology has saved people from tedious work and in the mean time increased the production markedly. All this is needed to meet the demands of the burgeoning population.

The opponents say that GM crops are unnatural and that by creating them we are altering the natural world. A more worrying argument raised by objectors to GM foods is that they could constitute a health risk, for example by causing allergies or even by being toxic. The final objection is strictly environmental. It is argued that crops which are genetically modified to kill the pests which attack them may also kill harmless insects. This, it is claimed will have a disastrous effect on the wider environment beyond the crop themselves.

To put it in a nutshell, I pen down saying that GM crops offer increased agricultural productivity and foods of higher nutritional value, both of which are essential if the growing world population of the twenty-first century is to be fed. Indeed, these crops have the potential to improve the health of millions throughout the world while causing less environmental damage than standard farming methods used today. I think it essential that GM foods should be encouraged.