gmo in food and agriculture
GMO IN Food and Agriculture
Genetically Modified foods are produced using genetically engineering techniques. These techniques are used to ‘inactivate’ or add specific DNA traits of a certain organism to the other in order to improve it. These traits consist of increasing resistance against herbicides and pest, cold, and drought tolerance. In 1946, scientist discovered that DNA of organisms could be transferred between each other. The first plant that was GM was a tobacco plant in 1983. By 1994-95, GMO food was introduced and approved for humans to consume in the USA. The first plant approved by the FDA for marketing was a tomato from Flavr Savr’s.
However, humans have been manipulating different crops for thousands of years. By mating together organisms with desirable traits repeatedly, people were able to mold species to meet their dietary needs. Corn is a very good example of this. It used to be a small, inedible tropical grass called teosinte. Ancient Mexican farmers transformed it into corn. Nowadays, we know this was a manipulation of the DNA of the teosinte plant. This process is called artificial selection and it has transformed all kind of unappetizing plants edible (wheat, rice, almonds, bananas).
In modern days genetically modified foods have changed. Now, the speed and precision we can make changes has increased. According to Eric R. Olson, Scientific American editor explains, instead of selectively breading food traits, we can go directly to the DNA responsible take it out, and transplant it into newly developing plants or animals. When these snippets come from the same species, the new organism is cisgenic (the same). And the organism is transgenic (trans=cross) if the DNA comes from a different plant or animal. For the past years we have seen example of transgenic pairings, such as: corn that makes bacterial toxins poisonous to pests, tomatoes that make the antifreeze protein from fish and even cows that can make human milk. All the GM food on
Genetically Modified foods are produced using genetically engineering techniques. These techniques are used to ‘inactivate’ or add specific DNA traits of a certain organism to the other in order to improve it. These traits consist of increasing resistance against herbicides and pest, cold, and drought tolerance. In 1946, scientist discovered that DNA of organisms could be transferred between each other. The first plant that was GM was a tobacco plant in 1983. By 1994-95, GMO food was introduced and approved for humans to consume in the USA. The first plant approved by the FDA for marketing was a tomato from Flavr Savr’s.
However, humans have been manipulating different crops for thousands of years. By mating together organisms with desirable traits repeatedly, people were able to mold species to meet their dietary needs. Corn is a very good example of this. It used to be a small, inedible tropical grass called teosinte. Ancient Mexican farmers transformed it into corn. Nowadays, we know this was a manipulation of the DNA of the teosinte plant. This process is called artificial selection and it has transformed all kind of unappetizing plants edible (wheat, rice, almonds, bananas).
In modern days genetically modified foods have changed. Now, the speed and precision we can make changes has increased. According to Eric R. Olson, Scientific American editor explains, instead of selectively breading food traits, we can go directly to the DNA responsible take it out, and transplant it into newly developing plants or animals. When these snippets come from the same species, the new organism is cisgenic (the same). And the organism is transgenic (trans=cross) if the DNA comes from a different plant or animal. For the past years we have seen example of transgenic pairings, such as: corn that makes bacterial toxins poisonous to pests, tomatoes that make the antifreeze protein from fish and even cows that can make human milk. All the GM food on
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