gmos

• The average person eats a lot more than the average person did in the past.

  • The food they eat is often more resource intensive to produce in the first place.

  For example, meat and dairy require more resources to produce than rice or grain.
• Global food production has had to increase massively, and these factors have helped make this possible:

  1. Clearing of forests and other natural lands for agriculture 
  2. Application of fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals
  3. Selective breeding
  4. Genetic modification 
• Some crops have been genetically modified so that they produce toxins that kill insect pests.

  • This means that any insects that try to feed on them will die, and so won't be able to damage them - this increases crop yield.

  This also means that farmers don't have to use as many chemical pesticides.
• Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are organisms whose genome has been modified.

  • This normally involves the addition of a helpful gene, such as a gene to cause faster growth or a gene that makes the organism resistant to a disease.
• An example of plants producing toxins to kill insect pests is the 'Bt toxin', which is naturally produced by the bacteria 'Bt'.

  • Scientists have inserted the gene for the Bt toxin into some crop species so that they produce the toxin, making them resistant to insect pests.
• Some crops can be modified to increase the amount of useful vitamins or minerals they contain.

  • For example, 'Golden rice' has been genetically modified to produce a chemical that is converted to vitamin A in the body.

  This is helpful in regions of the world where vitamin A often causes deficiency diseases, such as blindness. 

  
• Examples of improved traits in GMOs are;

  1. Drought resistance
  2. Increased yield 
  3. Herbicide tolerance 
  4. Virus resistance 
  5. Production of specific proteins (e.g. insulin)
  6. Flood resistance 
• Mycoprotein is a protein made by fungi that can be used to make high-protein meat substitutes for vegetarian meals.

  • It is made by the fungus Fusarium and grown in aerobic conditions on glucose syrup.