Benefits of Biotechnology
Biotechnology can end Africa hunger through three possible ways. First, biotechnology can increase food production and make more food be available in Africa. Second, biotechnology can improve food quality. Third, biotechnology can enhance farmer’s household income.
In regard to the first benefit, biotechnology could decrease crop losses owing to insects, disease and drought to increase agricultural production. This could increase food supplies and lowering the food price, which may help relieve the hunger problem.
Food crops which could be resistant to certain pests and diseases are one kind of application of biotechnology. Pests and diseases constantly threatened global crop production as well as regional crop productions. According to the estimation of the FAO-based IPPC Secretariat, average global crop losses are 20 to 40 percent per year due to pests and diseases. The situation is even worse in Africa. FAO is an agency of the United Nations that provides knowledge and information to help the improvement of developing countries’ agriculture and leads worldwide efforts to defeat hunger. Also, on 3rd April 2012, FAO published an article about the severe crop losses in Africa. “For example, the larger grain borer ravaged eastern Africa in the 1980s after being introduced from Central America, destroying up to 80 percent of stored grains and causing widespread localized food shortages.” (News & event 2012) This report shows that pests and diseases have profound impacts on crop production. Especially in developing countries like Africa, little change in crop losses may mean the difference between survival and starvation for poor people. Therefore, it’s imperative to reduce the crop lo...
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...hip between biotechnology and farm’s income was first published online on 30th November 2009. And in this paper, they use the sample of farm households from the Punjab province in Pakistan where is the largest cotton-growing area in the country and employed a non-experimental evaluation strategy to measure the relationship between the biotechnology and farm’s income. (Akhter & Awudu, 2010, 176) And their finding suggests that adoption of biotechnology has a positive and significant impact on household income and poverty reduction. The impact assessment of Bt cotton was in Pakistan. Africa is like Pakistan- they are both developing countries and both countries have a large proportion of population make a living by crop production. Therefore, the conclusion that biotechnology can benefit Africa farmers from increasing their income and living standards may be derived.
Did you know the food that you could be eating right now can be harmful to you? The food that you eat daily can contain GMOs that can contain things that can cause you to have allergies and even cause you to get cancer sometimes. GM crops can be harmful and dangerous for you. Another reason why GM crops are inadequate is because it can decrease biodiversity of plants and crops, and it can destroy rare species of plants. It can harm organisms that you might not mean to kill. Some people may say that GM crops can stop world hunger. IT WILL NOT! Research shows that some GM crops can not meet the nutritional needs of a human being. It will also not help solve world hunger because some GM crops need many resources to be able for them to produce into healthy crops and poor farmers don’t have much resources.
Indeed, the grow of GM crops in third-world countries will make them more dependent on developed nations and more precisely, biotechnology corporations that flourished thanks to the GM food industry. Moreover, the high investments put in the research and the developing of efficient GM products has given the right to biotechnology companies to protect their product by putting patents on them. This is a way for them to keep the monopoly of the GM food market and enables these GM food corporations to put high prices in order to maintain the research active. To some extend, this will impede small-scale farms and farmers in developing areas to have access to such technologies and increase the gap between poor and wealthy populations.( Murnaghan)
The first claim, made by the bioengineering companies creating the GMOs, is that the products are "resistan[t] to insects or viruses, toleran[t] [of] certain herbicides and [have] nutritionally enhanced quality" (Maghari 2). With resistance against pests and tolerance to harsher pesticides, bioengineers claim to be creating a super food that requires less maintenance and costs less. In fact, for many developing countries, this seems a promising start to the end of w...
Biotechnology is the request of scientific techniques that help alter and improve plants, animals, and microor¬ganisms to enhance their value. Agricultural biotech¬nology deals with biotechnology that is involved with applica¬tions to agriculture. It helps with the intensification of crop productivity by introducing such advantages as disease that are resistant and have an increase in deficiency tolerance to the crops. So now, research¬ers are able to select genes for disease resistance from other types of species and transfer them to important crops.
In 2012, the global are of genetically modified crops continued to increase for the 17th year in a row at a rate of 6% (25 million acres). The area of genetically modified crops, or biotech crops, has increased almost 100-fold since commercialization in 1996, making biotech crops the fastest adopted crop technology in the history of modern agriculture (“ISAAA”). The biotech boom has changed the way that producers grow their crops, for better or for worse. The explosion of genetically modified crops and foods has stirred a debate whether they are a harmful liability to the environment and to society or they are a beneficial, new technology that can help provide food to the rapidly increasing world population.
By implementing new farming techniques provided with the new technological advances in machines we can see abundant harvest in even the poorest third world countries. For example, the Green Revolution has already showed admirable progress in the northern part of India ever since it took start in 1950. By 1997, northern India increased its grain production by 37 percent. This has proven that traditional farming methods are being rendered obsolete. And because by the year 2000, there will be half the land per person in developing countries as there was in 1970, we need to apply ultra-efficient methods to sustain the growing need. Not only does the Green Revolution enhances food output, it also preserves the environment.
Biotechnology has helped our immune systems in fighting diseases, it has introduced interleukins, drugs that can help alter diseases–AIDS or malaria.–and has changed what we know about "life." Genetic engineering is complex field that only really benefits science and medicine, few, if any, negative impacts occur as a result of such technology. The future of genetic engineering is simply a more efficient and more widely implemented version of what is possible today. This technology may be changing what has occurred naturally, but it does so with positive intentions.
Advocates claim that the world may benefit greatly from the production and consumption of GM foods, especially those countries with high rates of poverty and starvation. Experts insist that the GM products will put an end to world hunger. It is estimated that the world population will grow up to 9 billion people in 2050, and a good alternative to feed them is the GM products. Nowadays, in almost all African countries people are dying because of hunger and hunger-related diseases. The estimate of life expectation in these countries is fifty seven years old, and it will decrease to forty seven in 2020 (kwengwere 2-3). The governments of these countries are battling to put a stop to this unfair situation. Experts have said that the best alternative is the implementation of GM cultures in Africa; it will reduce the deaths, increase the life expectations and nourish the whole continent (Forsberg 1). The future of Africa is uncertain, but it is sure to depend on the hands of GM p...
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are a cause of continuous debate. What would be the purpose of producing genetically altered food? Many argue that GMOs could prove to be very beneficial, the use of GMOs could lead to advances in medicine, and agriculture, and they could also prevent famine in poor underdeveloped countries. Genetic modification offers many benefits: pest control, disease resistant crops, drought resistant crops, no use of insecticides, nutritional beneficial foods, and less contamination. This is only a short list of the many benefits offered by the used of GMOs. With so many benefits why are we opposed to such a miracle? (NERC 2005)
1: The social problem I decided to do research upon was world hunger and its impact on poverty. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 were initially created by Obama to end the recession. When this policy was introduced it focused mainly on ensuring that Americas could economically bounce back from this recession, mainly the low-income families that were the most devastated by this. However, after this policy was successful it started to grow. It helped increase jobs, helped with healthcare; also it created a program to address the problem of world hunger. This program was called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program. Since the resources needed to provide for ideal agriculture conditions are diminishing, genetic engineering of food is the best option. As this program is heavily funded and approved by the government, it is on a path to fix all the glitches of genetic engineering. The world hunger situation is a big one, because resources needed are on a decline as the need grows. By advancing this technology, it will help the community not go hungry, by helping low income families as well others to save money, by turning their regular habits (consuming food), into a more environmentally sufficient method. Genetic engineering is projected to be cheaper and as healthy, if so even healthier than normal farming will eventually help low income families to put food on their table. To conclude, this policy was created to make America more efficient, and avoid the end of any resource whether it is money or food. The work this policy is doing to advance technology will help lower costs, and will still fulfill the resources the common family needs.
According to scientists, genetically engineering crops contributes to their quality. Crops that have been genetically modified to have a particular trait can decrease the amount of herbicides needed for growing that crop. Additionally, genetically modified (GM) crops can help third world countries, where malnutrition is common. For example, to help diminish nutrient deficiencies in developing countries, “plans were underway to develop a golden rice that also has increased iron content”(Whitman 2). In addition, GM crops can be modified to be able to “withstand the environmental challenges of drought, disease, and insect infestation” (Swenson 1). Growing GM crops can also result in fruits and vegetables that stay fresh for a prolonged period of time and taste better.
Genetically Modified Foods: The Answer to World Hunger. Genetically modified (GM) foods have become omnipresent over the past decade. They are a technological breakthrough that allows humans to manipulate and add foreign genes to crops to enhance desired traits, but they have also evolved into a controversial issue, especially for Third World countries. Some people believe that GM foods not only provide larger yields to feed hungry citizens in Third World countries, but they can also be a source of great nutritional value.
We live in a world that is constantly changing and advancing thanks to technological advancements, especially in the field of molecular genetics. Today, we are discovering and implementing new ways to overcome the ill-fated symptoms developed as a result from poor health or accidents. We are also making advancements in the field of agriculture thanks to molecular genetics. As we all know, food is an essential entity in our lives and is abundant as well as relatively easy to obtain here in the United States. However, as good as it may sound, this is not necessarily true for developing countries. Many people in developing countries receive very little food, if any, due to its scarcity. It is estimated that in Asia alone, close to 800 million people go to bed hungry every night due to food shortage. This problem can be alleviated by turning to the production of genetically modified organisms (a.k.a. GMOs).
Famine in Africa Famine has struck parts of Africa several times during the 20th century, and to this day is still going strong. According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, the average African consumes 2300 kcal/day, less than the global average of 2700 kcal/day. Recent figures estimate that 316 million Africans, or approximately 35 percent of the continent's total population, are undernourished. Although hunger in Africa is hardly new, it now occurs in a world that has more than enough food to feed all its citizens. Moreover, while Africa's population is growing rapidly, it still has ample fertile land for growing food.
Hunger and malnutrition are very serious issues in many different countries throughout the world. Hunger and malnutrition stem from one problem, the lack of sustainable agriculture. The United Nations has set forth a series of goals that aim to reduce the effects of hunger in the world. The first of these goals was Aba Grangou, which is a program that aims to end world hunger. The second of these goals has to do with the sheer volume of people that experience hunger, both adults and children. The United Nations has recognized the problems that come with the lack of food stability, and they have also come up with some programs that help to combat the lack of sustainable food sources. Throughout the world, millions of men, women, and children