Modern biotechnology to yield healthier food

A few months ago, our Parliament passed the Genetic Engineering Bill which will guide and regulate the application of modern biotechnology in agriculture. Genetic Engineering (GE) or Genetic Modification (GM) has been a global subject of debate for a long time and it continues to be with some people raising fears that the technology will destroy the natural environment and generate unhealthy food while others believe GE crops are entirely safe both for human consumption and for the environment.

The farmers pretty well understand how difficult it is these days to successfully grow crops like Irish potatoes, tomatoes, passion fruits, and several others without spraying them with pesticides.
The crops themselves have over the years lost the resistance to diseases and insects which have been controlled with pesticides. If you don’t spray the chemicals you have no crops.

No crops means no food, no money, malnutrition, and poverty. Yet spraying with pesticides may yield crops, and money which may come with health risks to consumers and biodiversity loss.
Dr Elizabeth Hood, who has studied plant biology for 37 years, has written in her blog article ---- titled: ‘You may not like GMOs, but our planet sure does’ --- that upon going to university (Washington University in St Louis) she was excited about the possibility of scientists adding specific characteristics to crop plants that would help them resist insects, diseases and weeds.

“To me, this was the perfect solution to a crisis in farming that would be beneficial not only to farmers but also to human health ---- fewer chemicals, better health. She told the story of Hawaii where papaya farmers nearly lost the entire crop to Papaya Ringspot Virus, a disease that proved difficult to eradicate with pesticides but was eventually defeated with the application of GE technology. The scientists introduced a gene from the virus into the papaya and the virus could no longer infect the trees. The papaya growers no longer had to spray the crop with insecticides.
“In this case the winners were the growers, the consumers, and the environment,” she wrote.
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