I would like to write about a talk of TED "The case for engineering our food" by Pamela Ronald.
Pamela
Ronald is a plant geneticist. She explains about genetic modification in a
clear way to understand. Many people have come to believe that there’s
something bad for health and the environment. However her perspective is different.
Her
husband is an organic farmer and they have the same goal. They want to
cultivate crops without further damage the environment.
Farming
is one of my hobbies. So, I also plant a variety of vegetables in my small
field and have tried to practice organic farming methods. For example, this is
mentioned in this speech, I don’t use chemical pesticides possibly but spray an
insecticide called B.T., which is based on a bacteria. But when I come to think
of it again, grafting is also one of genetic techniques and the rice that we have
almost every day was developed using random mutagenesis. Therefore, farmers,
even though they are called organic farmers, they use the varieties that are developed
using genetic methods and Japanese people live a daily life by eating rice as
our staple diet.
In a
way, what she says is true. It is easy to understand it for an amateur farmer like
me. We can’t plant vegetables or we are obliged to use too much chemical pesticide
without developed varieties. This means that farmers can’t provide enough crops
into the market and too much insecticide destroy the environment and is bad for
our health. When we come to think about it, or also experientially, even organic
farming would not work without genetic modification that makes plants resistant
to disease and tolerant of stress. I other words, without it, pests can probably
eat all our crops in fields before we harvest.
The environment
has been changing including the global warming and human-beings have food and
population issues and poverty issue. Genetic modification can be apparently useful
for resolving issues. The resistant to disease and tolerant of stress or the
characteristics can help us survive on the earth. As she says, it's the
cheapest, safest, and most effective technology for enhancing food security and
advancing sustainable agriculture. Additionally, I think that it can contribute
to keeping or creating sustainable environment. Needless to say, in doing so, it's
very important to talk about a specific crop and a specific product, and think
about the needs of the consumer. Careful study and rigorous peer review by scientists
are absolutely imperative. And also, every major scientific organization in the
world needs to recognize that the crops currently on the market are safe to eat
and that the process of genetic engineering is not risky.
