The Argument for Genetically Modified Foods

Genetic modification has been very widely used now in agriculture for a long time.  It’s fantastically effective and it will have a big impact on the ability of the world to feed itself or to make bio-fuels and so on.  

It has become controversial I think for many complicated reasons.  Perhaps some of the most understandable concerns would be more from a socioeconomic point of view where seed companies that own the ability to produce these high-yielding hybrids obviously impact the market and the price of food and so on in ways that maybe elements of the public would have a problem with. I’m not an economist, but I can certainly understand some of those issues.

From a health standpoint, though, there really is not one shred of evidence that genetically modified food has any impact on health other than beneficial.  So I think there has been a mixture of socioeconomic, environmental and other concerns that have sort of congealed into this dislike of genetic modification without really understanding what it means and what it has done for agriculture.

60 Second Reads is