Our World is facing increasingly serious environmental problems, due to deforestation, global warming, increasing population, and many additional interlinked issues.
Among the solutions to these problems, we especially need more efficient and environmentally friendly agriculture. We have seen major improvements since the beginning of the agricultural era. Most of this improvement is from selective breeding, fertilizers, and pesticides. Now we have something much better to continue this trend - genetic engineering.
Then why do some people oppose GMOs? Mostly because of misunderstanding what it is!
Here are some interesting facts about gene technology:
There are several methods for creating GMOs. One method is to let a bacteria called Agrobacterium tumefaciens do the job for us. In nature, this bacteria uses gene manipulation to create its own food and shelter. Commonly this phenomenon is recognized as crown galls in some plants. In the laboratory, we simply give the bacteria different genes to insert. While this may sound scary, it is actually not very different from the conventional methods like selective breeding or hybridization. The end goal is exactly the same - more advantageous genes for the plant. The real difference is that gene technology is a more precise and much faster way to do the job. In fact, every crop we are farming today has already come a very long way from the corresponding wild plants of pre-agricultural times. Just look what wild varieties of these common crops looks like [1]! We have changed these plants a lot and yet they can exist in nature without harming it.
We have used GMOs, worldwide, for decades, and they have proven to be safe [2] and effective. They produce better crop yields and profits for the farmers, while allowing decreased use of pesticides [3]. However current GMOs do not represent the full potential of the technology, and there is still room for further improvement. GMOs can significantly benefit us - if we just allow it. Please sign this petition if you agree that GMOs are a beneficial technology to improve our food supply, and that our governments should promote universities and other institutions researching gene technology, accept GMO foods into the market for those who want to benefit from them, and condemn the misguided objections to GMO products and the sabotage of GMO research.
One more fun fact, did you know that humans share 50% of genes with banana, all completely naturally!
Some sources (this petition has no affiliation to the sources):
[1] https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Screen-Shot-2014-06-19-at-9.43.46-AM.png
[2] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691511006399
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4218791/
