GMOs and Food Security
Hi everyone, Sarah here again. Today I’m going
to expound a bit on one of my previous posts, GMOs = Solution to Trinidad's Food Problem. So if you haven’t already, you should go check it out before reading any further.
So, what is food security?
Food security is the access and availability of
safe and nutritional food at all times, which would aid in the maintenance of an active and healthy lifestyle (United Nations).
Food Security
According to Azadi and Ho 2009, GM crops can
play a crucial role in alleviating the world’s food insecurity problem based on the
following characteristics:
• Decreases the need for new plots of arable land.
• Development of new crop varieties.
• Reduces the need for fertilizers and agrochemicals, due to the pest
resistant genes implemented in the crop.
• Increases the nutritional value and the number of possible health benefits of
crops.
• Reduce waste production.
• Increase yield production.
• Ability to resist harsh environmental conditions such as drought and
extreme soil pH values.
• Slow ripening of produce (Thayer, 2009).
These characteristics would allow developing
countries to produce food for themselves on a large scale, as well as allow for its exportation.
However, GMOs are not perfect, but come with
some level of risk. Check out Arielle’s post GMO Concerns.
We Need More Honesty in GMO Debates
Despite their concerns, GMOs can be a very
useful form of technology and should be implemented once their benefits outweigh their risks (Azadi and Ho, 2009).
So what is the relevance of all of this to
Trinidad?
Currently, Trinidad’s food import bill is very
high, due to the fact that we do not produce a lot of our food. As said in “GMOs = Solution to
Trinidad’s Food Problem?”, GM crops can be used as a mechanism to diversify our
economy since we would be exporting high crop yields due to this form of biotechnology.
What do we already export?
The United Nations gives a great summary of the Exports of Trinidad and Tobago from 2005 to 2010.
Conversely, it also analyses our import bill for the same period Imports of Trinidad and Tobago. It can be seen that in 2010, our import bill was $152,133,438.00 US more than our export revenue.
Look at that figure again, just imagine what could happen if we actually produce greater yield to feed ourselves and even begin to export.
• Our revenue would increase
• Our economy would grow and be diversified
We have already recognized our problem as seen in a recent newspaper article about Food Import Bill Cut, and this may be our solution.
While all this may be good, one of the main concerns of GMOs is the corrupt, big businesses which develop and patent the technology (Azadi and Ho 2009). Due to this, it must be ensured that proper policies and technological applications are used when using GM crops.
S.P
References
Sources:
Azadi H. and Ho P, (2009). Genetically modified and organic crops in developing countries: A review of options for food security. Biotechnology Advances. Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.615.3423&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Thayer AM. Transforming agriculture: transgenic crops and the application of discovery
technologies are altering the agrochemical and agriculture businesses. Chem Eng
News 1999;77(16):21–35.
Index Mundi (2017) Trinidad and Tobago Exports by Product Chapter in US Dollars- Vegetable Products - Yearly. Retrieved from http://www.indexmundi.com/trade/exports/?country=tt§ion=2
Index Mundi (2017) Trinidad and Tobago Imports by Product Chapter in US Dollars- Vegetable Products - Yearly. Retrieved from http://www.indexmundi.com/trade/imports/?country=tt§ion=2
Images:
Food Security. Retrieved from https://ruralfoodsecurity.
We Need More Honesty in GMO Debates. Retrieved from http://blog.acton.org/archives/76304-we-need-more-honesty-in-gmo-debates.html
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