9. Advantages and Disadvantages of GM food

Found some information on the advantages and disadvantages on GM food as well.

Advantages:

1. Increase the crop yields to feed the world population
2. Increase the tolerance of crops to adverse growing conditions, e.g. drought
3. improve the nutrient composition of crops, e.g. increase the protein content of rice.
4. Provide resistance to crop pests and reduce the use of pesticides by growing GM food such as Bt corn, i.e. save the environment
5. Improve sensory attributes of food, e.g. flavor, texture
6. Improve the processing characteristics so as to reduce wastage of food and minimize the cost during transport and storage
7. Eliminate allergy-causing properties in some foods
8. herbicide tolerance. Crop plants genetically-engineered to be resistant to one powerful herbicide could help prevent environmental damage by reducing the amount of herbicides needed. For example, Monsanto's strain of soybeans.
9. Disease resistance.
10. Pharmaceuticals. Medicines and vaccines are costly to produce and sometimes require special storage conditions not readily available in third world countries. Researchers are working to develop edible vaccines in tomatoes and potatoes

Disadvantages:

1. Unintended modification of similar species in the neighboring fields due to cross pollination
2. Disturbing the balance of ecosystems, e.g. some animals may lose their home when extending farmland area
3. A chance of developing super pests as DNA is changed
4. The initial genetic structure of both animals and plants will be disturbed
5. Vegetarians may worry about eating plants which contains genes from animals for religious, health or other reasons
6. Unintended harm to other organisms. pollen from B.t. corn caused high mortality rates in monarch butterfly caterpillars. Unfortunately, B.t. toxins kill many species of insect larvae indiscriminately; it is not possible to design a B.t. toxin that would only kill crop-damaging pests and remain harmless to all other insects.
7. Reduced effectiveness of pesticides. there are concerns that insects will become resistant to B.t. or other crops that have been genetically-modified to produce their own pesticides.
8. Allergenicity (Human health risk) There is a possibility that introducing a gene into a plant may create a new allergen or cause an allergic reaction in individuals. testing of GM foods may be required to avoid the possibility of harm to consumers with food allergies. Labeling of GM foods and food products plays an important role.
9. Economic concerns. Bringing a GM food to market is a lengthy and costly process. Many new plant genetic engineering technologies and GM plants have been patented Yet consumer advocates are worried that patenting these new plant varieties will raise the price of seeds so high that small farmers and third world countries will not be able to afford seeds for GM crops, thus widening the gap between the wealthy and the poor.

Reference:

GM Food. http://library.thinkquest.org/C004033F/pros&cons_text.htm (accessed: 14 June 2008)

http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/gmfood/overview.php