Monarch Butterfly Controversy

Moving on to my position on this topic, I would like to point out, although many of these concerns mentioned by IRT are understandable, they are due to misinformation and, therefore, are not true. Firstly, GM crops are usually no different from conventional crops, as stated by The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but they can be healthier through the modification process. As a co-author in the paper “The application of GMOs in agriculture and in food production for a better nutrition: two different scientific points of view” (2013), Paul Christou points out, “one of the important benefits of transgenic crops is the ability to generate more nutritious varieties” (266). Second generation GMOs involve the insertion of genes to make the plant have a greater …show more content…
According to Ruchir Raman in “The impact of Genetically Modified (GM) crops in modern agriculture: A review” (2017), the study that found a decline in Monarch butterfly populations due to GM corn was disproven. It was disproven because of “improper experimental design and validity and soundness of extrapolating laboratory assays to field testing” as many scientists challenged the conclusion and attempted to replicate the study but could not get the same results (201). Nevertheless, the study caught the attention of the media. Finally, the idea that GM crops don’t help food security is false. As Raman puts it, global crop yield will have to increase by 22% to keep up with the population growth over the next thirty years and genetic engineering can help achieve that while reducing the amount of land needed (198). Raman estimates “300 million acres of conventional crops would have been needed” to achieve the same crop yield, increasing deforestation significantly (197-198). From these statistics, GM crops feed more people with less land, thereby helping – and not destroying – the