Your packed lunch encased in plastic, the field of corn you pass on your way to work, and everyone’s favourite web-slinging superhero. All three have something in common, and it's more common than you might think. Every one of these things have been manipulated by humans at the lowest level we can, while still calling the science we used biology and not chemistry. We are of course referring to genetics, or more accurately, Genetic Modification and Engineering. To the uninformed and naive, any kind of control of genes may seem like the actions of the villain in a superhero story. In reality Genetic Modification is a practice employed by a great deal of food producers around the world.
According to the USDA in 2013, of all corn planted in …show more content…
This is a useful trait because as the world’s population keeps growing, the amount of tillable land remains ever the same. This forces us to make more use of the land we already have to produce more food.
In fact ever since we have domesticated plants the most important goal has been making more food on a single plant. More ears of corn per stalk, more apples per apple tree; and we’ve gotten very good at it too.
In 1966 the United States produced 105,862 Metric Tonnes (MT) of Corn; in comparison to 2016, 50 years later we produced 383,378 MT of corn. That’s more than 3 ½ times as much yield, owed in part to the substantial advances in the field of genetic modification.5
Unfortunately these numbers do nothing to explain the necessity of genetic modification in our daily food sources, so we will break it down to your own household, and family.
In 1966 there was approximately 196,600,000 people in America or about 50 million families. With the amount of corn produced that year it allowed each family to have 21 kilograms of corn. Way more than needed, but had the amount of corn produced stayed the same up until 2016, where the United States has almost 310,000,000 people, 77,500,000 families, that yield allows only 1 kilogram of corn per family. Barely enough to feed a family for a
According to the USDA in 2013, of all corn planted in …show more content…
This is a useful trait because as the world’s population keeps growing, the amount of tillable land remains ever the same. This forces us to make more use of the land we already have to produce more food.
In fact ever since we have domesticated plants the most important goal has been making more food on a single plant. More ears of corn per stalk, more apples per apple tree; and we’ve gotten very good at it too.
In 1966 the United States produced 105,862 Metric Tonnes (MT) of Corn; in comparison to 2016, 50 years later we produced 383,378 MT of corn. That’s more than 3 ½ times as much yield, owed in part to the substantial advances in the field of genetic modification.5
Unfortunately these numbers do nothing to explain the necessity of genetic modification in our daily food sources, so we will break it down to your own household, and family.
In 1966 there was approximately 196,600,000 people in America or about 50 million families. With the amount of corn produced that year it allowed each family to have 21 kilograms of corn. Way more than needed, but had the amount of corn produced stayed the same up until 2016, where the United States has almost 310,000,000 people, 77,500,000 families, that yield allows only 1 kilogram of corn per family. Barely enough to feed a family for a