Suppose there’s a variety of corn that produces delicious and nutritious kernels but is susceptible to invasion by a destructive parasite so that a large percentage of the corn that is planted goes to waste. Now suppose that there is another strain of corn that is resistant to such parasites, but produces tiny, tasteless, nutritionally deficient kernels. For centuries humans have created hybrids from related species in attempts to stumble onto a strain that has the beneficial characteristics of two or more parent strains. But such hybridization is hit and miss - like hoping for a black haired, blue eyed child from a mother with blue eyes and a father with black hair. Hybridized strains from the two corn species above are likely, at best, to be unsatisfactory compromises of taste, nutrition, and parasite resistivity. Now, suppose scientists were able to map the genetic code of both strains of corn and then identify the chunk of DNA that produces the enzymes that resist parasites. Further suppose that that chunk of genetic material could be isolated and cut away, and then spliced onto the DNA of the sweet, nutritious corn. Now only the desired characteristic of one strain is added to the other without dilution of the desirable characteristics of the recipient strain. Then generations of the genetically modified corn are harvested and tested for parasite resistance, nutritional value, quality, consistency, and safety; and finally after years of such testing seeds of this superior strain of delicious, nutritious, parasite resistant corn become available to farmers, and corn production increases dramatically. In a world with 7 billion people to feed I have a difficult time finding a problem with this scenario.
Posted on: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 21:12:13 +0000
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