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GMOs have stirred up quite a controversy for years but what is a GMO?

TLDR: Educate yourself about both sides in order to make an informed decision and ALWAYS check the credibility of your sources.

GMO is a genetically modified organism.

The first type of modification involves these processes and have been used since humans transitioned from hunter-gatherers to agrarians

Selective breeding is the process of using only plants that have a desirable characteristic, like disease resistance, for reproduction.

Genetic Engineering is the form of modification that has caused debate and attention from media. This process is done in a laboratory and involves adding genes responsible for a desired characteristic to an organism’s genome. If we’re lucky, this new gene is passed down to offspring that will also show the desired characteristic.

Genomic editing is the process of directly removing genes from an organism. This is called “knockout” because it knocks out the genes function. In my lab, we use knockout organisms to investigate functions of a gene.

There is much polarity over whether they are good or bad compared to organic.

The answer is both. Both organic products and GMO products have pros and cons.

The pros of GMOs:

• Drought resistance
• Less land required
• Higher yield
• Less pesticide use/ Disease resistance
• Cheap for consumer

Cons of GMO
• Cross pollination causing genetic mutations in other plants
• Pesticide resistant species (through natural selection)
• Possible genetic mutations of bacteria in gut micro biome
- IMPORTANT: this is purely speculative and no current scientific literature provides evidence of this
• GM seeds are patented limiting their use

Pros of organic farming

• No artificial pesticides, insecticides, herbicides
• No petrochemical leaking into soil (gas/oil powered equipment not allowed in certified organic)
• Better working conditions for farmers
• Healthier soil

Cons of organic farming
• More time consuming/labor intensive
• More land required/lower yield
• More greenhouse gas emissions through use of manure fertilizers (methane is a 25x more potent greenhouse gas than CO2)
• More expensive for consumer