GMO's in the Brave New World



Today on the Corrie farm we learned about corn, soy bean seeds and planting.
The hot topic of the day was GMO's.
Scary right?  Things that we don't understand can be.  I may have been a little uneasy with GMO's before my conversation with these farmers.  Luckily they were ready for my questions and possibly majored in bio chemistry with an emphasis in 'I can use big words'.
Anyways, for the general public I'm going to break it down for you.  GMO's are genetically modified organisms.  Monks actually came up with this stuff...naturally.  It's when you mix different plant genes to get a certain type of plant, as in one that will be the most viable in it's allocated environment.  This may be a helpful example:  if you plant spicy peppers in your garden right next to lettuce, you may get a salad with a kick.  True story.
GMO's have created a Gattaca-like world of plants.  Gattaca is a movie featuring Ethan Hawke and Jude Law (Ooo Law law) about a genetically engineered society in which everything you do is dictated by your genetics.  It falls apart like in the book Brave New World because people have feelings and free will.  The good news is that plants do not.  This brave new world of farming with GMO's allows farmers to pick and choose sustainable plants and treat them for an array of detratmental hazards specific to the region and soil.  For instance treating the seeds with something that can destroy crops like nematoads, which I was pretty sure were fictious undersea creatures on the children's show Spongebob (Sidenote:  I may watch too much television), and can completely take out a plant population.   Without GMO's we would not be able to produce enough yield to buy, sell or trade and the price of food would sky rocket.  Never mind all the other things that we are trying to use corn and soybeans for such as biofuel.  As it stands, with the help of GMO's, mother nature and farmers, we are making ends meet.
So...to sum up:  Plants don't have feelings so why not engineer them to be the best they can be and get as much as we can. 

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