What are the advantages and disadvantages of GM food?
Advantages: 1. Resistant to pests and diseases 2. Tolerant to cold, herbicide and drought/salinity (able to grow at places with poor growth conditions) 3. Nutrition – adding vitamins or minerals to plant crops 4. Pharmaceuticals – adding medicines into food crops to reduce cost and aid in storage 5. Phytoremediation – using poplar trees to aid in reducing metal contamination from soil
Disadvantages: 1. Harmful to the environment – causing unintended harm to other microorganisms, pests becoming more resistant to pesticides, transferring of desired characteristic to other organisms such as weed growing near it 2. Health hazards- causing or developing allergies, no substantial evidence of whether GMF can pose as a health risk but it is believed by scientists to be harmless, transfer of genes from GMF to human cells, 3. Economic concerns – expensive and time consuming to introduce new variations
