Organic Gardening Magazine comes out in favor of GMOs
Making a Case for Genetic Modification
By Dan Koeppel
The banana, probably the world’s most popular fruit, is so prone to disease that its very existence is threatened. Ironically, the banana’s inherent weakness emerges from a characteristic that helps make it so popular: Bananas are seedless. The fruits develop without the benefit of pollination, their “seeds” reduced to tiny dark specks.
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It is easy to see genetic modification of our food as pure evil. But perspectives lacking nuance could lead to effects that are potentially even more ugly: starvation, market collapse, and the increased use of toxic chemicals that take a severe toll on the health of banana plantation workers. (Banana consumers are less at risk, as the fruit’s thick skin is nonabsorbent and much of the chemical residue is washed off in processing.) The development of a genetically modified banana should be one element of a global program to extend the fruit’s diversity and viability as a major food crop.
We may have no bananas if the GMO ones don’t succeed.