8.1 Advantages
1. Increased crop yields by
(i) inserting Bt toxin to crop plants to minimise destruction by insects
(ii) inserting herbicide gene to crop plants to make them resistance to herbicides. Weeds therefore can be removed easily.
(iii) enable crop plants to withstand stress conditions, e.g. salt, drought, frost
(iv) enable plants to mature faster
2. Reduced costs for food or drug production.
3. Reduced need for pesticides.
4. Crops can be engineered to improve their nutritional qualities, e.g. Vitamins, fat content.
5. Resistance to pests and diseases.
6. Medical benefits such as increased production of insulin using E.coli
7. Increase animal production, e.g.
(i) introduce growth hormone gene to Salmon fish to enable them to grow faster
8.2 Concerns
1. Use of pesticide, herbicide or antibiotic resistance may cause specific species to be removed and this causes instability in the food chains and food webs.
2. Possible exposure to new allergens in genetically modified foods.
3. Introduction of a foreign gene into another organism may affect its growth rate, metabolism and response to external environment factors. This may affect the transgenic organism as well as the environment.
4. Gene transfer between transgenic organism and the wild-type, unmodified organism may reduce viability of their offspring.
5. Private companies may claim ownership of the organisms they create and not share them at a reasonable cost with the public. For example, engineering of crop plants such that these plants produce seeds that cannot germinate meant that farmers must buy the seeds from the biotechnology companies. This would make the technology inaccessible to small farmers.