• Bio-tech foods: careful control is still needed Bio-tech foods: careful control is still needed Kaua‘i has been for years one of the satellite growing grounds for the world of bio-tech foods through seed-corn operations on the Westside. There is
• Bio-tech foods: careful control is still needed
Bio-tech foods: careful control is still needed
Kaua‘i has been for years one of the satellite growing grounds for the world of bio-tech foods through seed-corn operations on the Westside.
There is a great, heated, polarizing debate over the safety of bio-tech foods grown with seeds that have the touch of human alteration woven into their genetic makeup.
Such scientific research has given up a papaya strain that is successfully defeating many of the plant diseases and insect problems that have set back the papaya industry over the years.
Proponents of growing genetically-modified foods says such foods offer a cure for global hunger, and a way to keep food available and affordable for our growing population in Hawai‘i and on the Mainland.
The arguments against genetically-grown foods focus on potential dangers such as a breakdown in the viability of such crops that critics say could lead to famine.
For someone on the fence about this issue, only time will tell if genetically grown corn, papaya and other plants will be safe and without side effects to either human bodies or to our crop industries.
Critics of genetically modified corn are adamant in their criticism of the crops. If they are right, and we may not know for generations, the problem could be beyond fixing.
Let’s hope our crop scientists are right, for a growing number of grain foods and other plant foods sold in our grocery stores are the products of genetically-modified crops.
Careful control of genetically-modified crop fields is needed until we are certain there no long-term side effects to the plants. A complete ban on such crops would be politically and financially impossible to accomplish without definitive proof of the doomsday descriptions given by some.
