Organic Foods Vs Genetically Modified (GM) Foods

To establish a long term industries with respect to environment sustainability, we have to maintain a eco-friendly environment. Nowadays, due to increase in world population & surplus demand of food from the limited sources of food production. To fulfil this requirement and as well as maintain the the Food Quality & Food Safety, parallel with the environment is a “Big Challenge”.The overriding advantage of eating organically grown foods is linked to environmental issues becauseorganic farming is kinder to the environment and is more likely to be sustainable.What is Organic Foods?Farmers who grow organic produce and meat don't use conventional methods to fertilize, control weeds or prevent livestock disease. For example, rather than using chemical weed killers, organic farmersconduct sophisticated crop rotations and spread mulch or manure to keep weeds at bay. What is Genetically modified foods? Genetically modified foods, referred as GM Foods, are plant or animal based foods that have been decisively transformed at a genetic stage. All living things contain genetic stuff, usually in the form of DNA and it is this genetic stuff which gives plants, animals and us our unlike features. The genetic amendment of food involves altering the food’s genetic stuff (genes) or inserting the genes of a different plant, animal or micro-organism into a food to create more advantageous features. The genes from single food can be inserted into the genes of an completely dissimilar food, for example the genes from an animal can be inserted into the genes of a plant and vice versa. Why Does Organic Matter?There is rising consensus in the scientific society that minute doses of pesticides and other chemicals can negatively affect people, especially during defenceless periods of fetal progress and childhood when exposures can have stretched long-term property. Central to the philosophy of organic farming is protecting the environment and functioning in harmony with existing ecosystems e.g. conservation of water, soil and energy, the use of renewable resources and natural farming cycles. Organic food is better for the environment because excessive use of chemicals and modern farming methods have led to a decline in soil fertility and an increase in salinity and blue-green algae in waterways over many years. Organic farming minimise the damage environment by using physical weed control and animal and green manure. Organic Farming reduce Soil Erosion Compaction of the soil by too much cultivation inhibits the incorporation of rainwater, forcing it to lope off the soil, carrying chemical inputs with it into rivers. This causes pollution and finely tuned the risks of flooding. Extreme cultivation also destroys the structure of soil: Annual crops, grown in conventional systems, require that the soil is cultivated. The very act of cultivating the soil serves to wipe out organic matter, kills much of the soil fauna and vegetation, the soil at threat of erosion from storm and rainfall. The soil formation is smashed and with continued farming, the sub-soil becomes very compacted and is unable to drain properly or permit roots to break through and attain their nutrients. While, as every coin has two sides, the aspects of GM Foods are as follows:-As Genetically Modified Food is manufactured by changing the codon of genes of food stuff.In crops, enhanced taste and quality, reduced maturation time, Increased nutrients, yields, and stress tolerance.In Animals, Increased resistance, productivity, power of endurance, and feed, efficiency, better yields of meat, eggs, and milk, Improved animal health and analytical methods.In Environment, Environment "Friendly" bio herbicides and bio insecticides, Bio processing for forestry products, Better natural waste management. Why is use food genetically modified? The major reason for genetically modifying foods is to improve or create more pleasing characteristics. For example, genetic modification may perk up a foods self life, build a crop more resistant to insects and pests or make a fruit grow better-quality and quicker. More recently advocates of genetically modified foods claim such foods are necessary to feed the worlds growing population and avert starvation caused by natural disasters such as drought and flood. GM food is the Proposed Solution to World Hunger The most reliable arguments in support of GM food is that it is the single way we can cultivate enough foodstuff to feed our rising global population and make accessible urgently required nutrition for the worlds Billions of hungry peoples. Natural clamaties such as drought and flood where food become limited. The plain fact is that we do manufacture enough food to nourish everyone. In fact, we at present produce sufficient food to supply 2,720 calories per person per day (World Hunger Education Service, 2010) – that’s 810 calories over the food principles agency’s recommended 1940 calories per day for women aged 19-50 years (Food Standards Agency, 2008). Regrettably most of the world’s under-nourished live in some of the poorest countries on earth where a combination of natural disaster, crooked governments, disagreement and destructive economic systems put off access to food and those who do have admittance to it can rarely have the funds for it. Simply growing the cultivation of genetically modified crops cannot perhaps right these complex issues. Certainly increasing GM husbandry in such countries has been revealed to increase levels of countryside poverty while simultaneously destroying significant ecosystems and biodiversity. Genetically modified (GM) crops are making up a better and superior percentage of total agricultural average every year. Globally, 252 million acres of transgenic crops were planted in 22 countries by 10.3 million farmers in 2006. It has been approximate that 70-75 percent of processed foods on U.S. supermarket shelf contain genetically modified ingredients (Center for Food Safety). According to the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Economic Research Service (ERS), there has been a theatrical increase in GM presence in America over the past thirteen years. BT (Bacillus thuringiensis) technology has been available for corn and cotton since 1996; the technology protects the plant from definite insects by encoding for a toxic protein. No genetically engineered crop represented more than 15% of the acreage for that crop in 1996. BT corn grew from 8 percent of US corn acreage in 1997 to 23 percent in 199, and after a brief decline reached 63% in 2009. Cost Effectiveness of Organic Farming A recent study by the University of Michigan showed that in developed countries, yields were equal,which suggests that organic production does not reduce yields. This amplify in yields is proficient using existing quantities of organic fertilizers and with the same amount of farmland as before used. This is a vital aspect. As population continues to raise, this method would enable production increase without monopolizing more land. Developing countries are frequently not open to outside food; food must be produced from local farmers. Although counterintuitive, this is in part to do lack of access to costly fertilizers and pesticides. Nitrogen availability is a crucial factor. "Green manures" are planted between growing seasons and help to provide enough nitrogen "to replace synthetic fertilizers" .Though not necessarily exclusive to genetic modification of food, GM production often involves man-made herbicides, sprayed into fields with herbicide defiant crops. Ivette Perfecto, a professor at University of Michigan, engineered the study among the suggestion that organic farming is less efficient. She says, "Corporate interest in agriculture and the way agriculture research has been conducted in land grant institutions, with a lot of pressure by the chemical companies and pesticide companies as well as fertilizer companies—all have been playing an important role in persuasive the public that you need to have these inputs to produce food" .The attention that chemical companies have for farmers to use their goods may not necessarily agree with enhanced economic competence. Global climate alter is in the collective principles of scientists and even regular citizens in much of the West. The consequence of genetic modification on the natural environment is however a very real worry for ecosystem health, which twist & can have thoughtful effects on humans, economics, and civilizations themselves. Concerns have been raised over apparent environmental concerns as a consequence of genetically modified plants and animals. This would effect in the appearance of confrontation in these plants to manage measures (e.g. herbicides). Transferred genes could create “super viruses” and cause an unintentional inhibition of the immune system in fauna. The significant process of co-evolution and the interaction between a range of populations in an ecosystem could be essentially upset by the functioning of genetic modification . Crop Diversity Genetic diversity of crops is crucial to developing resistance to new pests, diseases, and the varying environmental conditions .It is the natural comparable of the old adage regarding not having all of one's eggs in one basket. Central to natural selection, genetic diversity is essential for the achievement of any natural inhabitants. Diversity is crucial for global food security, as well. As newly as 1970, the maize varieties in the United States possessed dangerous genetic uniformity as a result of traditional cross breeding As a result, the Southern corn leaf blight destroyed fifteen percent of the harvest, or $1 billion. Terminator seeds and genetic modification may have a detrimental effect on traditional farming .Botanist Jack Harlan says that genetic diversity is all that “stand between us and catastrophic starvation on a scale we cannot imagine". Genetic PollutionOne type of technology protection system, dubbed the Terminator system, causes GM crops to not produce fertile seeds. Farmers cannot put seeds aside every year, forcing them to buy new seed. One hand it may help prevent "genetic pollution" or crossover to wild varieties of crops. However, the possibility that this gene could be conferred to another plant would be troubling . The Exorcist system allows the production of fertile seeds, but with the GM DNA spliced out and destroyed. This could be a development that placates worries from environmental groups .Patenting seeds and having a monopoly over genetically altered plants may violate "the sanctity of life." What were once commodity products (available to all) are now proprietary products (only available from a few sellers). The "terminator gene" technology may soon disintegrate traditional farming practices . Unintentional Gene transfer to Wild PlantsThe risks of genetic modified food crops are enormous. The outlook that genes that we put in to these fresh modified crops could finish up on a wild relation is risky. Salt tolerant rice could discuss its resistance to a weed that "overwhelms estuarine ecosystems," for example. Genetically modified food crops with herbicide and insect resistance could irritated pollinate and result in hard-to-eradicate super weeds . On a smaller scale, even a small raise in herbicides would guide to increased cost. This unintended gene transfer is hard to expect and can have consequences that are not so far known .The invasive super weeds would run rampant on the environment and take its toll on crop yields. The crops themselves could become super weeds, rising in unintended areas. The effect of the BT toxin on beneficial insects if it entered the natural ecosystem during gene transfer with wild varieties is also a important concern.Plants engineered to enclose virus particles to develop resistance could help in the making of new viruses. Plants engineered to convey drugs or pesticides could relate with organisms not planned as targets. GM FOODS Could Relieve Environmental Concerns:- Nitrogen is a key concern of environmental lobby groups, because nitrogen fertilizer is essential for much of today's bountiful harvests. Nitrous oxide, though only released in small proportions, is a potent greenhouse gas. Crops can be heritably modified to need less fertilizer and as a effect lessening the discharge of nitrous oxide into the environment. Nitrate pollution, which taints drinking supplies and pollutes waters next to fields, would also be greatly decreased. The BT protein, an insecticide, is toxic to negative insects and can be formed by many of the recently engineered plants. The protein eliminates the want for toxic chemical pesticides. The BT protein is harmless and degrades in the stomach acid . The environment is less worried by the incorporation of the BT protein. However, non target insects by be killed, like the monarch butterfly or the targeted insects may build up resistance to toxins .Some plants have been tailored to eliminate toxic waste from the environment. Some plants can now be used to clean up the belongings of industry, agricultural, and petroleum production by ingesting poisons or converting them into still compounds. The Environmental Issues Gm Foods :- •Synthetic pesticides and herbicides not only depart toxic residues on food but also destroy soil microbes and generate top soil loss.•Conventional growing disrupts natural ecosystems around the farms.•Chemical fertilizers also create much of the pollution in lakes, ponds, rivers and groundwater.•Organic farming is exposed to disappear the soil healthier and use energy more economically. Genetically Modified Foods Cons:- • Safety– Prospective human health impact: allergens, transfer of antibioticresistance markers– Potential environmental impact: unintended transfer oftransgenic through cross-pollination, unknown effects on otherorganisms (e.g., soil microbes), and loss of flora and faunabiodiversity• Access and Intellectual Property– Domination of world food production by a few companies– Growing dependence on Industrialized nations by developingcountries– Bio piracy—foreign exploitation of natural resources• Ethics– Destruction of natural organisms' intrinsic values– Tampering with nature by integrating genes among species– Stress for animal Why people should buy organic ? Organic foods encourage a improved and further sustainable use of the environment, and more caring treatment of animals. 31,000 tonnes of pesticides per-year are now used on crops in the UK. The huge majority are man-made synthetic chemicals. That, mutually with other synthetic inputs, excessive farming, genetically customized foods, and the utilization of monoculture, marks in the depletion of soil and the destruction of life surrounded by the soil and above it. Ecological systems are out of order. Micro-organisms, insects, birds and mammals either die or are pushed away from land that is frequently poisoned. Organic agriculture moves next to this ruin by adhering to definite principles in farming. Traditional farming methods are frequently used, such as rotating crops to avoid depleting the soil of nutrients. The Australian organic food industry is rolling; it is at present worth around $200-$250 million per year nationally and a further $50-$80 million per year in exports with an likely annual growth of upto 60%. Consumer demand is mounting at a speed of 20-30% per year with retail sales growing 670% between 1990 and 2001-2. Types of manufacture available include fruit and vegetables, grains, meat and meat products, honey and some processed foods. Even though development in organic foods sales has been utmost of any food category, there are restricted data that such food is safer or more healthy than conventionally produced foods. Many people are frightened of synthetic chemicals sprayed on foods, and up till now 99 percent of the pesticides we have occur obviously in fruits and vegetables.Environmental sustainability is a balancing act. It balances nature with nurture, time and space, nutrient to erosion.Organic food and sustainable agriculture can go hand in hand. Using sustainable practices like mulching, crop rotation and animals as a replacement for of gas-powered trucks, a farmer could literally work on an approximately net-zero carbon emission. And yes, it might cost us a little more for that ear of corn, but it's totally worth . Conclusion:- In conclusion , with the expansion in technology, the potential introduced by the organic foods are infinite. It will absolutely change people’s & atmosphere conditions slightly. In organic foodstuff we apply natural fertilizers, such as manure or compost, to feed soil and plant life. Apply valuable insects and birds, mating distraction or traps to reduce pests and virus. Rotate crops, till, hand weed or mulch to handle weeds. Give animals organic supply and allow them entrance to the outdoors, their apply preventive measures — such as rotational grazing, a balanced diet and clean housing — to assist minimize disease. While in conventional food we apply Conventional chemical fertilizers to support plant enlargement. Spray insecticides to condense pests and disease & exercise chemical herbicides to control weeds. Give animals antibiotics, expansion hormone and medications to avoid disease and encourage expansion. The overriding benefit of eating organically developed foods is correlated to environmental issues as organic farming is kinder to the atmosphere and is further likely to be sustainable.It is extremely likely that the Organic Food will carry on to grow & develop into one of the several essentials in Environmental Sustainability