The G.M.O. Nightmare

The rising increase of today's world population is also giving rise to a new issue that concerns finding the adequate supply of food sources to sustain our need of it. This alarming issue has been presented since the late 1980's in view of our plight of finding resources that will provide us with enough food to ensure our survival as a specie. As of date, we have already reached the 7 billion marker in regards to the number of growing people that need to find adequate food supply to sustain ourselves. This is not an easy task to undertake as we need the right technology to ensure that we can produce the right kind of crops that will be used as food source for our continuing population growth. Modern science has already taken the steps to alter the natural growth of specific plant species that are mostly considered as  a source of food crops by modifying their basic genetic structure to be more resilient to the changing global climate that is making most of available food crops to succumb to the effect of global warming and other related climactic changes. 

This was at first, a wonderful and innovative approach until further research has determined that the use of G.M.O. (Genetically Modified Organisms) can alter our natural body metabolism and result in the reduction of our reproductive capacity as a result of thorough laboratory research done on mice. It was proven, without a doubt that G.M.O. crops can possibly reduce the chances of a human beings capability to properly reproduce, despite the assurance of scientific researchers that it will not otherwise. Another issue of G.M.O. is that it also has the possibility of altering ore human genome in regards to cell development which can result in mutated gene cells that can cause cancer and other detrimental growth effects that does us more harm than good. This is a dilemma in which has triggered a division of social opinions regarding the ethical consumption of genetically modified food crops.

As a society that is searching for viable means of sustaining our food supply to ensure our survival in the coming days, we are divided in our opinions whether or not we should be complacent in using this technology to develop crops to sustain ourselves despite of the risks involve that may well become the reason for our downfall as a specie. In a different point of view, we may well still have to struggle in augmenting our food resources in regards to being able to meet up with the continuing growing demand for viable food sources. In between these issues, some people have opted to improve current agricultural technologies without going into as so much as altering the natural growth of crops to ensure that they will be able to meet the demands in regards to food crops.

Most modern methods of agricultural innovations that do not require expensive modern day equipment can be achieved through numerous techniques in planting, crop rotation and other similar methods that can produce organic food crops regardless of any geographical inhibitions that make it impossible to cultivate food crops in various locations world wide due to these limitations. One proven method that can be used in cultivating various food crops that can be grown just about anywhere is using a method called hydroponics. This system uses no soil to grow plants as porous polyurethane foam is utilized as the plants propagational medium. Using various synthetic materials such as foam and natural fibers and depending on the medium used as an alternative to planting on soil, crop growth results may vary.

This method has been proven to work on areas that do not have adequate soil conditions to enable agricultural cultivation. And since synthetic materials like foam hold more quantities of liquid more than soil, finding an adequate irrigation system will not pose as a problem since it will only require very little water for the crops to grow into productivity. This can bee seen as one of the best options that anyone can conveniently do right in the comfort of their own backyard as it only requires very little space. Just imagine yourself preparing a backyard weekend barbecue on your electric smoker and you suddenly need to get some fresh fruits and vegetables to go along with the meal that you are preparing for your guests. All you have to conveniently do is walk straight up to your garden and pick it fresh from where you are hanging them. Since they do not need soil to grow properly, you do not have to dig into your garden to cultivate them.

For personal needs, hydroponics is a viable means of converting the spare empty spaces around your house in which you can start propagating fruits and vegetables for your own use, but when it comes to a much larger scale, crop rotation would be more viable for a larger community. Crop rotation is an effective way to optimize the different types of food crops in regards to the seasons and soil conditions. Having to contend with one or two types of food crop for the whole planting season used to be a fairly good way of providing food for a community. Unfortunately, we are now being faced with a problem concerning climatic changes which drastically has led to the shorter lifespan of certain agricultural crops and has made us adjust the way we plant in order to ensure that we have the right type of food crops for the right season. 

A fairly good example would be other Asian countries that use crop rotation all year round. In China, their staple crop is rice and flour but as soon as fall starts to creep in, they will start on planting green leafy vegetables, beans and nuts. As soon as winter comes in, they will have ample supply of nuts and leafy vegetables that will sustain them through out the whole winter season. This has enabled them to efficiently ensure their adequate supply of food during times of scarcity as optimizing the use of their agricultural lands by planting 4 to 5 types of crops within a whole year. This type of diversifying the types of crops that can be planted can greatly reduce the chances of the possibility of ending up with an alarming level of food to sustain a community, which should give us no reason for having to take our chances of consuming genetically modified crops in the near future, for our own safety and well being.