In this blog post, we will look at whether GMOs are the key to solving the problem of hunger or whether they pose a potential risk to the human body and the environment.
GMOs have been on our tables for about 18 years. As of 2023, there will be a total of 37 types of genetically modified agricultural products approved by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, an organization that tests the safety of GMOs in Korea. In 2023, 4 million tons of corn were imported for food, of which 700,000 tons were GM corn. A total of 1 million tons of edible beans were imported, of which 800,000 tons were GM beans. As such, GMOs are already widely used in South Korea, and most of them are used as feed for livestock or as raw materials for processed foods. Even if consumers are not aware that they are consuming GMOs, they can still ingest GMOs through processed foods on the market or livestock products fed with GMOs.
The argument that GMOs are necessary to produce enough food for the world’s large population and that the use of GMOs reduces environmental pollution because less herbicides are used to grow GMOs than ordinary agricultural products supports the use of GMOs. In addition, it is also said that the use of GMOs is not a problem because there is no direct link between the consumption of GMOs by humans and the incidence of diseases over the past 10 years or more. However, just because a GMOs does not cause a specific disease when it enters the body of a human or an animal does not mean that it is safe. It interacts with the environment and may cause problems decades later, so it should be used only after experiments have been conducted from a variety of perspectives. In addition, it has been more than 15 years since the use of GMOs, but the problem of hunger has not been solved yet, and it has been pointed out that they can cause more damage to the environment than ordinary agricultural products. Therefore, GMOs should be produced under much stricter conditions than they are now, and even for foods that are currently approved, they should be used after additional experiments and reviews are conducted focusing on their harmfulness to the human body and their impact on the environment.
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are agricultural products that have been cultivated to have useful properties by inserting genes with properties that the original genes do not have, and they can never occur in nature. All living things on Earth have genes, and each gene contains the unique characteristics of each living thing and reproduces by passing the genes on to offspring. Since genes are the basic unit of expression and inheritance, inserting a different gene into the original gene to express the characteristics will result in the creation of a new creature with characteristics that the parents did not have. Currently, the most commonly inserted characteristics are herbicide resistance and insect resistance. The purpose is to increase the productivity of agricultural products by creating agricultural products that can survive even after being sprayed with powerful herbicides, achieving the desired effect with a small amount of herbicides, or adding insect-harmful ingredients to the agricultural products themselves to induce the insects to die on their own. The inserted genes can be from species that are not biologically similar, or even human genes, but no agricultural products have been approved using human genes yet.
The biggest reason why the production and consumption of GMOs should be handled with caution is that their safety for the human body and the environment has not been fully verified and requires a comprehensive and long-term review. The agency in Korea that verifies the safety of GMOs is the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, which reviews them based on the principle of “substantial equivalence.” Substantial equivalence is a method that compares the differences in nutrients, toxins, and new proteins between conventional and GMO agricultural products, and evaluates the toxicity, allergenicity, and nutritional value of the different substances to determine whether there are no problems and to judge that they are substantially equivalent. This method is widely used in countries such as Japan, the United States, and the EU, and is mainly discussed by the OECD. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety conducts a 270-day review based on this principle, but the review period is too short to examine only the primary damage that GMOs cause to the human body or the environment, and it is difficult to know what kind of long-term effects they have. In other words, if GMO is viewed only as food, the above testing method may be valid, but if GMO is viewed as agricultural products that interact with the surrounding ecosystem, the testing method based on substantial equivalence is insufficient. In 2012, Professor Seralini of the University of Caen in France conducted an experiment in which rats were fed NK603, a genetically modified corn that has been certified and is actually consumed around the world. The results showed that rats fed NK603 had a much higher incidence of tumors and early mortality than the control group. It is noteworthy that the experiment was conducted for two years, which is much longer than the period of time required for the institution to verify safety, and produced different results. Since there are many variables other than the consumption of genetically modified corn, it is difficult to conclude that NK603, which is a GMO, is harmful to the human body based on this experiment alone, but it does suggest that when experiments are conducted for a sufficiently long period of time, different results may be obtained than those we know. Also, since GMOs are closely related to what we eat and live with, it is not valid to claim that GMOs are safe because there has been no direct damage caused by GMOs yet, and they should only be used after being fully proven to be safe for our bodies.
Currently, there are more than 7 billion people living on the planet, and it is expected that the population will grow to more than 10 billion by 2050. It is argued that it will be difficult to produce enough food for all these people using traditional farming methods, and that this problem must be solved through the use of GMOs. In fact, about 840 million people are suffering from hunger, and more than 3 million children die of hunger every year. However, according to the World Food Programme of the United Nations, there is currently enough food on the planet for the entire world to eat for a healthy life. The biggest causes of hunger are conflict, natural disasters, poor infrastructure, and overdevelopment. The bigger problem is that food is not being properly distributed, rather than a lack of food. Although GMOs have been actively used for the past decade, the number of people suffering from hunger has actually increased slightly, which proves that the problem of hunger is not a problem of food production. On the other hand, GMOs are often used as feed for livestock or as raw materials for processed foods, which are products for people in developed countries who are far from hunger rather than for people suffering from hunger, and therefore the argument that GMOs are inevitable because they help to eliminate hunger is not reasonable.
The traits inserted into GMO are mostly herbicide resistance and pest resistance. The herbicide resistance trait is to insert a trait that is resistant to a specific herbicide so that even if a small amount of herbicide is sprayed, only the surrounding weeds are removed and the agricultural products are not damaged, and the pest resistance trait is to help eliminate pests by directly damaging the agricultural products. Both methods are environmentally friendly because they allow for the use of smaller amounts of herbicides, and therefore there are claims that GMOs are more environmentally friendly than conventional agricultural products. In the short term, it may be more environmentally friendly and economical because less herbicides are used than for general agricultural products, but when GMO is cultivated for several years, superweeds or superpests that are resistant to herbicides may appear, in which case much more pesticides must be used than before, which ultimately results in the destruction of the environment. In addition, since it is impossible to completely isolate genetically modified organisms from other general agricultural products in the process of cultivating them, genetically modified agricultural products can be genetically mixed with general agricultural products, which disrupts the ecosystem. This is called the ecological leakage of GMOs, and even if they are not intentionally mixed, interactions with general agricultural products can occur. In fact, there was a case in Canada where GM seeds leaked and the general public was cultivating GM canola without knowing this. If we accidentally mix organic produce with GMOs, we will not be able to distinguish between them and consume them, which is a serious problem and may lead to irreversible consequences after a long time.
Moreover, the bigger problem is that most GMO foods, whose safety has not been verified, are released on the market in the form of processed foods, and it is not easy for consumers to recognize them. According to Article 18 of the Food Sanitation Act, GMO products must be labeled with the words “genetically modified food” to provide accurate information to consumers, but since the words are written in small print of 10 points or less, it is not easy for all consumers to check them. On the other hand, even if GMO and general agricultural products are unintentionally mixed during the import process, if GMO is included within 3%, the food may not be labeled as containing GMO, and if GMO is used as a raw material when making processed foods, it may not be labeled if it is not in the top 5 of the raw materials used. In other words, many consumers do not check whether the food they purchase contains GMOs, and even foods that are not labeled as containing GMOs may contain GMOs. In addition, if GMOs are used as livestock feed, the livestock may ingest GMOs as a secondary source, which is difficult to detect. The fact that GMO foods can enter our bodies through processed foods or livestock raised on GMO foods, even if we do not eat them directly, is a major threat to consumers. Therefore, stricter regulations are needed, even for consumers who do not want GMOs.
Numerous GMOs, including GM corn and GM soybeans, are currently being cultivated and are being actively consumed in many countries around the world. South Korea is no exception, and a large number of genetically modified agricultural products are already being imported, with the amount increasing every year. Proponents of GMOs say that GMOs are inevitable for reasons such as solving hunger problems and protecting the environment. In the short term, it seems that GMOs will solve various problems of humanity by increasing productivity when cultivating agricultural products, but in reality, GMOs have not played a major role in eliminating hunger and are instead destroying the ecosystem. In addition, many consumers are exposed to GMOs without realizing that they are consuming GMOs. As shown by the experiments conducted by Professor Seralini of the University of Caen in France, long-term comprehensive experiments can lead to the conclusion that GMOs are dangerous, and we must be very careful when verifying the safety of GMOs. Therefore, when discussing the use of GMOs, careful and long-term research is needed from various angles, and they should be used after research on their effects on the human body and the ecosystem as a whole. In addition, stronger regulations should be imposed on GMO foods that have been verified through experiments from various perspectives so that consumers can recognize and eat them.
