Imagine a chicken that weighs 3 kg. Next, imagine plants with pesticides in them, as a part of them. You may think that these are horrendous, and would never happen, but this is the reality.
In Britain they are breeding broiler chickens for size and meat production. This kind of a life is not pleasant for the chicken. They have many health problems, and around 32 million birds die each year from these problems. The plants life may not be affected by the pesticides in them, but we may be, and there are many impacts on the environment. These broiler chickens are the result of selective breeding - where you find a certain trait that you like, find another chicken with the same trait, and continue to breed them bigger and bigger. This can be taken to a more scientific level, by evaluating each cell that would go into the chick, and making sure that it contains the gene for a larger size, or whatever you might be breeding for. In genetic modification however, (what is going on with the plants) you actually take specific genes from different species and implant them in your animal or plant. The result of this is plants with a resistance to certain pesticides, and bunnies that glow in the dark. There are many benefits that are easy to see in these two applications of science. For one, it is easier to protect plants from harmful diseases and pests. As for selective breeding, it is far more convenient to have a chicken that is twice the size of a normal chicken, if it is for eating. You can basically breed any animal to fit your specific needs. At the same time, there are many downfalls to both of them. In GMOs, there are many health and environment issues. One of these is those of us who don't want pesticides in our food. The pollen of the GMO corn can easily transfer to the organic corn, and there is nothing you can do about it. Also, having these GMO plants can make pesticide resistant bugs and diseases. In selective breeding, there are high levels of suffering, and many welfare issues. These birds suffer quite a bit, and many die before they are slaughtered. It makes you question many of your ethics - what would you do for cheap chicken?
Personally, I think that both of these are very important issues, and neither can be ignored. There is a possibility that GMOs are more important, but that is just to me. You see, when I was little, I used to get rashes, and we figured out that they were from strawberries. But then we realized that it was only non-organic strawberries. Strawberries are covered in tarps, and then they are fumigated to get rid of any bugs or pests. This is what was causing my reaction. If these pesticides were to be a part of the plant, it is simply horrible to think of - there is no way that you can stop the transferring of the pollen from one plant to another. I feel like this is a much more immediate issue to be taken care of. Selective breeding has been going on for years, it doesn't have as immediate of consequences. I think that the geneticist Gregor Mendel would be pretty amazed with what we have done with his discoveries. We have come a long way, but we are still only building on what he discovered. At the same time, he might be kind of horrified at what we are using this technology for. He probably meant it to help disorders (which it is), but not so much for just convenience.
