Contemplating Controversy
Over the past decade, the agricultural industry has been shrouded in controversy. Mostly stemming from the use of GMOs and the amount of carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere by the large diesel drinking farm implements. Others including the issues with large factory farms, the use of fair treatment for laborers and the health factors regarding herbicides and pesticides. There are a large amount of support for either side of each argument and an even larger number of different opinions from farmers themselves, all the way down to the parents feeding their children with that same GMO food.
The truth is, the answers are not black and white. Just the same way as voting for a particular candidate in a public office is not black and white. There is no definitive answer one way or another on anything. But for this specific post, I am going to stick to the conversation about GMOs. I believe that the GMO argument is one of the most important to our society because GMOs are everywhere.
Before reading the rest of this post, please read the following page: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/gmos_india/pro_con.html. Here is a larger overview of the pros and cons related to GMOs.
That article does a good job of differentiating between both sides of each specific point.
In the end, I believe that the farmers believe that without GMOs, they won't be able to produce enough to fulfill our world's needs. And consumers don't like the idea of scientists "playing God".
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