What the experts say

One of the most important uses of GM foods is to increase the yield of foods and be able to provide it to third world countries at an inexpensive and superfluous rate. "People with no food have a right to food, and life is always paramount, and if the people on the ground are saying give us anything, then they should be given anything," Helen Palmer of Oxfam, a group of non-governmental organizations from three continents working worldwide to fight poverty and injustice, argues concerning other countries' rejection of US food aid because it was genetically modified. In response to the statistics showing how many people go hungry and how the population is supposed to increase, Monsato, the creator of one of the biggest bio-tech crops called round-up ready crops, and an obvious supporter of genetically engineering foods, asserted "We know this means that agricultural output and production needs to increase by 70%. And so how do we do that? Clearly dumping more chemicals on the ground isn't the answer. I don't think many people would agree that slashing and burning the remaining rain forests is a very good approach. Frankly; biotech is not the Holy Grail either, but it has demonstrated its ability to increase yield and reduce chemicals." Because genetically engineered foods have been proven to increase yield, reduce the amount of herbicide and pesticide used, and provide more nutrition, but have not been scientifically proven to hurt humans, the potential benefits are stronger than the risks. In other words, "These 'certain promises' of this revolutionary technology far outweighed its 'uncertain peril,'" claims James Watson , who along with Francis Crick, had first described the structure of the DNA helix in 1953.