Biotechnology Week 2

Using biotechnology in our food production today is a huge step in the world's agricultural market. When plants can be genetically engineered or altered, without harm to the consumer it is a great benefit to society. The problem is the time it takes to test these improvements, to make sure there are no side effects. Using seed that has been genetically altered to withstand pests would help the environment greatly. If pesticides were used less, then the effects of water run off in our water sources would lower. I believe that Biotechnology is a leap ahead of the old conventional methods of plant breeding. What use to take generations of selection and cross breeding to produce a plant with good qualities is being achieved in less amount of time. The techniques are different and more precise with biotechnology. Using biotechnology enables our ability to isolate preferred genes and introduce new traits into our foods. With older methods plants that were selected still had undesirable traits that were harder to breed out. Now the undesirable traits can be removed genetically. I believe that our society needs a form of biotechnology to survive our growing population. I also think that boundaries need to be set on this technology. This technology would increase the cost of production and increase the consumer's cost. The smaller farmers would struggle to keep up with larger production. I think that the over flow of technology should be shared to the countries that need it most. I believe that Biotechnology will help our society grow more efficient in the future.