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C attle shared how much our popu-

lation will be increased in the
next thirty years or so: The
Food: the staple of American
world population is expected
culture. With three meals a
to reach 9 billion people by
day and snacks in between,
the year 2050, which means
a majority of citizens have
the world’s farmers are faced
never been concerned with
with the task to increase
where our next mouthful
food production up to 70
will come from, whether
percent. Just as technology
it’s a home-cooked meal or
evolves along with society,
straight from a greasy Mc-
so does modern agriculture.
Donald’s wrapper. Compared
This leaves not only agricul-
to a majority of the world’s
turalists, but those who are
population, we are lucky to
outside of the industry who
have so many options when
might have different stand-
it comes to our diets. Some
points, asking a question
prefer to omit meat from
that is brought up heavily in
their diet, while others are
conversations held during
unable to eat gluten or dairy.
mealtimes: Are genetically
Our plates are becoming just
modified foods really go-
as unique and diverse as we
ing to be beneficial when it
are.
comes to help ease world
hunger?

Agriculturalists, both young

Figure 1. Maddy Meier keeps her eye on
the judge during the supreme heifer drive.
However, something that we
ignore as a country is food
insecurity across the globe,
especially in developing
nations. It also needs to be
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and old, are quite familiar
with GMOs, however, those
outside of the industry might
not know truly what this
type of technology is, other
than false information that is
spread across media outlets
by anti-agricultural groups. A
misconception about GMOs
is that each and every food
product on the market are
genetically modified. How-
ever, there are currently 10
GMO crops that are approved
in the United States: Squash,
soybeans, corn, cotton,
papaya, canola, alfalfa, sugar
beets, potatoes, and apples.
Other crops, such as wheat
and rice, are grown commer-
cially. So, if you notice that
a product other than these
listed previously are labeled
“GMO-free” in your local gro-
cery store aisle, it is simply a
marketing ploy.
GMOs fall under the category
of agricultural biotechnol-
ogy, which is “a range of
tools, including traditional
breeding techniques, that
alter living organisms, or
parts of organisms, to make
or modify products; improve
plants or animals, or develop
microorganisms for specific
agricultural uses.” (Biotech-
nology FAQs) Genetically
modified crops, also known
as biofortified crops, are seen
as an important tool to help
the effects of malnutrition.
Sheep
One of the many reasons for
biofortification is to increase
the vitamin content within a
food. One of these instances
involves the biofortification
with beta-carotene, which
is known as ‘the precursor
of vitamin A.’ The first ge-
netically modified crop that
produced beta-carotene was
rice, often called ‘Golden
Rice’. The beta-carotene was
obtained after an insertion
of a gene from a bacteria cell
and another from corn that
increased Vitamin A within
the rice. Golden rice was fed
to families across Asia and
Africa.
Figure 2. Market lamb exhibitors brace
their entries during the selection of
champion crossbred.
Not only was the goal to feed
these people, but to help
solve deficiencies caused
by a lack of Vitamin A. 150
grams of this rice provides
the recommended amount
of vitamin A for a child, as the
severe deficiency for vitamin
A causes 500,000 cases of
irreversible blindness, and up
to 2 million deaths per year,
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 with most of these children
being under five years of age.
Before it’s passing, the Gold-
en Rice had to go through
different biosafety and hu-
man consumption tests, by
different regulatory agencies
of four developed countries.
Without GMOs such as
golden rice, there would
be less solutions to solving
nutritional deficiencies on a
broader scale.
Now that the basics of GMOs
have been discussed, it is
important to know of a series
of events would pave the
way for future genetically
modified crop projects in
the future, decades before
the first GMO hit the market.
Among legendary individuals
such as Albert Einstein, Ma-
hatma Gandhi, and Bill Gates,
an agronomist from Iowa by
the name Norman Borlaug,
an University of Minnesota
alumnus with a PHD in plant
pathology was listed as one
of the most 100 influential
people of the 20th century,
and for good reason. Borlaug
would be responsible for the
phenomenal known as “The
Green Revolution” .
In 1944, Borlaug began one
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of his first research experi-
ments in Mexico. He noticed
that the wheat farmers in this
country could hardly sustain
themselves because of weak
harvests. For thirteen years,
Borlaug, along with a team of
scientists, had developed a
disease-resistant wheat. Yes,
it could withstand rust and
the yields were increases,
the stems weren’t nearly as
strong as they needed to be:
the stems would break in any
sort of rain and weather. Bor-
laug proceeded to crossbred
with his varieties of wheat
with Japanese dwarf strains.
This was a process that was
dubbed “shuttle breeding” by
the Wall Street Journal.
After hearing of Borlaug’s
success, the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization,
along with the Rockefeller
Foundation, asked Borlaug if
he would be able to help out
agriculturalists in areas such
as the Middle East and South
Asia, countries that, similar
to Mexico, suffered from
extreme poverty and hunger.
At this point in history, more
than 160 million people
worldwide had perished
from famine in the previous
century.
Goats
Figure 3. Division III market goat exhibi-
tors lead their wethers around the arena.
Borlaug’s feat of overcoming
resistance to new agricultural
ideals in Mexico was nothing
near to an easy task. Now, he
had to do the same to Indian
and Pakistan leaders, not to
mention, that these countries
were each divided. It took
the ministers of agriculture
in food of each country,
along with other agricultural
scientists to convince these
countries to use Borlaug’s
technology, and just in the
nick of time too. Increased
crop yields in these countries
allowed the people to be
able to consume what they
produced, rather than losing
the crops to waste, thus
saving hundreds of millions
of lives.
Next, Borlaug’s wheat tech-
nology would be seen in
Egypt, Afghanistan, Saudi
Arabia, and several other
Middle Eastern and North
African countries, starting
in the early 1960’s. In 1968,
Borlaug used the method in
his wheat projects and transi-
tioned them to rice projects.
This project, which stemmed
from the Philippines, was
dubbed “Miracle Rice” by
Kenneth Quinn, the Presi-
dent of The World Food Prize
Foundation. The new IR-8
rice would not only increase
levels of nutrition, but also
the quality of life across Asia:
levels of child mortality were
lower, and children, girls es-
pecially, stayed in school for
longer periods of time. This is
all in contrast to villages who
had not added the new rice
variety into their diets.
With an ever-growing world,
one of our resources that ag-
riculturalists will eventually
run out of, is land. Thanks to
increased yields within crops,
less land will be used over
time, which could be used for
housing and other facilities,
rather than farmland. With
less land, comes less labor
and improves safety for farm-
ers. This would also be handy
for farmers that raise live-
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 stock, as they also need time
to tend to their animals.
According to a Forbes article,
in 2014, GMOs allowed
farmers to use 51 million less
acres of land, that would be
to produce the same amount
of food, fuel, and fiber crops
without being genetically
modified. This acreage is
equivalent to the farmland in
Iowa and Missouri combined.
Without GMOs, there would
be an additional need for
22 million acres of corn, 19
million acres of soybeans, 9
million acres of cotton, and
1.5 million acres of cano-
la to keep up with global
production levels in 2014.
GMO crops still continue to
increase productivity which
has helped prevent defor-
estation and conserve bio-
diversity. Thanks to GMOs,
arable land will be able to
be preserved for the future,
rather than to be used for
other purposes than it is not
intended for, and vice versa,
especially since the pop-
ulation continues to grow
rapidly.
One of the leading compa-
nies that distribute genetical-
ly modified seeds is Monsan-
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to. One of the many claims of
genetically modified crops,
especially by Monsanto, that
they are drought resistant.
However, studies show that
that current drought-resis-
tant crops, on average, do
no better in dry conditions
than conventional crops.
Currently, there is only one
genetically modified crop
that is drought resistant on
the market, and that is ESPB
corn. Drought resistance is
determined by more than
one or two pieces of genetic
code. Research is still cur-
rently being conducted on
what could be the solution
to solving drought resistance
in crops. However, without
the truthful claim that GMOs
are resistant to drought, we
are still faced with how to
face the problem of a steadi-
ly warming climate, where
droughts are predicted to
occur more often and last
much longer than they do
now. Thus, harvest threats
will occur across the globe.
Swine
A second false claim is that
GMOs reduce the use of her-
bicides and pesticides. Apart
from seeds, Monsanto also

Figure 4. A 4-H’er drives her breeding
gilt project in a Hampshire class.
sells what they call ‘Roundup
Ready crops’, which are
designed to survive the
herbicide Roundup. Most
genetically modified crops
are designed to be herbicide
intolerant, however, GMOs
have been shown to increase
herbicide use. From 1996
to 2008, farmers in the U.S.
alone sprayed an extra 383
million pounds of herbicide
on genetically modified
crops. Overuse of a product
such as Roundup results in
weeds that are less resistant
to the pesticide, thus, allows
weeds to breed that carry
a herbicide-resistant gene.
Even farmers have reported
that ‘some traits are getting
less useful.” Apart from the
fact that weeds are becom-
ing less resistant to pesti-
cides, it should be noted that
human exposure to pesti-
cides are low, and our health
will not be affected by them.
The second downside to
GMOs is how expensive they
are. Thus, they are more than
likely to not be obtained by
those in developing nations,
unlike here in The United
States. For example, in 1995,
a farmer in Oklahoma was
able to be roughly $100 for a
bag of corn seed. Today, the
United States Department
of Agriculture estimates that
the same bag of corn seed
costs around 300% more.
However corn yields have
grown by 35 percent in the
past 24 years. According to
Drew Porter, DuPont Pioneer
director of product market-
ing, seed companies base
prices on genetics, traits,
seed treatments and agro-
nomic support. In just the
past seven years, the total
operating cost for corn has
increased from about 28% to
32%.
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 From 2008 to 2012, it was re-
ported that the total amount State Fair
that was spent on a single, Livestock Entries
genetically engineered crop
was $136 million dollars. Comparison
Usually, research lasts around
thirteen years, and includes 2017 2018
registration, as well as regu- Breeding Breeding
latory science and regulatory Heifers: Heifers:
365 334
affairs, which take up the lon-
Market Steers: Market Steers:
gest phase of development.
125 130

Currently, more researching Breeding Ewes: Breeding Ewes:

is being done on how the 97 91
prices could truly affect a
country’s economy from a Market Lambs: Market Lambs:
beneficial standpoint. GMOs 308 331
are often criticized, as a po-
Breeding Does: Breeding Does:
tentional problem that could
175 171
arise would be that the use
of using GMO crops would al- Market Goats: Market Goats:
low for developing nations to 203 221
become more dependent on
wealthier ones, as the profit Breeding Gilts: Breeding Gilts:
from genetically engineered 313 275
seeds would be directed to
Market Hogs: Market Hogs:
a seed company’s headquar- 245 262
ters, such as Monsanto in the
United States. If this were to
happen, a developing nation
could be sent into an even
greater poverty and the cycle
would spin out of control.
raised the crops. •

Contact Information:
Maddy Meier, editor
(620) 877-7883
mnmeier@ksu.edu
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