Agriculture

With wheat that is collected in Mesopotamia or the Yang in imperial China rice or maize of the Incas the world population would not survive. Agricultural techniques have advanced and harvests have increased until you have enough to eat and to feed the planet, while only 20% have in 80% of the world's wealth. The hunger problem is not so much about the lack of food as the bad distribution of them. The use of pesticides and chemicals to improve the crops gave what we know today as the green revolution. Today, genetically modified seeds have transformed agriculture in an industry.

For FAO, GM food should be taken with caution. There has been no verifiable reports that generate a hazard, explains Jose Maria Sumpsi, Assistant Director-general of this organization. On the contrary, are some social and environmental benefits because farmers have to use fewer pesticides and they are replacing toxic chemicals with less harmful ones, argues. However, there are many critical voices to the use of transgenic seeds. With the excuse of helping the development of the planet, a small group of companies control seeds and patents have the key of the food chain, warn from alternative Latinoamericana. Monsanto, Du Pont, Pioner Hi-Brend, Daw Agro Sciences and Syngenta are four corporations that have in their hands the transgenic seeds. A farmer who buys any of these companies a seed with modified genes have to sign a commitment which cannot stay with second generation seeds. Thus, you will have to buy back the seeds for the next harvest.

Farmers depend on these multinationals and price who would like to seed. Organizations like Greenpeace warn of the harmful effects that these modified food can have on health. More serious allergies, resistance to antibiotics, some of these negative effects are decreased ability of fertilization. In 2004, for example, more than 55% of soybeans and nearly 30% cotton world they were genetically modified.