Learning about GM technology is very confusing.
Some people say it's dangerous,
and some say it's great.
But we're getting nowhere by flinging articles at each other on the Internet.
So let's take a look at what's actually going on.
Long ago humans began to cultivate wild plants,
which have since mutated to have some fantastic traits.
Traits are due to tiny biochemical machines inside cells,
and every species contains a different complement of each.
We call these 'proteins', the blueprints for which are encoded in the DNA, in segments called genes.
When genes mutate, plants produce different proteins and so have different traits.
Long before GM technology we had clever ways to create new crops with better traits
by messing with their DNA.
And by fiddling with their genomes, we've developed unnatural, but wonderful foods.
We've often done this by blasting their DNA with chemicals, or radiation,
causing thousands of random mutations throughout their genomes.
But this is considered organic, not genetic modification.
Genetic modification is used for upgrading a specific trait,
for which a specific protein is required.
Mutation is unlikely to create the gene necessary,
although usually it already exists... somewhere.
Breeding is the easiest way to transfer the gene we need,
but often the gene will be in an incompatible genome.
And so despite our best efforts,
until recently, the trait would have remained impossible to upgrade.
Today we're able to accurately copy the gene's DNA sequence
and insert it directly into our crops genome.
This is far less disruptive than traditional mutation, which itself is an attempt to create these useful genes.
The plant is then tested to make sure all proteins are functioning okay,
and that there's no harmful new ones.
Then finally, the upgraded crop is ready to compete in the seed market;
except it doesn't...
Whereas mutated crops go to market,
many bureaucracies prohibit GMOs, citing "safety concerns".
Most people are convinced this must be to protect us,
but there's often other motives for these restrictions.
Besides if inbreeding, crossing, irradiating, poisoning, or otherwise mutating entire genomes is considered safe,
how can manually inserting a specific gene possibly be considered dangerous?
In many places today, the poor are suffering from vitamin A deficiency,
due to a lack of beta-carotene in their diets.
Some crops can be hybridised to produce beta-carotene,
however rice, unfortunately, isn't one of them.
Rice is a staple food for much of the world,
but is missing two of the proteins needed to make beta-carotene.
In the 90's work began on filling these gaps,
with the hope of eventually eliminating the disease.
The missing genes were found in daffodil and soil bacterium genomes,
and this new crop was called Golden Rice.
However, the amount of beta-carotene it produced was a little low,
so the scientists continued their work.
By 2005 the daffodil gene had been replaced with the corn version, increasing beta-carotene 23 times.
This was a breakthrough in the fight against vitamin A deficiency,
but it's not gone smoothly.
Vitamin A deficiency kills more people annually than HIV, or malaria and tuberculosis combined,
many of who are under five.
That is, every twenty seconds, on average, a child dies.
Golden Rice was made free to farmers in 2001,
but due to intense lobbying it's yet to reach them.
Activists will tell you that golden rice is scary,
but let's instead really try to break this down.
DNA is a code containing only four letters, and genes are simply lots of these letters in a sequence.
A specific gene is an instruction to build a specific protein,
and it's the proteins that make life happen.
We frequently use mutagenesis to artificially change the letters in our crops' genomes,
hoping to improve them.
But today, genetic modification takes the randomness out of it, giving us any crops we want.
In the future genetic technologies have the potential to revolutionise our lives,
and understanding the complexity of DNA will likely be amongst our greatest technological achievement thus far.
But were a naturally cautious species, whose brains are actually hard-wired to believe the worst about almost anything.
This makes it easy to exploit people by telling the scariest stories,
which is why so many people do.
Everything in this universe has some risk attached,
and it's up to each of us to judge what risks we'll each accept.
However, it appears that modification is inherently safer than mutation,
and that's been working great for us.
Some people still won't believe modified products are safe, and that's fine,
stores label food for them "organic".
But some people are demanding things they don't want want to buy be labelled,
which may, quite quickly, become problematic.
Since agriculture first began we've randomly changed our crops' DNA:
the A's G's C's and T's.
Today we can do the same thing, but carefully,
to create the plants that we need.
Whilst this is an interesting debate, for thousands every day this isn't simply an academic issue.
Although genetics is complicated, it's not magic,
and transgenics isn't voodoo.
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