Introduction
Hi this is Apratim, recently I have seen that many people have started talking about the serious repercussions on organic industries. ” How is the organic sector handling the argument in favor of integrating genetically engineered crops into organic agricultural systems” ?
Well, therefore I tried to list five compelling reasons Why is organic agriculture contradictory with plant breeding?
1) Basic science
Humans have a complex digestive system, which is populated with hormones, antibodies, and enzymes that have developed over millennia to recognise and break down meals found in nature in order to provide nutrition to the human body.
GMO crops and foods contain novel mutations and gene combinations that have never before been found in the human diet and may not be recognised as digestible food by the intestinal system.
2) Ecological Impact
The primary assumption of organic agriculture is to establish and sustain healthy soil, marine, and terrestrial ecosystems. There has been a major fall in the numbers of Monarch butterflies, black swallowtails, lacewings, and caddisflies since the introduction of genetics-based plant breeding, and there may be a link between monocultures and honeybee colony collapse.
Crop leftovers have been found to linger in soils and have a deleterious influence on soil ecosystems.
3) Genetic diversity
Organic farmers are obligated to maintain or improve their operations’ biological and genetic diversity. Plant breeding, on the other hand, has the reverse impact, restricting the gene pool and concentrating on mono-cropping cultivars. Despite the fact that plant breeders may begin with a more diversified pool, they pick only the genotypes that they “want” to see in the field.
Plant breeding should not be allowed in organic agriculture since it reduces genetic variety by choosing favourable features.
4) Unpredictable Outcome
Organic agriculture is based on a precautionary approach: learn as much as possible about the environmental and human health repercussions of a method or input before permitting it to be used in organic farming. Agricultural crop breeding has been demonstrated to have various unanticipated implications, both at the macro and genetic levels, since its introduction.
Consumers and agricultural workers have experienced skin and health problems as a result of potatoes and celery touched by plant breeders’ hands. ( sorry for being rude )
5) Environmental deterioration
It is commonly understood that good soils result in healthy crops. Research and development should focus on agricultural systems, particularly organic farming, that recycle nutrients to improve soil health, produce abundant harvests of nutrient-dense crops, and safeguard natural resources.
Plant breeding has thus far resulted in the growth of herbicide-resistant weeds as well as an increase in the use of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, resulting in increased soil erosion and water contamination as well as the production of crops with inferior nutritional value.
CONCLUSION
Organic foods should not be subjected to breeding, according to me. In reality, there is an increasing demand for “wild” foods that have not been genetically modified by fallible humans. By mixing conventionally developed crops into organic agriculture, we are further robbing consumers of their right to pick more “natural” meals.
There is no public poll that suggests that organic (or conventional) food consumers want their crops’ genetics altered by plant breeding.It is self-evident that “conventional breeding” refers to breeding for conventional agriculture rather than organic systems.