"Efforts to use genetically modified crops to fight malnutrition in Africa and Asia will receive a major vote of confidence from Bill Gates."
There will be an improvement in rice and cassava due to the Gates Foundation. Bill Gates is offering grants that are worth up $17.7 million to improve the crops that are eaten by millions of people in Africa and Asia. The improvement of these crops can only be done through genetic engineering. The money will help companys create strains of gentically modified rice, called "golden rice", which will produce beta-carotene and once consumed by the body it will turn into vitamin A. In SouthEast Asia alone, more than 90 million children suffer from a lack of vitamin A. A deficiency of vitamin A cause 670,000 deaths and 350,000 cases of blindness in children worldwide each year. The money will also help to add beta-carotene, iron and protein to cassava. Cassava is a crop eaten by more than 250 million people in Africa. Without the genetic engineering, the crop cassava could put people at risk for malnutrition. (picture right- what children look like who have malnutrition, the GM crops could help make the rate of malnutrition go down, and less kids looking like this)
I think this is the one of the first articles I ever read about GM crops that is actually about the postive part of GMO's and how it could help the people survive. A deficiency in these nutrients that crops need is causing many deaths and illnesses in children. I feel that Africa and Asia need these GM crops to help the rates of death and illness go down. It could also help the people who are starving in those areas since GM crops produce faster. This reminds me of when I was in global studies and we talked about the people in Africa and how unhealthy they are. If the GM crops work, Africa could climb very high in the world and their death rates from malnutrition and vitamin A deficiency could decrease. Bill Gates is putting a lot of money into this cause, I just hope it helps and doesn't cause any problems.
QUESTIONS
1) After reading this article what do you think of GM crops?
2) Do you think the GM crops could cause problems for Africa and Asia?
3) What problems could GM crops cause in Africa and Asia?
4) Do you think there is any other way to improve the vitamin A deficiency and malnutrition in Africa and Asia instead of using GMO's?
Author: The Times
Date: April 15, 2011
Bill Gates is doing an extremely nice thing to donate money for these kids in Africa and Asia. I never knew that GM crops could even help so many people in such a dramatic way. Also, it has vitamin A? 670,000 people die because of vitamin A, and all you have to do to fix this is to be able to produce GM crops. Without Bill Gates’ donation, more and more people will die because of Cassava and the lack of vitamin A. This is a drastic problem in Africa and Asia, and I hope more people will donate to help their cause. I have learned about Africa in global studies last semester and remember how hard it was for the people living there. So many diseases and different ways to get sick, it’s nice to know that GM crops might help reduce the death rate.
ReplyDeleteTo answer Katherine’s first question, I think that GM crops are not as bad as people are making them sound. This is a pretty significant life changing effect for these GM crops to make in Africa and Asia. They do have faults, and this is definitely not one of them, but a vast majority of things of both pros and cons, it’s just what you personally think of them.
This article shows the good side of GMO and how nice bill gates it to donate 17.7 million dollars. I never new that so many people died of lack of vitamin A. Without GMO's these people would die from malnutrition that's why GMO need to stay around. I have learned about Africa and I know how hard it is for people their to get food and clean water.
ReplyDeleteTo answer Katherine's second question. GM could cause problems for farmers that are trying to grow organic foods. But I think GM will do more good than bad though.
Wow! This is the first time that I heard a positive story about GM crops. The articles we have been blogging about before were basically negative things about GMOs. I think that is it extremely nice of Gates to donate such a large amount of money, because it will be saving so many lives. Everyday people donate money to Africa so citizens living there can have a better life. Thanks to Gate, these GM crops will provide people with vitamin A, and cassava. Like Colby and Katherine have stated above, I can realte this to what I learned last semester in Global Studis. We did an entire unit about Africa, and we learned how poor and sick some of the people are there. Now hopefully we can at least make some of them healthier with these GM crops.
ReplyDeleteTo answer Katherines second question:
After reading this article, I think that GM crops will do better then they will worse. Even though they will still do harm, they can help so many people like we read about above. In the future I still think people will argue about them, but I belive that they will help people more, then they would harm them.