Pros and cons of genetic engineering

Genetic engineering is widely applied in the field of agriculture . Food crops such as maize , rice , and potatoes are being genetically modified in several ways . Some of the benefits of genetic engineering in agriculture are higher crop yields , production of more nutritious foods ability of the crops to be grown even in harsh environment , production of crops which are more resistant to pests and this eliminates the use of potentially dangerous pesticides , ability to remove undesirable traits , foods with better flavor and longer shelf life , and possibility of using crops as cheap

source of medicine (Barash , para . 7

Genetically engineered seeds are not eaten by pests and are able to survive in relatively harsh climatic conditions . There is a recently discovered plant gene referred to as At-DBF2 which when introduced into a tomato and tobacco cells is observed to increase their adaptation to harsh soil and climatic conditions . Biotechnology can also be applied in prolonging half life of foods , therefore fruits and vegetables can have their shelf life greatly improved . Genetic engineering in food can be employed to produce completely new substances like proteins and other food nutrients . Genetic modification of foods can also be employed in increasing the medicinal value of foods therefore resulting in homegrown edible vaccines

Genetic engineering has a great ability in case of human beings . Human genetic engineering is the branch of genetic engineering which is involved with modifying the genes of humans before they are born (Redmond , para . 8 . The technique can be applied in altering certain traits in an individual . Positive genetic engineering is concerned with enhancing the good traits in an individual such as increasing life expectancy or human capacity while negative genetic engineering is concerned with suppression of bad traits in humans such as predilection to genetic diss . Through genetic engineering...