Genetically Modified Foods: What's the Big Deal?

ELMONT,NY (March 4,2010) – Genetically modified food continues to spark debate worldwide due to its lack of long term testing and standards. Thanks to a rapidly growing global community and medical advances, the life span of the average human has increased from 52 years in the 1960s to 70 years in 2009; making for obviously larger populations and larger demand for food. Nations now more than ever, must have faster turnaround times for food distribution.

Genetically modified foods include crops that are insect resistant and make up a large majority of the World Health Organization (WHO)’s food aid. Food aid is more or less the United Nation’s global solution to fulfilling its past due Millennium Development Goals (MDGS) which includes "eradicating world hunger". So why is food aid, a conceptually positive idea, being met with opposition by nations like Nicaragua?

Nicaragua’s position on the use of GM foods has been complicated throughout the years. Nicaragua required aid from the WHO following famines in the Central America region. This aid was not revealed to be genetically modified foods which have in turn led to the nation’s mistrust in food aid by the global community. Representative Victor Campos from Friends of Earth International has highlighted Nicaragua’s main issue with the allocation of genetically modified crops to developing nations when developed nations outlaw the distribution of such products in their own borders. 

Nicaragua’s Center for Health Information and Advisory Service representative, Ana Quiroz has also cosigned Campos’s statement. Nicaragua's sentiments are similar to a number of nations where it has been asserted that WHO should not misrepresent food aid, meaning the nature of the seeds as well as the products should be clearly iterated to receiving nations. 

Nicaragua President, Daniel Ortega’s vision for the advancement of Nicaragua has been to become a breadbasket for Central America due to rich volcanic soils. Nicaragua is one of the most arid areas of Central America with about 1 million acres of land waiting to be farmed on. 

Nearby neighbor in Central America, Guatemala, was provided with starling corn by the World Food Programme (WFP) which has been deemed as unapproved for human consumption by the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA). Genetically modified foods are not the only option to combat hunger and environmental disasters but  the cost of utilizing mildly tested food to feed our global community may not be the best plan especially when universal standards have yet to be set.