What Is Tim Folger´s Genetic Engineering Or Organic Farming?

After taking a look at this week's readings I noticed a bit of tension between organic farming practices and GMO’s or genetic engineering of plants. Overall both of these types of farming make good point, but there are negative and positives to both sides. On one hand we have genetic engineering where seeds are genetically modified to grow and prosper in any environment and provide a lot of food. On the other side we have organic farming where they can plant multiple and different types of crops in the same location which can be beneficial in deterring pests and other viruses from their plants and crops. Overall genetic engineering is more focused on the science aspect and creating breeds of crops that will grow in any environment. While the

Overall this is a very expensive route to go because corporations like Monsanto hold patents and rights to those seeds and people are not allowed to save or share them with others for next season or anything like that(Folger, 2017). They require that all farmers purchase new seeds every year from then to plant and grow those crops. A lot of small time farmers in third world countries would not be able to afford to purchase new seeds every year. Also these crops require pesticides that are made from fossil fuels that contributes to greenhouse gases(Folger, 2017). However there is a benefit to these crops because they could basically grow anywhere and produce a lot of yield, you don’t have to worry about drought, floods or other things that could affect the crop(Folger, 2017). Through genetic engineering they could produce plants and crops with high nutritional value more of it per acre. Genetic engineering goes directly against Navdanya movement because this movement is opposed genetically engineered plants and crops and only support natural and organic ways of growing foods. This includes the sharing of seeds and planting multiple crops in the same areas to deter pests and have backup crops incase something goes bad with one crop they can rely on another(Shiva,

These effects include problems of land degradation, deforestation, environmental pollution, depletion of biodiversity, increased incidence of mosquito borne diseases, pest resurgence, lowering of groundwater table are the results of Green revolution in India(Singh, 2017). Because of all the chemicals and pesticides that they use land is becoming very acidic and destroying the soil to the point where is is no longer able to be used for agriculture. Thus they have thousand of hectares of land is just thrown away and not used for anything because they soil is not good. Also all the chemicals and pesticides used flow into rivers and stream that can affect drinking water and is killing fish populations and other foods that come from rivers. These harmful chemicals get into the water and foods which affects the health of citizens, there have been reports of cases of cancer, deformities, hepatic diseases and neurological disorders due to pesticide poisoning(Singh, 2017). This type of farming creates a pesticide treadmill, where farmers have to use for powerful, harmful and expensive pesticides to keep their crops alive because overtime pesticides adapt to become resistant to certain pesticides(Singh, 2017). Comparing this to Folger’s argument about genetically engineered crops in