Food, Inc. Discussion Guide - TakePart

genetic material—called deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA—is the same in every cell ofa particular organism. While all DNA is made from the same four chemical buildingblocks, each plant has a unique DNA sequence that determines its characteristics.The DNA in seed cells comes from the parent plants and transfers characteristics fromthe parent to the offspring. With sexual reproduction, the genetic information in seedsis a combination of both the male and female parent parts. This allows new geneticcombinations that produce slight variations in the plant’s traits.Over the 10,000 years that people have been practicing agriculture, they have beenimproving crops by selecting plants with desired traits, and saving seeds from thoseplants to sow the following year. By doing so, people have developed plants thatare more productive, tasty, frost- or drought-resistant, and easy to harvest than theoriginal wild plants. Modern-day grains, beans, and other crops were developedthrough this process.In the past few decades, people have been using a new process, called geneticmodification or bioengineering, to develop plants with specific traits. With thisprocess, scientists in a laboratory change the DNA sequence of a plant by adding,duplicating, deleting, or inserting pieces of DNA from other organisms—like bacteriaor viruses—to produce certain plant traits.Genetic modification speeds up the process of improving plants, which otherwisecan take many, many years for even small changes. It also allows people to developplants with new traits that cannot be found in nature, such as the ability to resistspecific diseases. But genetic modification also raises many concerns. For one thing,we do not know all the long-term consequences of genetic modification to humanhealth or the environment. For another, there is no way to keep genetically modifiedcrop varieties separate from conventional varieties when they are cross-pollinatedby wind and insects; in fact, people have already found genetically modified DNAin conventional corn, soybeans, and canola seeds. 6 Other concerns are that the useof genetic modification may lead to fewer species and less genetic variety withinspecies, and that it may give bioengineering companies too much control over theworld’s food production.6 Union of Concerned Scientists. “FAQs: Seed contamination.” http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/impacts_genetic_engineering/faqs-seed-contamination.html.7 7F o o d , I n c . D I S C U S S I O N G U I D E© P a r t i c i p a n t M e d i a