GENETICALLY MODIFIED BANANAS

GENETICALLY MODIFIED BANANAS As far as I can remember, I have always been against using genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to produce food. That has always been my belief, because I did not like the idea of splicing animal DNA into plant DNA. That was my belief, because I knew that the food companies were splicing Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) genes from an animal DNA (from bacteria) into the DNA of the corn plant. As much as I would rather not eat genetically modified corn, I have no way of knowing now which are GMO corn and which are not in the markets, because of very poor enforcement of labeling laws in this country. By now, I seem to have no choice but to accept the fact that the battle against GMO foods is all but lost. Although I still would not want to stop fighting it if I still could, I am now willing to tolerate certain GMO foods only if one plant DNA is mixed with another plant DNA. And now, scientists from Australia have created a new strain of bananas by adding a gene from a wild banana. In other words, from plant to plant, from banana to banana. That is why I think that there is perfectly nothing wrong with doing that. And now, the new strain is resistant to the Panama disease, a virus that affects both banana and abaca plants. Can you imagine what that can do to boost our agriculture? Aside from being able to produce and export more bananas, we can now do the same with abaca products. It is a good time to do that now, to replace many plastic materials. IKE SENERES/04-05-2024