"Imagine the wholesale transfer of genes between totally unrelated species and across all biological boundaries-plant, animal and human-creating thousands of novel life forms in a brief moment of evolutionary time. Then, with clonal propagation, mass-producing countless replicas of these new creations, releasing them into the biosphere to propagate, mutate, proliferate and migrate, colonizing the land, water, and air. This is, in fact, the great scientific and commercial experiment underway as we turn the corner into the Biotech Century." - Jeremy Rifkin

Everyone and everything are part of the environment and have impacts upon it. All the ways we live our daily lives, how we choose to travel, work, and eat, affect the surrounding world. Though food and eating habits may seem harmless enough, most people unknowingly purchase and consume food that has been genetically altered. Sixty percent of the food in grocery stores contains genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and it is estimated that within five years, at least ninety percent will contain GMOs. Issues related to the use of farmland, treatment of farm workers, and protection of the environment are important to the discussion of genetic engineering. I offer this paper as a genetic engineering primer: a brief overview of the ways in which farming is no longer as simple as tilling soil, sowing seeds, or planting the usual crops. I explain the various techniques geneticists use to alter plants, and go on to describe ways in which this alteration impacts our environment. I also discuss the ways in which we affect our environment by perpetuating, as a society, the production and consumption of genetically engineered foods.

What Is Genetic Engineering?

Within every cell of every living thing is Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA), often called the "coding" or the "blueprint" for life, and for all the characteristics possessed by organisms. DNA is a sequence of amino acids that are organized in a specific order and act together to create unique organisms. The order and placement of the amino acids on the strand of DNA determine the traits and characteristics an organism will have. Plants and animals (very complex organisms) have billions of amino acid bonds in one strand of DNA. Genetic engineering is the removal of a piece of genetic coding from the gene of one organism and insertion of that piece of coding into the gene of another for the purpose of achieving a desired trait. For example, some arctic fish have a tremendous ability to withstand extremely cold temperatures. In an effort to keep strawberries and other crops from freezing in cold weather, geneticists have taken DNA from these fish and inserted it into the genes of these plants, hoping that the crop will acquire the cold-resistant trait.

Genetic engineering is a fairly new science, and geneticists know very little about the consequences of "creating" new organisms through the manipulation of DNA. Today's scientists are unable to understand and explain the functions of many of the billions of bonds of amino acids in one DNA strand. However, geneticists do understand that not only is the actual coding of a trait important, but also the position of the coding on the strand and the strand's relationship with the amino acids around it. Many factors affect the characteristics of organisms. Therefore, placing the coding for resistance to cold temperatures within a new organism's DNA will not necessarily give the new organism that trait. As Stillwell points out, "The random nature of insertion prevents scientists from knowing which of the organism's regulatory functions might be affected" (1999). Due to our inability to control the placement of the code within the new organism's DNA, undesired or harmful traits could be produced through genetic engineering. Also, "the alteration of the DNA sequence may have unintended and unexpected effects on the cellular processes of the recipient organism" (Stillwell 1999). In other words, the new organism may not even survive! At best, instability and unpredictability characterize genetically engineered plants.

The Proposed Purpose of Genetic Engineering

Despite concerns over the many unknowns, some geneticists, corporations, politicians, and farmers give various rationales for "plowing ahead" with genetically engineered crops. They argue that genetic engineering may produce more nutritious, vitamin rich foods, or add to certain plants' medicinal value; or that, thanks to genetic engineering, farmers may be able to grow crops in geographical areas previously unable to support these plant species, due to temperature, soil richness, and other factors. However, these applications are very new and have not yet been successful.

The most commonly held goal of genetic engineering is to produce a higher yield from fewer acres of cropland. Geneticists are trying to achieve the goal of a higher yield in several different ways. By inserting pesticides into plant DNA, scientists can create a plant that has pesticides present in every cell. Insects eating any part of the crop will die, an effect that, in theory, protects those crops from pests. Also, by inserting virus genes into the plant DNA, scientists sometimes make plants that are resistant to viruses that would, under normal circumstances, kill them.

The most common approach to producing a higher yield is to create herbicide resistant crops. These crops have had their DNA altered to make them able to resist large amounts of topical herbicides so that surrounding weeds can be destroyed without harming the crop, no matter how much of the herbicide is used. According to Anderson, herbicide resistant crops constitute 71% of the 27.8 million hectares of genetically engineered crops planted worldwide (1999).

The Problems with Genetic Engineering

The attempt to increase crop yields has been rather unsuccessful. Due to the instability and unpredictability of genetically engineered crops, many fail. "In 1997, crop failure affected 30,000 acres of GE herbicide resistant cotton in Mississippi" (Anderson 1999). Due to lack of testing and lack of knowledge about environmental factors, many unknowns concerning genetically engineered crops persist. Studies conducted by Ed Oplinger, Professor of Agronomy at University of Wisconsin, showed that the average yields of genetically engineered crops were four percent lower than conventional crops (Anderson 1999). During 1995 and 1996, 30 out of 38 varieties of the conventional soybean, "outperformed the transgenic [genetically altered] ones, with an overall drop in yield among the transgenic soybeans of an average 4.34 bushels per acre" (Anderson 1999). The 1980 World Census on Agriculture found that smaller farms were three to twelve times more productive than larger ones (Anderson 1999). These real-life results expose the dangers of large-scale planting of unstable genetically engineered crops, yet genetically engineered crops still constitute 30% of corn and 50% of soy grown in the United States. Greater yield from conventional crops shows us that an effort to produce more food to feed the hungry would be better served by placing more time, energy, and value in conventional farming methods. Yet genetically engineered crops continue to be planted in the name of eliminating world hunger.

Due to our lack of knowledge about the specific workings of genes and our inability to strategically place the inserted DNA on the new strand, genetically engineered plants are very unstable and unpredictable. According to Stillwell:

"By transferring new 'regulatory' genetic information into the recipient organism, genetic engineering can destabilize the way DNA replicates, transcribes and recombines . . . As a result of altered regulatory functions, GMOs may exhibit increased allergenic tendencies, toxicity, or altered nutritional value. They may also exhibit mutations, which are errors that can occur in the sequence or reading of the DNA within a cell. Altering regulatory functions may create new components or alter levels of existing components of an organism" (1999).

As mentioned previously, the specific "code" for a trait is not the only factor in producing a trait; the position of the "code" within the strand and how it interacts with the surrounding amino acids also contribute to an organism's characteristics. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho explains, "Genes function in an extremely complex, interconnected network, so that ultimately, the expression of each gene depends on that of every other" (1996). Even though scientists can isolate the piece (or "code") of DNA that keeps a fish from freezing, inserting that "code" into a new organism does not necessarily produce that trait. Our crude methods make it impossible to know exactly what traits the new organism will possess. To some extent, genetic engineering is a matter of chance as much as it is a matter of scientific knowledge and planning. Is such guesswork and random experimentation with the environment and with the human food supply wise?

In addition to being unpredictable, genetic engineering leads to excessive monoculture in croplands: creating acres and acres of land planted with identical plants sharing the identical genetic makeup. Biodiversity and mixed cropping (the creation of croplands with diverse genetic makeup) protect plants from pest infestation and viruses and also protect soil fertility. According to Ho, "Diverse ecological communities are more resilient to drought and other environmental disturbances… (because) species within an ecological community are interconnected in an intricate web of mutualistic as well as competitive interactions, of checks and balances that contribute to the survival of the whole" (1996). When several different species are planted together, chances are better that part of the crop will be naturally protected and able to survive.