Topic: Regulating Genetically Modified Organisms and "Designer Food"
Country: Italy
Delegate Name: Sam Hostetter
School: Forest Hills Eastern High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Italy position papers GLIMUN 2014 committees
With increasing technology in industries, communication, and medicine, the population of the world is rising by a rate of almost 74 million people each year. According to Food and Agricultural Organization statistics, over 870 million people in the world suffer from chronic malnourishment, which results from unbalanced or inadequate food intake. Most of this impoverishment is present in the developing countries around the world. To counter this deficiency in the food and agricultural sectors, farmers are turning to genetically modified organisms. These genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, are customized to yield larger harvests, withstand extreme weather, and resist destructive insects. These modifications increase the food supply of a country with limited production costs. Many companies, such as Coca-Cola, Nestle, and Frito Lay, utilize the cheaper, modified crop over the traditionally grown one. However, they have been put into circulation with alarming speed. In the some of the most inflicted countries, like the United States, GMOs are present in over 80% of processed foods. This haste caused many countries, including the Republic of Italy, to question the unintended consequences of the lab-made crops. The rapid consumption and growing reliance of GMOs can generate irreversible consequences.
The Republic of Italy takes pride in aligning with the conference of European GMO-free Region conference. GMOs are destructive not only to the natural process of agriculture but also to the traditional human interaction with food. With these genetically altered crops, we are unsure of how our body will handle them. In the economical sense, GMOs are running traditional farms to the ground, since larger companies are claiming patents to the economically efficient crop and mass producing it, reducing demand for crops on the local level. These patents are also giving legal base for large companies to sue smaller farmers, all for the drifting of their genetically modified crop. Not only is the traditional farmer’s field tainted with genetically modified organisms, lawsuits are waiting for the uncontracted use of them. Additionally, the built-in pesticides and herbicides in GMOs are becoming redundant. Some abnormally strong weeds and insects, called “superweeds,” adapted themselves to become resistant to the common pesticide and are only eradicated with toxic repellents, like 2,4-D. Their genes are adapting to circumvent GMOs’ built-in defenses.
This growing agricultural nightmare is becoming an exigent issue all over the world. With developing countries in the Middle East and Africa calling for food resources, it is the Food and Agriculture Organization’s responsibility to refrain from them using GMOs. In fact, the FAO already warned against GMOs in their use to eradicate hunger in Uganda in early 2013. With the large and mostly unknown integration of GMOs, with numbers reaching 174 million hectares across the world, a recall is impossible. If a harmful consequence emerges in a genetically modified crop, there will be no containment. GMOs are an all-or-nothing prospect, and the Republic of Italy asks for their utter and complete prohibition.
