TOW #27 - How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food (Written)

This article is from the New York Times on the topic of genetically modified foods, which is a controversial topic in modern society. The article details the benefits using genetically modified foods can have for farmers and consumers and why they should be more widely accepted as safe and something that should be used in order to solve some problems agriculture faces today. The author uses examples of ways that GMO foods have been beneficial, such as the example with the farmer and the eggplants, and how it has removed the need to use chemical pesticides, which can be harmful to humans, while these new organisms are generally considered to be safe and the new chemical this eggplant would produce would be toxic only to the pests that are destroying the crops. This helped in appealing to logos as well as pathos, with the mention of the children and how they appeared to be suffering from malnutrition and poverty and how the introduction of these new crops could help the impoverished farmers in developing countries. The article uses many statistics, including the number of times farmers spray their natural crop with pesticides in a single season (140) or how most scientists believe these crops are safe for consumption while a much smaller part of the general population believes this. The author also compares the controversy surrounding this topic to the reaction to global warming, and how scientific evidence should be the most important determining factor in these sorts of issues. The author used a lot of information such as the status of GMO foods in many countries in order to address the scale of the problem. The author also attempts to establish his own ethos throughout the article. I personally think it could have been improved by addressing the counter argument more, mentioning some of the reasons that certain people believe these organisms are not safe and should not be used, as there is still much we don't know about their effect on the environment or the effect lowering the populations of pests will have in the future, and these are definitely problems that need to be considered.