* Correspondence
Tadesse Fikre Teferra, School of Nutrition, Food Science and Technology, College of Agriculture, Hawassa University, Sidama, Ethiopia.
Emails: moc.liamg@erkifessedat; te.ude.uh@erkifessedat
This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Global population is increasing at an alarming rate, posing a threat on the supplies of basic needs and services. However, population increase does not seem to be a common agendum of the global scientists and political leaders. People in the developed countries are more concerned about new technologies and their products. Pseudo‐threats related to the uncertainties of genetic engineering of crops and their outputs present on consumers are more audible and controversial than the real difficulties the world is experiencing at the moment and in the future. This review presents brief summaries of the real reasons to worry about and the uncertainties about genetically modified organisms. This article also presents the real uncertainties shared by consumers and scientists with respect to the past, present, and future of genetically engineered organisms. Developments in the field of precision genetics in the recent years and the implications on regulatory, breeding, and socio‐cultural dimensions of the global settings are included.
Keywords: CRISPR, feeding humanity, food security, GMO food safety, GMO regulations, population, sustainability
This review article presents competing and contradicting human interests. On one hand, we are opposing great agricultural technologies such as genetically modified organisms (GMO) and the genetic engineering techniques. On the other hand, we are challenged with the need for feeding humanity into the future, where the global population and food production are not keeping pace of one another.
Genetically modified organisms (GMO) have been topics of hot debates over the last few decades. Some countries have been known to have a fierce regulatory framework over the genetically modified crops. The regulations of the European Union are the ones that have been subjects of continued criticism in this regard. For instance, papers published recently argue about the basis for the EU’s regulation on the GM crops (Custers et al., 2019 ; Eckerstorfer et al., 2019 ; Halford, 2019 ; Hokanson, 2019 ; Landrum et al., 2019 ). It is argued that the European regulatory framework does not at present satisfy the criteria of legal certainty, nondiscrimination, and scientific adaptability (Custers et al., 2019 ). In 2015, the New York times carried an article with the headline: “With GMO policies, Europe turns against science” (Lynas, 2015 ). The European regulations do not seem to be very realistic in terms of the current challenges the world is facing in feeding the increasing global population. A predictive study conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute indicated that by 2050, the world population reaches 9 billion and additional 70% food supply is needed than what is produced now (Ringler et al., 2010 ). More articles and arguments started coming out later (Hickey, 2019 ; Long et al., 2015 ; Ray et al., 2013 ), emphasizing the fact that the world leaders and scientists need to be worried about feeding humanity into the future and act on the use of all available technologies. This is evident that the world will not have the luxury to avoid agricultural technologies (Jacobsen et al., 2013 ), but need to use all available techniques without discrimination and accelerate innovation of new ones that can increase food production and productivities to be able to continue feeding humanity.
Genetically modified organisms are categories of products that came out of advanced breeding technologies, which are also categorized as precision breeding techniques (Eriksson, 2019 ). Traditional breeding started by simple crossing of better performing organisms with each other and stabilizing the desirable traits by self‐crossing (inbreeding), which is done several times. The first hybrid corn that was inbred several times was documented to be commercially available in the early 1920s (Anderson, 1944 ). Later on, breeding using mutation (alteration of genetic make ups of crops) was devised to bring about variation of performances in a population. Chemical (Ethyl methanesulfonate [EMS]), an alkylating agent that can react with cell components and cause changes to the genetics of organisms, has been in use since the 1960s (Krieg, 1963 ). In the mid‐20th century, ionizing electromagnetic irradiations (X‐ and gamma‐rays) were also used to cause random alteration in the genes of crops (Ulukapi & Ayse, 2015 ), out of which elite lines with respect to desirable traits were chosen for further breeding processes.
The science of plant genetics expanded, and the understanding of the transferability of DNA and RNA developed in the 1970s (Chassy, 2007 ), which later led to the development of biotechnology with a technique called “genetic engineering.” These later developments were not random alterations of genes that used to be followed by selection of elite lines and several inbreeding. The development of GMO with inserted genes from unrelated species was made possible. These later led to the development of precision genetic engineering (GE), and a very accurate specific site targeting alterations were achieved (Nakayama et al., 2014 ).
Today, we do not even need transferring of genes from unrelated species to bring about a desired trait in food crops or animals. The application of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)‐Cas systems in genome editing has been popular since its discovery in the Escherichia coli genome in 1987 (Ishino et al., 2018 ). This review paper presents a perspective of GMO technology, associated risks, and its current status.
The genetic material has basic components that collectively define the physical and biochemical properties of living entities. A gene contains a single helical stride (nucleotide) called ribonucleic acid (RNA) and a double helical nucleotide known as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) that are connected by a pairing bonds of four bases (cytosine [C] with guanine [G] and adenine [A] with thymine [T]) (Figure 1 ). The chemical bases are the building blocks of the gene, and the stretching helical nucleotides are made of pentose sugar phosphatases. The specific sequences of the bases in the gene are responsible for the formation of specific proteins that dictates the behavior of the organisms (Schjerling, 2005 ).
Basics of genetic materials: components and descriptions
