What is Genetic Modification (GM)?
Genetic modification (GM) and genetic engineering (GE) all refer to the same thing – the use of modern biotechnology techniques to change the genes of an organism. A genetically modified organism (GMO) is a plant, animal or other organism that has been changed using genetic modification. Traditional plant breeding aims to improve the plant by selectively breeding for favourable traits such as increased seed yield or disease tolerance. Each year, seed companies and university breeding programs introduce crop varieties with slightly improved characteristics. Such incremental improvements can deliver huge benefits like the 5 fold increase in corn yields over the last century (30 to 150 bushels per acre). When a gene for producing a favourable trait is known (gene of interest), plants can be precisely and rapidly improved through GM techniques. The gene of interest can involve a change made to the organism’s own gene or it can be based on a gene from another species. The modified gene is i
