Can genetic engineering produce crops that increase food production?
The most important argument for convincing the public and decision-makers about the value of genetic engineering of food has been the claim that it will produce new, valuable crops that may contribute importantly to the solution of the world hunger. Does this have scientific support? There is not any one single gene known to be responsible for such productivity enhancing properties as high yield, increased nitrogen fixation, increased hardiness, etc. Such valuable properties are commonly the consequence of combinations of many different genes interacting with each other and the environment. All properties of a plant are dependent on complex interactions within and outside the organism (see The new understanding of genes). For this reason, the effects of a foreign inserted gene is unpredictable and combined insertions are manifold more unpredictable. In addition, the artificial insertion of foreign genes disrupts the ordinary sequnece of the genetic code words that is believed to be imp
