Bioethics
Feeding the World
The rates at which the global population is rising is phenomenal. As a result, the world is at risk of having food demand being higher than the rate of food production. Food is essential to the survival of human beings, and without food, people will starve to death, resulting in a population decrease. Biotechnology may be crucial in tackling issues of food insecurity by developing means to increase food production. Therefore, “feeding the world” is essential compared to the other two applications of biotechnology. Human survival is more vital, and without food, none of the other aspects matter.
There are different techniques that biotechnologists can use to help in the application of “feeding the world.” Biotechnologists use transcription to regulate the expression of defense genes. This intervention alleviates the effects of the environment on the growth and development of food crops. Therefore, incidences such as drought, pest invasion, and high salinity do not affect the production of food. The tissue culture method artificially produces clones of a particular plant resulting in the high availability of that specific plant. These high quantities ensure that food production is adequate to cater for the ever-growing population.
Genetic-assisted breeding creates improvement in the genes of plants and animals. This method improves the quality of the plants and animals as they develop resistance to adverse conditions (Caballero-Hernandez et al., 2017). Also, it enhances their survival and growth to maturity when they produce food for people’s consumption. These measures are essential in the use of biotechnology to feed the world.
Bioethical Questions
The introduction of biotechnology aimed at improving the living standards of human beings by finding ways to manipulate forces of nature. However, people have raised concerns over the use of biotechnology in manipulating biological life forms, terming the acts as unethical (Dyson & Harris, 2002). However, careful examination of the situation may reveal that some of these procedures are necessary to enhance the survival of future generations of the human race. These procedures raise some bioethical questions which help in shaping the next course of action. The answers to these questions determine whether the biotechnological intervention will carry on or come to a halt. This paper analyzes the following question: Who should profit?
The field of biotechnology is vast and requires lots of research to come up with breakthroughs. Therefore, participation is limited to professionals who have the required qualifications. Also, research takes a lot of time. Therefore, individuals who prosper in this field get a lot of funding for their efforts. At this point, greed may creep in, resulting in the person trying to manipulate the systems for personal gain (Morris, 2006). In such cases, the move is unethical and deserves no praise.
The biotechnological techniques should work towards the benefit of the entire population. For instance, cloning, although unpopular with a selection of people, may provide a sustainable source of food security. The individuals that do not like it will eventually come to terms with it when it serves as the only source of food for them. Most of the unhappy individuals base their arguments on spirituality and how it is unethical to interfere with forces of nature or the work of a supreme being. However, when hunger strikes due to food insecurity, spirituality will not feed them, but logic might solve the problem. Therefore, they will learn to appreciate the role of biotechnology in ensuring the continuity of the human race.
Conclusion
Ethical concerns in the biotechnological field do not bear much significance as most complainants base their arguments on spiritual implications. However, there is some degree of logic in the debate because procedures such as cloning may compromise the health of the surrogate mother (Verzijden and Lawyers, 2012). Therefore, researchers should come up with solutions to the problems associated with the use of biotechnology.