The use of GM engineering hardly new, but many believe that it can be a good way to solve problems with overpopulation. Do you agree or disagree?

The world population has topped 7 billion people and is predicted to double in the next 50 years. Ensuring an adequate food supply for this booming population is going to be a major challenge in the years to come, which is being promised to be solved by the latest advancements in genetic engineering. In my opinion, with many desirable traits having been bred into the genetic structure, genetically modified crops can potentially address today's ever-growing demand for food. However, on no account should the potential risks to human health posed by using genetically modified food be ignored. On the one hand, the wide implementing of genetic engineering methods into agriculture allows farmers to improve crop yields and reduce pesticide use, which in turn has a beneficial effect on agriculture productivity. With improved genome, crops become more resistant towards threats that natural plants are exposed to, such as viruses or fungi. Also, some selected traits can be bred to increase their tolerance to severe natural conditions, such as a drought or a heatwave. As a result, genetically modified crops tend to have a higher harvest without the application of environmentally harmful pesticides, which in conventional farming are often a source of soil contamination. On the other hand, genetically modified crops have not been proven safe for human health through human clinical trials. Having undergone modification, the altered genome may be accepted as an allergen, provoking unpredictable side effects. For example, for the last ten years, there was a rapid increase in allergic diseases, especially caused by using of soybeans, often linked to the increase in consumption of this modified product. Some scientists argued, that each genetic insertion creates the added possibility that formerly nontoxic elements in the food could become toxic. Hence, the importance of studies concerning possible risks and effects on human health in the long-run can not be emphasized too much. In conclusion, despite the immeasurable potential of genetic engineering as one of the ways to alleviate world hunger caused by a rapidly growing population, products with genetically modified structures should undergo strictly control by authorities to ensure their safety for consumers. Therefore, in my opinion, other means to address this urgent food scarcity need to be considered.