GMO’S ON CONSUMER CHOICE
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How have the changes from GMO’s affect consumer choices?
Norman Nguyen
TAF Academy
World Studies 1
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Introduction
The topic I have chosen is Genetic Modified Organisms, or also known as GMO’s and
how they relate to consumer choices. I want to know whether GMO’s would affect the people
who are eating the food by either changing their diet or refusing to consume them. I am
interested in this because GMO’s are a worldwide experiment, and most people who are being
affected by this don’t even know about it. It is an experiment to feed the world’s population by
increasing the food production using chemicals and drugs to speed up the growing process of an
animal or plant.
Before making this question we learned some background knowledge in a documentary
we watched called Food, Inc. Food, Inc. showed us the problems and conditions in a farmer’s
life. In the documentary we learned that animals such as chickens are kept in pen houses and are
kept there for them to grow. They are inserted hormones that increase the growth of their
muscles. Over time, we see that chickens inserted with this hormone grow into a full sized
chicken in less than 48 days, while back then took at least 70 days to grow into the chicken. And
the chicken with the hormones looks very fat and not natural. The chickens grow so quickly that
their organs and bones can’t keep up with the rate of growth that they just limp or die off. There
are also GMO’s on plants also. We learned from the documentary that plants such as soy beans
and wheat are recreated to be resistant to weed sprays using GMO’s by big companies. These
changes influences that the foods we eat are no longer natural. I wonder whether the consumers
who buy these products learn about the facts behind it, will react to buying the product again or
how market prices will be affected by this new information to consumers.
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How have the changes from GMO’s affect consumer choices? I developed this question having
the mindset of a person who has no idea what is going on and having to learn about GMO’s and
how they’re being used on agriculture.
The Search Story
To start off my research we first have to come up with a research question. To make a
research question it has to be not to narrow and not too broad. On the first day of thinking of a
research question I had a general idea of using GMO’s as my research question but I didn’t know
how to word my question into a specific research question. I know that GMO’s in general is too
broad of a topic, so that can’t be my research question. I also thought of how GMO’s has
affected the American lifestyle, but I realized that would also be too broad because lifestyle is
too broad. After thinking of multiple research question and revision from Ms.McLean, she
helped me develop a research question concerning GMO’s and consumer choices. I think this is a
reasonable question because it shows what GMO’s are and how they affect the people who are
being affected by it. After creating the research questions we started in our research immediately.
To gather our research we went on databases on KCLS and Ms.McLean showed us a database
named “Opposing Vewpoints” that shows topics on “agriculture industry”. This is a perfect topic
for me because I can look at statistics on food sales over the years and from what years did the
GMO’s have effect on the consumer choices.
On my first source the topic was “Biotechnology Is Essential to Feed the World's
Growing Population.” This source was about how the use of GMO’s and other biotechnology is a
good thing for our growing population because it gives us faster production rate of food for the
growing people population. This is made possible through biotechnology, which we are the first
to have this sorts of information. They are saying that we should use what we know to our full
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advantage of survival in the world. In the source it also talks about how food prices have dropped
drastically low because of the new sources we have and that the problem today is to feed 8
billion people on this planet and continue to live on as people. On my second source, which is
titled “Biotechnology and Agribusiness Create Cultural and Economic Devastation”? While
reading this article, I figured to myself that the global market is in a crisis about food
distribution. We can see that prices on food and land have risen drastically. Also, the agricultural
business now, their main goal is only to mass produce food to feed the people. They are no
longer worried how it happens, as long as it happens. Such as the quality of the food or diseases
that come from mistreated conditions. This could be a cause because of the companies that
control the farmers to do so. Debt plays a major role in the agricultural business because it
affects the farmer’s work force and available resources. They are in debt due to the low income
they receive and the high costs they pay for housing and crops. In the sources it quotes that over
200,000 farmers committed suicide in one decade because they couldn’t make a living out of
farming anymore. The people that done this didn’t have a choice because of the huge debt from
big companies that creates products for the farmers to use. When I read this I couldn’t even
believe that farmers actually commit suicide because of what they used to love to do, which was
agriculture. But now the business is more into food production rather than anything else.
Continuing on my research, I came into a topic that related much more specifically my topic,
which were food prices and market sales including our consumers. The topic of this source was
“The Global Food Crisis: Current Controversies.” This source showed that during the 21st
century food prices have started rising and specifically on the years 2006-2007 the food prices
and the cost of basic needs surged and food budgets beyond what people can afford. This means
that more and more people are getting hungry because of the increasing rate of food prices. By
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2008 food was twice or thrice the amount it used to cost. On my last source titled as " Why the
food market will be the next bubble to burst.” This source explains how people in the world are
affected by hunger and what they do in able to survive. It says that as the food prices increases
the people who are already hungry and spending 80% of their income on food would get the
worse of the food prices because they wouldn’t have enough money to buy food anymore. They
also mention The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 is an act that slows trade of
food commodities without limits, disclosure requirements, or regulatory oversight. Although that
commodity was supposed to stop the food price rising, people got much greedier and cared less
about the world, but more about their food sales and money preferences.
Results
GMO’s affect consumer choice by influencing the people who are able to afford food to
use or waste more food than necessary and for the people who are not able to afford have
because of mass food production due to biotechnology have no choice but to survive on what
they can afford. Consumer choices are being influenced by biotechnology such as GMO’s
because with the new technology food is being produced at a high rate which causes price
changes in the food market and this would affect the people who have limited choices in their
foods. Agriculture now is more into the money business rather than food production. Physicist
and environmental activist, Vandana Shiva says “The more agriculture is "liberalized," the
greater the food scarcity, the higher the food prices and the more people will go hungry.” (Shiva,
2009). She is indicating that as agriculture becomes freer to do whatever they want, people who
are affected by this don’t have a choice but to eat what they can. While as people are able to
afford the food even though food prices have changed people with money and jobs are not
affected because they can still afford it. In an article it says, “But in 2000, food prices began to
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rise. The climb became gradually steeper, and in late 2006 costs suddenly spiked. In 2007 and
2008, the cost of basic foodstuffs surged, creating a global crisis when millions saw their food
budgets rise beyond their means.”(Kukathas, 2009). This shows that during the peak of the uses
of biotechnology, there are other side effects to the new technology. But what agricultural
businesses care about is the profits and money that they are making. People have gone into a
greed rampage because of our developed government. Meaning that people are not willing to
share what is available but for profitable. On the other hand, the growing rate of the population
would also mean a higher demand of food. It’s because of this technology that people are able to
survive in this amount of people on earth. In the article it says “Thanks to the world's growing
population of eaters and the fixed amount of land suitable for growing food to feed them, supply
and demand tilts the long term forecast toward higher prices.”(LeVaux, 2012). It is the amount of
foods people demand that causes the raise of money, not the producer themselves. After learning
from this, all people need to look into the situation and will have their opinions.
Reflection
Things that I found that were difficult to me were creating my research question because
to make good research is to have a good research question. I found that making a research
question was difficult for me because you have to use the right words and the right formatting to
make a good question. I’m not good at that because it’s hard to think of words that fit together in
a sentence that would be focused on the topic. This would help me in the future because it would
help me research more efficiently if have a better research question. By learning to construct
good research questions now, in the future I would be able to think and construct higher quality
answers and/or research. I thought that researching my topic was fairly easy because my research
question was not too broad nor was it too narrow, so finding the evidence was fairly easy for me.
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Overall researching was fairly easy but writing my answer and outline took a lot of time and
thinking. Some skills I improved on working in this project was asking more focused questions
to experts that would help me further explain my topic I chose.
References
Borlaug, N. E. (2009). Biotechnology Is Essential to Feed the World's Growing Population. In U.
Kukathas (Ed.), Current Controversies. The Global Food Crisis. Detroit: Greenhaven
Press. (Reprinted from The Frankenfood Myth: How Protest and Politics Threaten the
Biotech Revolution, 2004, Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers) Retrieved from,
http://ic.galegroup.com/
Introduction to The Global Food Crisis: Current Controversies. (2009). In U. Kukathas
(Ed.), Current Controversies. The Global Food Crisis. Detroit: Greenhaven Press.
Retrieved from, http://ic.galegroup.com
LeVaux, A. (2012, Spring). Why the food market will be the next bubble to
burst. Synthesis/Regeneration, 58, 10+. Retrieved from .http://ic.galegroup.com
Shiva, V. (2009). Biotechnology and Agribusiness Create Cultural and Economic Devastation. In
U. Kukathas (Ed.), Current Controversies. The Global Food Crisis. Detroit: Greenhaven
Press. (Reprinted from Vandana Shiva: Why We Face Both Food and Water
Crises, Alternet, 2008) Retrieved from , http://ic.galegroup.com