Undergraduate /
Common App - Biotechnology and Agriculture [2]
As you point out, the essay is a good opinion piece, but you do not talk very much about its relevance to you. It seems strange, too, because, while you talk about the topic as one that involves ethical dilemmas and a need for cost-benefit analyses (quite a reasonable stance, btw), your body paragraphs are less balanced, and seem to be more clearly staking out a anti-biotech stance. Assuming that part of your work as a plant science major will involve working with and possibly even creating such crops, this strikes me as being a bit . . . odd.
I think you might greatly improve your essay by making it about just what you say you will be talking about in your introduction -- an ethical dilemma. Look at one particular biotech controversy, and discuss both sides as evenly as possible. Then conclude by saying that you hope that by learning more about plant science, you hope to be better positioned to help solve the dilemma you have been discussing.
For instance, you could look at any of the following issues in-depth, instead of touching on all of them briefly:
Biotech in Africa:
Many parts of Africa suffer from appalling starvation rates. To say that
The prospect of a better future for this type of country may sound promising, but in the long-term, any positive effects should be viewed as theoretical at best. If South Africa would adopt American genetically engineered crops, the immediate effect would certainly be a boon in agriculture within the country.
is therefore both misleading and callous. If the country could produce enough food to feed itself, I am quite sure the people there would not view the positive effects as merely theoretical. Indeed, this very issue was at the heart of the controversy over Zambia's refusal to accept food aid that contained GE crops:
freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/will-the-gr een-revolution-ever-hit-africa/?scp=2&sq=Zambia%20refused%20 GE%20crops%20let%20people%20starve&st=cse
On the other hand, the patenting of biotech crops does lead to valid concerns about the amount of control multinational corporations may have over the lives of farmers in the developing world who choose to grow them.
Labeling of GE products:
At the moment, you contrast America to South Africa, sayingThe United States Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Food and Drug Administration are all in place in the United States to regulate food products by testing them and monitoring production.
One example of the lack of necessary legislation is in South Africa, where the labeling of genetically modified foods is not required by law.
However, the U.S. doesn't require labeling of GE products either: healingdaily.com/detoxification-diet/genetically- engineered-foods.htm. Many argue that this prevents consumers from making an informed choice about what to buy, regardless of whether or not the crops are actually safe.
The argument against mandatory labeling, of course, is that foods have never required the particular cultivar of crop to be put on the labels. Forcing GE products to label themselves as such is therefore singling them out so that they can be more easily made the product of environmentalist hysteria and wrath.
Environmental risks of GE products:A good issue to write about. How do we measure those risks? How do we decide when the expected benefits outweigh those risks? Or, to put it another way, what level of risk is acceptable, and how do we determine this?
Health risks of GE products:Also a good issue to write about. How do you decide if a GE product is safe for human consumption? What principles do you employ, and what standards do you uphold? Why is this such a concern anyway, given that Americans have been eating GE products for decades now without any noticeable health concerns?
