Page 72. Connect to the Topic. Part B. TUNE IN

Unit eight

page 72

connect to the topic

part B: tune in

welcome to world of wonder; today my guest is Mr. Ben Romana of the international food Institute.

welcome to the show.

glad to be here!

so can you explain briefly how a genetically modified plant is different from a non-GM plant?

Yes; genetically modified plants are created by scientists in the laboratory.

the scientists change the genes, the genetic information that controls how the plants grow.

Right; and how does that work exactly?

in the lab, we can take a gene from one plant and put it into the cells of another plant.

for example, we can take a gene from a corn plant and put it into the cells of a rice plant.

some quality of that corn plant, a quality that is controlled by that gene, then grows in the rice plant.

may be for example the gene controls the corns color; it makes the rice plant grow in a new way.

and that can only happen in a lab?

Right; there is no way for a corn gene to get into a rice plant except in a laboratory.

it could never happen in nature.

and I guess that’s why some people worry about GM food?

Yes, precisely.

they wanted labeled in stores when they buy something, they want to know if it’s a GM food or not.

Yes, and right now labeling differs a lot from country to country; some countries do not allow GM food to be grown or sold at all; other countries allow some GM foods to be sold, but they must be clearly marked with a label that says “genetically modified”.

and other countries have more relaxed rules, they allow all GM foods and don’t require any labels, so it really depends on where you live.

For me, unknown is what scary…