Along with reducing the amount of diseases, scientists are encouraging herbicide tolerant crops as an alternative to control weeds without using chemicals. These crops include corn, cotton, canola, and soybeans. According to Biotechnology Unzipped, the use of pesticides and fertilizers causes damage to human health, and "about 275 kg of herbicides such as glyphosate are also toxic to such organisms as spiders, earthworms, and fish" (Grace 108). A transgenic crop can also kill weeds that compete for the same space, light, water, and nutrients, without harming itself or its surrounding crops. Along with biotechnology reducing food loses, genetically modified crops are providing people with Vitamin A, iron, and essential amino acids.
With biotechnology, scientists are able to improve nutritious output traits of crops. By improving output traits, millions of people who suffer from malnutrition and deficiency orders will benefit. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, forty percent of the world's population suffers from lack of nutrients (Nottingham 157). Out of the forty percent, more than 100 million children suffer and two million die each year due to the lack .
of Vitamin A in their diets (Conway 1). A gene encoding Vitamin A has been placed in rice to enhance the diets of the 180 million children who suffer from Vitamin A deficiency that causes blindness and deaths (Persley 4). Along with children suffering from Vitamin A deficiencies, .
800 million people are unnourished and 180 million are severely underweight, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (Conway 1). In order to reduce the number of unnourished people, biotechnology has introduced genes that are injected into crops to increase iron levels three times in rice (Persley 4). Since the iron levels will triple in crops, genetically modified crops with higher levels of iron will have a positive effect on the two billion individuals that suffer from anemia, caused by iron deficiencies.
