Week 7 - BioBusiness Revolution: Agribiology, Environmental Life Sciences and Industrial Biotechnology

Brief Overview

Agribiology - BioBusiness industry has affected our lives in many ways. One of its field that affects our lives significantly is Agribiology. Simply say, Agribiology is one field of Biotechnology that focus on agriculture, on how we can improve both the quantity and quality of agriculture products in an innovative way. One popular feature of this technology is Genetically Modified (GM) food, which basically modify agriculture product genetically and duplicate or grow similar product from there.

Key Takeaway

Prof Shahi threw an interesting discussion around GM food to class last week. The discussion is about, is it safe to consume GM food? Because there is a concern that, as a genetically modified food, this so-called 'mutant' food will cause a negative effect to human. The tricky part is actually that we don't know yet, as it takes 10-15 years for us to know if this genetically modified food will cause negative effects to us. Not only its potential harm effects, but some people also reject GM food due to ethical reason. They argue that GM food is against very basic of nature and thus its not ethical for us to consume it, even to produce it in the first place. However, to see it from the other side, GM food is actually one of the most effective & sustainable way to solve food production issue that may arise in the future, as we know that population of human grow exponentially, that there might be more than 9 billion people in the world in 2050. So, I think GM food is the solution for that as it is very sustainable that we can produce a large amount of food from a smaller place (laboratories), within a much shorter time, with a higher quality and without emitting much wastage and pollution. However, certain procedure and stringent method need to be implemented to make sure that the food won't cause any harm to human in the future. Some people might arise concern about farmer, how can they cope up with it, how will they're live be as their job are now being taken in the laboratory. For me, that's the consequences, world changes, and thus we need to adapt with it. Because I believe that in the future human will do more brain work and less physical work as we'll have machine to help us in such activities.

The class was fun, there is a great topic and good discussion going on, so I would rate the class 8/10.