The Irish Potato Blight is possibly the most devastating natural disaster to ever strike the Emerald Isle. The Irish relied on it so heavily to supplement their diet at nearly all meals that when the potato crops failed malnutrition and starvation ran rampant throughout the country in all social strata. The potato is higher in protein than in the soybean and one potato contains the necessary daily requirement for Vitamin C. Potato’s were the most important food item in the Irish diet and when the fungus took hold it was ruinous for the nutrition of the people.
The pathogen that caused the Irish Potato Famine was a fungus that likely migrated from the Americas in the 1840’s and was first noticed by Irish potato farmers in 1845. The farmers said their crops looked, “shrunken, mushy, and inedible” this was caused by the fungus Phytopthora infestans. The fungus is spread out across the world but the strain that attacked the Irish potato crop was mainly concentrated in the U.S. and Mexico. The mass exodus out of Ireland after this has led to 1 in 10 people in the U.S. being of Irish descent. Infectious diseases grew in strength during this time as the population was more susceptible to them being undernourished.
Genetic modification has a lot of positive effects on the world’s food supply but there are drawbacks that have to be weighed in the decision making process as well. One of the major positives is the ability to add a lot of nutrients to something, such as golden rice, that allow for people who do not have access to good sources of vitamin A to get it into their diet and live healthier lives. There are also genes that we insert that allow for quicker growing and higher yield crops which increase the food supply which is vital with the population expanding as it is right now.
On the other hand GMOs can be dangerous to the local ecosystems. When they are crossed with herbicide resistance they can breed super weeds. The two genomes can mix in the wild so the weeds will then be herbicide resistant. This then causes a serious decline in the productivity of farms as they can’t beat back these super weeds. They also damage the local populations of insects, monarch butterflies are one example. The butterflies larva can become weaker and more fragile and less will make it to adulthood so they then cause a decline in the population so the pollination of plants takes a sharp downturn.