AGRICULTURAL MUTATIONS
Agriculture has been a field highly regarded for its healthy natural production. For ages, it has served this purpose with great precision and there have been little or no dietary complaints on agricultural products. It was this reason that compelled people to rely on agricultural products; as producers and as consumers alike. Both animal and plant productions are affected similarly in the analysis I have made.
The increase in human population around the world imposed greater demand for food supply. The increase in number of people automatically increases land used for housing and shelter. This affected agriculture negatively in many areas as people started diverting arable land to use for housing, hence more demand for production on less agricultural land.
This high demand would inculcate increase in price in order to try to limit the market; however, there is no way in which market for food can be limited to those with purchasing power only, leaving those who have nothing outside. Everybody needs to eat and something had to be done to keep food prices affordable and at the same time trying to have more produce for the increased market.
Apart from that, natural production seemed to be taking longer time to produce and distribute. It was also limited because of seasonal constraints as some products could only be produced in a certain short time and would quickly varnish from sight. Those that were being preserved could not sustain the market and preservation was limited as it could bring decline in supply. Apart from these reasons, soil started to weaken, demanding more to be done to improve production. This weakening of soil was also due to global warming due to increase in factories. The rains started falling abnormally and the planting seasons were affected hence need for expensive irrigation.
Scientists tried to find ways to assist in agricultural production. Ways to increase the yield, ways to shorten the production period and ways to make production possible throughout the year, not limited to certain seasons. Mutations started and increased drastically over a few years. There is hardly any crop or improved animal that one can find on this planet that is in its natural state. Broilers can now be harvested after just 4 weeks of life and maize crop can take as little as 3 months of sowing to harvest.
The changes in the food that we eat has brought big changes in our bodies. A girl can go for monthly periods at the age of ten, while normally in Lesotho where I am, girls used to start menstruation at the age of 14-16. Puberty in boys was usually more evident in the late 16’s but now as early as 10. Menopause was at 50 but some ladies still go for periods beyond that age. It is very clear that our bodies have been altered from their natural state and genetically, we have been affected. When you notice how brilliant some young infants and babies are of late, you may notice that we carry this trait into our phenotypes.
The wonder is the impact this has brought on diseases affecting us. I am afraid that the medication administered are from the past, hence the increase in number of deaths from diseases such as cancer. The high rate of cancer related diseases has been blamed on global warming always and this has blinded us from seeing that diet has a large contribution on it too. Green house effect causes the cancer, diet helps spread the cancer in the body.
Growth in a body is simple mitosis and meiosis of cells; so if a baby can grow so fast in body size, then it means their cells are reproducing too fast. That is why the rate of increase in cancer cells in patients’ bodies sometimes surprised medical practitioners. The number of people dying from cancer has vastly increased and the problem is that the time between detection and death has arguably decreased. There has also been a specific case I know of, whereby a breast cancer patient diet because the cancer cell had spread throughout the whole body. This was very unusual and in the past, we shall remember that access to mediation was very limited.
We have also seen large increase in hypertension in middle-aged people. This also comes as a surprise because such diseases usually affected older people in the past. This is increasing in young people because of the fact that some young people’s bodies are overgrown for their ages. The list might not end here. There are more abnormalities that we come across of late, that did not exist in the past.
In my culture, boys and girls were forbidden from consumption of highly fertile foods such as eggs and others. Some still keep that trend to date but it is not working as we can notice the increased rate of child pregnancy. The reason is that avoiding productive foods is almost impossible because simple maize can cause more damage than those eggs.
We need answers now and we need researchers to dig into this matter intensively. We are already late and we cannot say no to mutation of produce, but we should improve the medication such that it may not stay in the past while we keep moving on.
Some companies may deny the use of mutations in their products but the fact is that in this world nothing raises from nothing, there is no smoke without fire.