Evolution of Genetically Modified (GM) Crops and The Scared World

Abstract Since antiquity, it was a key desire of human beings to develop new crops with higher nutritional values and good flavors. The classical plant breeding approaches has given many improved varieties of crops to the world but it has its own limitations, such as (1) genetic exchange can be done in the same species (2) while crossing, many traits are transferred along with the trait/s of interest that might have undesirable effects on yield potential. To overcome these limitations there was an emergence of new technology that is genetic engineering which has developed transgenic plants which are popularly known as genetically modified (GM) plants. First genetic engineering mediated transgenic tobacco plant was developed in 1987. After that, there was a boom in the development of GM crops such as “flavr-savr” tomato, Bt-cotton, corn, etc. In the journey of the past 3 decades, GM crops faced several vicissitudes but never stopped its improvement. The case-by-case study has demonstrated that the technique was never the problem but the consequences may be. In this chapter, we have briefly highlighted the necessity, current status and global impact of genetically modified plants. Apart from these, we have also addressed the question that why a large part of the human population is still scared of GM foods?