Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are any organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques.
Background[ | ]
In the 21st century, in the decades preceeding the Omnic Crisis, geneticists and agricultural engineers around the world were fighting to feed humanity, as climate change ravaged the globe. Many staple crops were no longer viable, or no longer produced the yields they historically had. Farmland became scarce as climate change transformed formerly fertile land into desert. Given the circumstances, over the course of a decade, GMOs gained greater public support than they had previously, and there was a renaissance of GMO research.
At the same time, the spread of GMOs resulted in fairer, more widespread regulation of them, ensuring that any new GMOs were safe and controlled. As teams produced GMOs that could thrive in freezing climates, as rice with caloric yields three times greater than their non-GMO counterparts were created, demand for these seeds grew, and their use went global. The main barrier to their use, as ever, remained those who controlled them. Agricultural megacorporations who'd sunk billions of dollars into their seeds had a stranglehold over the industry, which lead to price-fixing and lawsuits, targeting small farms unable to pay the licensing fees.
The situation changed through a case presented by Matthew Frank to the Supreme Court of the United States, who argued that the patenting of seeds was contrary to human interest and established law. The Supreme Court sided with Frank, and while there was some outcry, GMOs became open source. Adoption of GMOs went global, and hunger became less of a burden for governments and individuals alike. However, some governments still restricted GMO technology.[1]