Alliance For Science

Important Note: The questions and ideas discussed below are only suggestions of some possible issues students may explore. There is no requirement to address any of them. If you have a better idea for a winning essay, you are encouraged to pursue it, provided it fits within the general topic of agriculture and evolution.

Farmers face ever-changing threats like crop-destroying insects, harmful weeds, and new molds and viruses. Ranchers must be concerned with a variety of animal diseases, such as “mad cow disease” and avian flu. Some plants and animals have evolved remarkable ways of protecting themselves, but the threats keep evolving. Farmers and ranchers try to help themselves by selective breeding, crop rotation, antibiotics, pesticides, and other methods. Now genetically modified crops are another way that people might choose to meet the food needs of a growing population. Are the changes brought about by genetic engineering fundamentally different from those that evolution has brought about naturally?

Although the topic title says “agriculture,” students are welcome to consider other aspects of food production, including livestock breeding, commercial fishing, “fish farming," and aquaculture. You can focus on food production here in the United States, or you may elect to take more of a global perspective, or you may consider particular “third world” areas where food shortages may be both frequent and severe.

When considering the evolution aspect of your essay, remember that evolution in the past has operated principally by natural selection operating on the natural variation that occurs within populations of animals, insects, and plants. How do the demands of human society and the methods of modern agriculture impact that process?