Nearly 11 millennia ago, humanity invented agriculture. This gave way to cities, allowing for a far greater number of people to live on Earth. About 100 years ago, Fritz Haber patented a revolutionary technique called the Haber Process that allowed for the synthesis of ammonia — a major component of fertilizer. This allowed for another six billion people to inhabit the planet. And, in 1982, the FDA approved the first genetically-modified organism (GMO) to be put on the market. This, like the invention of agriculture and the Haber Process, has the potential to up the capacity of Earth at an unimaginable rate. Despite this, many Americans remain skeptical of GMOs and the perceived effects they can cause.

A poll conducted by ABC found that 52 percent of Americans believe GMOs are unsafe to consume. Another 13 percent are unsure. But scientific evidence says otherwise. In a 2012 statement from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), they highlight that scientists are nearly unanimous in their belief that GMOs aren’t as unsafe as the public seems to think.

“The World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the British Royal Society, and every other respected organization that has examined the evidence has come to the same conclusion,” the AAAS said. “Consuming foods containing ingredients derived from GM crops is no riskier than consuming the same foods containing ingredients from crop plants modified by conventional plant improvement techniques.”

Ivette Perfecto, the Professor of Ecology, Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan, says a fundamental misunderstanding of what a GMO even is contributes to the divide between the pro- and anti-GMO camps.

“I think that most people do not understand what are GMO and how they are produced,” Perfecto said. “Some NGOs [non-governmental organizations] that work on GMO issues tend to exaggerate and be alarmists, and that helps to create confusion. However, the pro-GMO lobbies are very strong as well, and they also exaggerate the benefits of GMO and ignore the potential hazards.”

She says one of the largest problems is how polar the debate has become. It’s become less a matter of science and more a matter of politics. The anti-GMO side of the debate has simply started spreading falsehoods, and the pro-GMO side of the debate (mainly multinational corporations) has started funding and manipulating studies to prove there’s nothing wrong with GMOs and that they shouldn’t be regulated.

“The GMO companies are very strong and powerful and fund many scientists who like to think of themselves as objective and accept money from these companies,” Perfecto said.

But just because corporations want GMOs in the market doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with them. It means we need to continue to study the benefits of GMOs while also imposing more regulations and oversight on the corporations that use them. In fact, not only are GMOs not unhealthy, uneconomical, or harmful to the environment, but they can also be exactly the opposite: healthier, more economical, and better for the environment.

A new product on the scientific horizon called Golden Rice uses GMOs to nutritionally enhance rice for developing nations. It’s a synthetic form of rice bioengineered to produce beta carotene, a common source of vitamin A. It’s developed by a nonprofit organization called the International Rice Research Institute and is aimed to eliminate vitamin A deficiency, which plagues much of Africa and Southeast Asia and can cause blindness and weakens the immune system. By eating just a bowl of Golden Rice, a child can obtain about 60 percent of their needed vitamin A intake.

But GMOs also present enormous economic gains as well. David Zilberman, a UC Berkeley Professor of Agricultural and Resources Economics, published a study called “The Promise and Prospects of Genetically Modified Crops” (which was independently funded by Berkeley and not GMO corporations), which points to the economic gains GMOs can present. According to this study, Bt corn has an estimated yield of 34 percent more in the Philippines, 11 percent in South Africa, 9 percent in Argentina and 5-6 percent each in the U.S. and Spain, according to his study. The more developed the country, the smaller difference GMOs made, due to the already-advanced agricultural techniques those countries have. But, even in developed nations, GMOs allow for a significant gain in yield. And, in an economic sense, as food supply increases, its price decreases: By his estimates, without GMO technology, the price food would be, on average, 5-10 percent higher than what it is right now; cotton’s price would increase by up to 40 percent, and animal products’ prices would similarly skyrocket.

From an environmental standpoint, although some GMOs are used and designed to be used with massive amounts of pesticides, saying GMOs init of themselves require more pesticides is just wrong. In fact, many crops have been developed in order to reduce pesticide use by making the crop itself a natural pesticide. As a whole, the American Council on Science and Health has found that GM crops reduce pesticide use by 37 percent.

The only problem with GMOs, it seems, is the corporations that use them. Currently, almost all GM strains of DNA are patented by Monsanto, an American agricultural corporation. This means that any farmer who uses these patented crops can’t replant or save seeds to use for the next year. And a lot of the time, farmers don’t have much of a choice over whether or not they’re even using GM crops. Neighboring farms often naturally tend to crossbreed with each other, and, if an organic farm sits next to a GMO farm, patented genes can inadvertently be spread to the organic farm through cross-pollination. And, when Monsanto finds out that the farm is using the patented gene, they are able to either sue the farm for violating patent laws, or they can sell the farm more GM seeds and force them into becoming dependent on the agricultural giant.

“Corporations have complete control over the seed supply,” Perfecto said. “A food systems that depends on big corporations for the source of the seeds is vulnerable, since these corporations are driven by profits, not by any desire to feed the hungry or enhance the environment.” Clearly, more regulations are necessary to ensure GMOs are actually helping society.

As Earth’s population continues to grow, and food becomes even more scarce in developing nations, it’s essential that we find the next agricultural step for humanity–the next Haber process–the next agricultural revolution. And that next step involves GMOs. So instead of relying on politicized, exaggerated voices to weigh in on the debate, be the voice of science and reason and help humanity with its next big step.