A GMO is a living thing — most often a plant, sometimes a bacterium or an animal — whose genes scientists have changed in a lab. The aim is usually practical: make a crop less easy for insects to eat, less likely to catch a disease, or able to grow in harder conditions. The letters mean genetically modified organism: organism just means a living thing. People also say GM food for food that comes from these plants. This is not the same as the old farmer’s trick of choosing the best plants and breeding them over many years, though both change what a plant is like; with a GMO, a specific gene is added or switched in a laboratory, often quite fast. Some countries grow a lot of GM soya and maize; some people welcome the extra food and the fewer insects, and some worry about nature, about big companies, and about what we do not yet know. In shops you may see a label that tells you if a food is from a GMO. The word names the living thing (or that kind of living thing), not the laboratory method on its own.