Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
GM crops engineered to kill insect pests actually accelerate the repro-
duction of highly resistant insects, and also harm nontarget species that
play vital roles in the functioning of ecosystems.
GM seed companies, crop growers, and regulators, confronted with
accumulating evidence of environmental impacts and property damage,
have come to recognize the need for constraints on the location and con-
figuration of GM crop plantings and for buffer zones around the selected
planting sites. In addition, there is the need for additional measures to
ensure that equipment and facilities used in farming, harvesting, storing,
and shipping GM crops are not used for conventional or organic crops,
for the adoption of special planting practices, and for improved versions
of GM seed that will reduce gene flow. The gradual accumulation of
these safety measures, which involve physical and well as biological con-
tainment approaches, may impact productivity and profit and thereby
moderate enthusiasm for GM agriculture. These issues and practices are
discussed further in Chapters 6, 7, and 9.
Another challenge for GM agriculture is posed by the rapid growth of
elite consumerism that is expressed in the preferences of more educated
and higher income sectors of the public for natural and organic foods
from small, local farms, and the inevitable diffusion of these preferences
across a much broader range of consumers. Farmers and food retailers
who wish to capitalize on this trend dedicate more acreage and super-
market shelf space to non-GM and certified organic food products. In
addition to these developments in the domestic marketplace, the Euro-
pean and Japanese markets for GM crops and foods virtually remain
closed despite a decade of American pressures, a discouraging situation
for larger American growers of GM crops who depend on exports for
significant financial return.
Finally, there are prospects of liability and business loss for the pro-
ponents and practitioners of GM agriculture. GM seed companies and
downstream farmers, distributors, and sellers who are implicated in inci-
dents of GM “contamination” of conventional crops and foods face law-
suits that can result in substantial damage awards by the courts, or the
