Public Concerns Over Transgenic Crops
- John Innes Centre, Norwich NR4 7UH, UK
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Over the past 16 years it has become possible to isolate genes from any class of living organism and introduce them into most of our crop plants. This provides a wider choice of genes for crop improvement than is available by conventional plant breeding. International studies worldwide on genome organization, genetic mapping, and the isolation of genes are providing many new opportunities to modify crops. In 1999, there were almost 40 million hectares of transgenic crops grown across the world (James 1999). Although there is considerable optimism about the future prospects for transgenic crops among the scientific and plant breeding community, public concerns are being expressed in some countries. The assessment and potential impact of transgenic crops has been discussed in scientific publications and at conferences for over a decade, but now the subject is a major focus of pressure groups, with vandalism of transgenic field plots in some countries and substantial amounts of money being spent internationally on opposition. The aim of this paper is to give a perspective on current concerns.
Do We Need Transgenic Crops?
It is argued that the world has one and a half times enough food to feed its 6 billion people and that what we need is better food distribution (Simms 1999). Improved distribution is clearly a challenge for politicians and for societies generally, but do countries that are short of food really want refugee-style food handouts to feed their population in the long term? They surely aspire to self-sufficiency and food security, to be able to grow crops that resist local pests and diseases, crops that have minimal …
