What are the cons of GM foods?
The biggest concern for me is the loss of genetic diversity in food crops since there are frequent catastropic crop losses when a pathogen keys into any crop. It’s not that GM crop are more suceptable than standard crops, but genetic diversity in crops prevents major crop losses. The second issue I have is with crops that express toxins as pesticides. These toxins are typically used by organic farmers as a intervention when infestations occur, but by having the plants express the toxin, the insects will quickly evolve resistance to the toxins. Third is the concept of stealing genetic material from the developing world and then patenting the genes so that non-GM crops are no longer legal to grow. Another legal issue is creating terminator seeds, so that farmers can’t use part of their crop to reseed their fields the next year. GM crops also put much of the world’s seed supply into a few hands, which can create cartels and artificially raise the price of seeds. It also means if something
