Why is Release of Transgenic Crops into the Environment a Risk?
Conventional breeding allows mixing and recombination of genetic material between species that share a recent evolutionary history. On the other hand, genetic engineering is an imprecise, haphazard technology and is completely different from traditional plant breeding. With alarming regularity, biotechnology companies have demonstrated that scientists cannot control where genes are inserted and cannot guarantee the resulting outcomes. Unexpected field results highlight the unpredictability of the science, yet combinations previously unimaginable are being field tested and used commercially. The nature of the process of genetic engineering produces unpredictable effects at the genetic and cellular level, which will inevitably have impacts at the ecological level. This paper highlights some major ecological concerns. SUPERWEEDS: Genetically engineered crops were first planted in the mid 1990s. Already, research has documented that genes producing desired characteristics in crops can conf
