Effect on farmers / environmental impact
Some crops are recently being developed with their own built in pesticides and according to Gaskell (2004), Professor of Social Psychology, “genetically modified (GM) crops and foods are claimed to offer a range of benefits to a variety of beneficiaries, including . . . lower pesticide costs for producers: less environmental pollution from pesticides and herbicides . . .” (Gaskell, 2004). However, these built in toxins are no more effective than conventional spray on or soil mixture pesticides. According to Bruce Tabashnik (2011), B.S Zoology and PH.D. in Biological Sciences, “. . . the modified toxins provided little or no advantage against some resistant strains of three other pests. . .” (Tabashnik, 2011) The process of genetic engineering is arduous and quite expensive. The addition of a built in pesticide may reduce the immediate pesticide cost and environmental impact, but only until the pest population develops a resistance to the toxin and farmers have to switch back to conventional methods. There can also be unnatural effects that theses modified toxins have on the pest populations which can disturb the homeostasis of the ecosystem. Due to the fact that gene flow can contaminate organic seed crops, the practice of saving seeds has practically halted across the nation. Because these large companies have patents on the genetically modified crops, including the seeds, farmers and seed cleaners alike could potentially be sued for copyright infringement. Although this unintentionally gene flow is a natural phenomena and it is not the farmers fault, it is not worth the risk to farmers to try and save their seeds for they could lose everything trying to fight these large companies that have their own teams of attorneys and private investigators. This causes farmers to have to purchase seeds putting an unnecessary financial burden on the already stressed farmer. Unintentional gene flow could also lead to the spread of this pesticide producing plant, and/or the spread of resistant pests. This could potentially be dangerous and economically devastating to the genetically modified farmers and the organic farmers as well.