[repliculture]

These debates on the merits/possible side effects of GMOs often disregard an important point. Why are companies modifying the genomes of plants? For the big four GMO crops - corn, soybeans, cotton and canola, many of the modifications are focused on breeding in pesticide resistant traits so that more pesticides may be sprayed (which has environmental implications and ultimately will fail as the organisms targeted by the pesticides become resistant). For other crops, many of the modifications are cosmetic - e.g. apples that don't brown after being cut. It's much rarer for crops to be genetically modified for nutrition (as in the case of the golden rice). I often wonder: what if all of the effort used to produce these GM crops was focused on increasing the acreage and availability of crops that were nutritious and finding better ways to implement non-chemical control of pests? Of course it would me much more difficult to sell those solutions....

Just to clarify, I'm not anti- or pro-GMO, but think the other factors and motivations deserve consideration.