Genetically modified (GM) crops, produced through modern biotechnology that enables genes to be transferred across different species and even across different plant kingdoms, to introduce desired traits into a host plant. After just a decade, the GM crop movement is already beginning to revolutionize agriculture in new ways, with previously unachievable benefits and novel potential risks.
Since the mid-1980s, research teams in biotechnology firms worldwide have been transplanting genes across species to produce engineered crops with pest resistance, herbicide tolerance, tolerance to drought and saline soils, and enhanced micronutrient content. These genetically modified crops were first commercialized on a wide scale in the early 1990s. Today, they make up anywhere from a quarter to three-quarters of the total acreage of select crops in the United States, Canada, Argentina, and China.
This new technology comes at a time of great need for increased food production in certain regions of the world. In its heyday, the Green Revolution achieved dramatic successes, transforming agricultural production and averting wide-scale famine in many parts of the world. But the transformation it engendered was not complete. Despite all that the Green Revolution accomplished, hunger and malnutrition have persisted, particularly in Africa. Food security, the long-run sustainability of agricultural production systems, and the quality of the natural resource base are still important issues worldwide. In addition, pressures from population growth and inappropriate socioeconomic infrastructures have created problems with deforestation, soil erosion, and pollution (Alston, Norton, and Pardey, 1995).
All of these issues call out for a new agricultural revolution. The Green Revolution laid out a path for what needs to happen for a new agricultural movement to be revolutionary. In those terms, the GM crop movement, or “Gene Revolution,” may have great potential to be revolutionary because it has already reached some of the points on that......
