A recent study on the viability of bioengineered crops concludes transgenic crops are safe and can improve yields dramatically. The study, commissioned by Ismail Serageldin, World Bank vice-president for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development, concludes “transgenic crops are not in principle more injurious to the environment than traditionally bred crops.”
This is a healthy antidote to the nonsense spread about biotech by naysayers such as Jeremy Rifkin or microbiologist John Fagan who in a Scripps-Howard news report complained “when … altered DNA molecules are introduced into a living organism in the filed, the full range of their effects cannot be predicted or known before commercialization.” Of course while technically true — the full effects of anything going from the laboratory to the real world cannot be precisely predicted — adhering to this silly standard would mean banishing just about any and all future human technological advances.
Although their ultimate effects are likely overstated given the current state of the art, bioengineered crops could play a significant role in increasing crop yields which will allow the world to feed more people and do it using less land.