I’m generally a proponent of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). It’s hard to argue against the tremendous benefits they bring to agriculture. We have been modifying the plants we grow since the very dawn of agriculture. Quirks and Quarks had a segment on how tracing the changes to rice kernels has helped date the transition from hunter-gatherer to agriculture. Like them or not, GMOs are a part of your life and diet.
John Scalzi helps other authors promote their books by giving them space to describe the big idea that drives their stories. A recent entry in The Big Idea is Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl. What happens when big companies control all the world’s crops? What happens when you can’t plant a crop without permission from Big Seed Company, when there are no other alternatives? I haven’t read the book yet, but it does highlight one of the big problems with GMOs.
I’m not terribly worried about mutated seeds taking over the world and destroying it. However, it is not hard to imagine a world where seed companies control what you can and cannot seed and I see this as a bigger danger. With cases such as Monsanto versus Schmeiser, you could say that we’re almost there. What happens when the company that controls your seed gets greedy and there are no alternatives?
I don’t know what the solution is. We need seed research to support the world’s current population. Companies need to make money (or at worst break even) or they can’t do the research. It’s a complicated issue. I am glad that there are people working on seed banks throughout the world so that when we come up with an answer, there will still be options out there.
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