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There are likely to be a number of effects, mostly small, that may make
farming as a business either more or less profitable.
For detailed answers, see: Will genetically engineered crops make farmers dependent on seed companies?
And also see A Brief Introduction to Agribusiness. |
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For the most part, they already are. Nearly all farmers buy their seed from
seed companies.
See A Brief Introduction to Agribusiness for a detailed answer. |
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As with anything else patented, patents on crops give a long term
benefit in exchange for a short term cost. Patenting crop plants
(including those developed by artificial selection) has steadily
resulted in better plants. Modern crop plants have higher yields and
more insect and disease resistance than the older ones.
The short term cost is the patent holder has a monopoly on the patent and the things made using it until the patent expires. Farmers generally pay more for patent seed than for seed in the public domain. However, since the patent seed grows into better (read "more profitable") plants, farmers still get a good deal. Why would they spend more money if they didn't get something for it? Some people are concerned that patenting crops will let seed companies dictate terms to farmers, since the farmers will have to buy patent seed. This simply won't -- and hasn't -- happened for a number of reasons. First, seed is available from public domain stocks, should the farmers want it. Second, seed with good traits enters those stocks when the patents expire, which they all do. Finally, most farmers want to buy seed, because storing seed generally isn't worth the trouble. See these topics in Life's Big Instruction Book: What's that? artificial selection, genetic engineering Also see A Brief Introduction to Agribusiness for a detailed discussion of modern farming. Also see A Primer on Patents for a discussion of patents. |
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We wish we could give you a straight answer to this question, but the
advocates of organic farming keep changing the rules they play by. Initially,
those in favor of organic farming said they wanted to reduce farmers' use
of synthetic pesticides and herbicides, improve soil quality, and reduce
the need for fertilizers. Many of the people who develop genetically
engineered crops agreed with these goals, because genetic engineering
would be a good route to them. More recently, organic farming advocates
have turned against genetic engineering, apparently in the belief that
growing crops developed by thousands of years of artificial selection is
somehow more "natural".
See these topics in Life's Big Instruction Book: What's that? |
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To be honest, we've never been sure what "sustainable" means. (If anybody
has a cogent explanation, send us a comment.) But, if the word is used
in its common meaning, "can be continued indefinitely", then it is probably
no worse than any other sort of farming, and may be better. Genetically
engineered crops may allow us to reduce the need for synthetic pesticides and herbicides, may reduce the need for fertilizers, and may
allow people to grow crops on land not otherwise arable.
We say "may" because while these gains have
been demonstrated for a few specific crops, it's not clear that they can
be applied universally. This is, however, no worse than we can do with
artificial selection.
See these topics in Life's Big Instruction Book: What's that? |
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While it's certainly possible that seed companies could deliberately
reduce the diversity of crop plants via genetic engineering, it's
unlikely that they'll do so. The temptation, if there was one,
has been true since the development of modern artificial selection and
hybrids. Plant breeders have long recognized the risks of little genetic
diversity, and maintain thousands of hybrids and varieties of plants to
prevent it.
See the next answer for why maintaining diversity matters. See these topics in Life's Big Instruction Book: What's that? artificial selection, genetic engineering, hybrids, genetic diversity |
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The possible risk is that all of that
crop, which has identical traits, would die from exposure to some rare
or novel stress, such as a new disease. If this were to happen, it might
cause famine, or at least a big jump in the cost of that food.
While we've never had a famine caused by crops with identical traits, we've had a few bad disease outbreaks apparently caused by them. For instance, by 1970, a large fraction of the US corn crop had been bred to contain cytoplasm T, a set of maternally inherited traits largely used for the male sterility factor it contained. A new strain of the fungus Helminthosporium maydis arose in 1970. It killed about 15% of the US corn crop, because cytoplasm T made it vulnerable to this new disease. While seed companies and other plant breeders had known about the risks of losing diversity in sexually inherited traits, they didn't suspect that maternal traits might also matter. They rapidly developed crops using a variety of other maternal cytoplasms. This incident and others like it have kept plant breeders and farmers aware of the risk. In addition, other factors make it unlikely they'll let the genetic diversity of their crops fall. For starters, the variety of climates where crop plants grow is so large that farmers usually plant only the variety of a crop that grows well in their area. Similarly, the variety of stresses a crop might face -- insects, disease, and so forth -- also varies from place to place. Again, farmers choose the variety of crop plant they think will do best where they are. Finally, local buyers like different things in food: different taste, texture, and color, for example, and farmers tend to plant what they want. These things and others make it difficult for farmers -- not just worldwide, but even in a single large country, like the United States -- to plant all of the same variety of a crop plant. Also note that the risk from planting identical crops isn't one specific to genetic engineering; it's been possible since the development of artificial selection. See these topics in Life's Big Instruction Book: What's that? traits, artificial selection, genetic engineering, hybrids and varieties, genetic diversity, maternal inheritance |
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Possibly. Three factors dominate determining how many farmers there
are likely to be: historical trends, costs of farming, and profits of farming.
Let's look at each one of these in turn.
Over the past hundred years, the number of farmers has been steadily falling. Part of this change is due to improvements in agriculture: better (and more) machines, fertilizers, and pest controls have allowed incredible increases in the amount of food a farmer can grow. While need for food has also been increasing as well, farmers' ability to produce it has (so far) grown much faster, leading to less need for farmers. In addition, people now have many more job opportunities than they did historically. Better education and better access to jobs have allowed people who would otherwise have been stuck farming to find other, better paying and more interesting jobs. The combined effect of these (and other) historical trends is that farmers are going out of business. This is likely to be true even in the absence of genetic engineering. The costs of running a farm have also been driving farmers out of business. Slow but steady increases in the cost of farm machinery, pest controls, and seed have made it difficult for farmers to stay in business. It's possible genetically engineered crops might reduce farmers' costs, by producing crop plants that better resist pests, and thus reducing the need (and cost) of pest controls. If this happens, it might slow the loss of farmers. In a similar way, genetic engineering might increase farmers' profits. In general, the profit on the same amount of food has been steadily falling, as a result of large increase in production mentioned under historical trends and the increased costs just described. The flip side to lowered costs by pest resistance is increased profit. It costs farmers just as much to buy and grow seed whether it make it to market or whether bugs eat it, but farmers make money only if they sell their crops. Increasing the profitability of farming might also slow the loss of farmers. Also see A Brief Introduction to Agribusiness and A Primer on Patents. |
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In general, yes. Planting of genetically engineered crops has been
slowly increasing everywhere except Europe, where public misconceptions
about genetic engineering have been worsened by political pressure groups.
See the next answer for the reasons farmers want them. |
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Farmers want genetically engineered crops for the same reason anybody
in business wants any improvement: saving time or making money. The
first two traits produced by genetic engineering, herbicide resistance
and insect resistance, have done both.
Resistance to specific herbicides -- most popularly glyphosate (Roundup) -- has allowed farmers to spray those herbicides on their crops after they start to grow, eliminating both crop losses due to competition with weeds and the need to remove weeds by hand. Insect resistance by insecticide (Bt) production has reduced the amount of crops eaten by bugs, and reduced the need for farmers to spray other insecticides on their crops.
Finally, farmers are hopeful that the next wave of genetically engineered
traits will allow them to enter more valuable niche markets. These
include plants engineered to be more nutritious than before (for example,
golden rice, which contains vitamin A), or are designed to produce medicines
or other valuable compounds (reducing our need to make them from petroleum).
See these topics in Life's Big Instruction Book: What's that? |
See these topics in Life's Big Instruction Book: What's that?
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