Biotechnology and Genetic Diversity

Experts say risks and benefits of biotechnology must be weighed on a case-by-case basis. Could plant biotechnology affect wild ecosystems? Critics fear a genetically enhanced gene could "escape" from a farmer's field and breed with a wild relative to create a "superweed" that could overwhelm the natural environment and curtail genetic diversity. Proponents, on the other hand, say the productivity gains of genetically enhanced crops allow more food to grow on existing farmland, which preserves natural areas from being plowed under to feed a growing population. This, supporters say, promotes genetic diversity. Researchers increasingly say the question is no longer whether a genetically enhanced gene, or transgene, will "escape." Pollen flow between plants is a natural phenomenon that has been occurring for thousands of years. Indeed, a 1999 study found that 12 of the world's 13 most important food crops hybridized with at least one of their wild relatives.1 As Klaus Ammann, director of the botanical garden at the University of Bern in Switzerland puts it, "I can assure you that pollen did not learn to fly with the transgenes." So release of genetically enhanced genes is as likely to occur as with conventional varieties. But the better question to be asked is what could happen when specific genetically enhanced genes do enter the natural environment, says John Burke, a biology professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. For more information please click "here":[ http://www.whybiotech.com/index.asp?id=4009].

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