“Too Much Of A Good Thing: The Cautionary Tale of Biotech Crops”

This article on NPR discusses the issues cotton and corn farmers are having with clean technology. The technology is modified cotton and corn plants that have been infused with a naturally occurring bacteria gene that kills off common pests of these crops. This gene only targets specific insect pests. This provides a big advantage over pesticides as it will only kill off the pest insects while leaving the other beneficial or non-harmful insects alive. It also means fewer to no chemicals are being spread out by the farmers, which saves them time and money as they do not need to spend the effort to distribute it across their fields. 

The problem has arrived from the overuse of this altered gene; the pest insects have evolved and become immune to it, due to the forced selection process which guarantees that only insects that are immune will survive and pass on the immune gene to future generations. The article presents a valid solution to this; a field of the crop that does not have the bacteria gene, which will be lost to the insects, and therefore not force only the immune insects to pass on their gene. 

However, farmers do not want to waste valuable land on a crop that is guaranteed to fail, even if it will benefit them in the long term. The article simply suggests the solution to this is more government regulations that force farmers to grow a “lost crop”. However, this is not a great solution, as it will force the farmers to adapt without providing incentives to change and understand why they need to have a crop without the gene that kills the pests. There are other solutions that the government can use that would fare better to promote clean technologies and help improve understanding. 

One way to do this is to have a subsidy for farmers to have “lost crops”. The government could buy the crop that is guaranteed to fail, which would provide a better incentive for farmers to have a crop like this. Another way is through technical assistance programs. These programs educate both the benefit of clean technology and how to use it. Luckily, for agriculture, these programs exist, in the form of state agricultural schools and extensive services. Actions such as these would work better than a regulation as it provides both incentives and understanding as to why having an unmodified crop will benefit their modified crops.

Charles, D., Sofia, M. K., & Hanson, B. (2020, December 01). Too Much Of A Good Thing: The Cautionary Tale of Biotech Crops. Retrieved December 12, 2020, from https://www.npr.org/transcripts/936621362