Should We Have GM Crops?

The title question is evaluated in light of three key sub-issues: consumer rights of exit with respect to consumption of GM crops, environmental risk from GM crops and the effectiveness of the scientific community in addressing non-technical issues that have been raised by GM crops. Three key theses are argued. U.S. labeling policy for GM crops provides only tenuous protection for a consumer's ethical right to eat a diet that conforms to religious, cultural or politically based values. Environmental risks, though real, have been overstated by critics of GM crops, who have ignored significant environmental risks from non-GM agricultural technologies.

Although scientific bodies have done a credible job of addressing many technical issues on GM crops, their poor handling of human, social and other non-technical issues has tended to undermine public confidence in their willingness or ability to engage even the technical issues. As such, skepticism about GM crops is neither surprising nor entirely unjustified.