Worse, she concludes that, under certain conditions, the sterility trait from Terminator crops will spread via pollen to surrounding plants, and it will make seeds of those plants sterile. This could become a serious problem for farmers whose fields are close to the Terminator crop. Even if only a few seeds die, they will contain the toxin and any other proteins engineered into the Terminator-protected variety. These new 'components' may make the seed unusable for certain purposes. Others questions the technology's safety.
Critics raise a series of other questions.
The Terminator developers insist that these concerns are groundless. He says that the Terminator involves natural plant proteins which humans will digest without any difficulty. Even if USDA surrenders exclusive licensing rights to Monsanto, the future of the Terminator technology will not be decided in the United States. RAFI predicts that scientists, governments and civil society organizations will continue to seek a ban on Terminator technology at the national and international level. Where the corporations argue that technology and centralized control are the key to meeting the growing global demand for food, the popular organizations counter that food security and ecological sustainability require a return to decentralized agricultural models based on biodiversity, common ownership and rights to use seeds, selective use of modern technologies, and an ecosystem-sensitive approach that recognizes the ripple effects of introducing new agricultural inputs and lessening the geographic and marketplace distance between farmers and consumers.