I spent 10 years as a genetic engineering scientist in the 1970s and 1980s, striving to identify nitrogen fixing genes in soybeans and Rhizobium, with the goal one day of being able to transfer these into cereals which could then fix nitrogen without added fertiliser. This research was intended to help the poorer, hungry, developing nations. I quit being a genetic engineering scientist because I felt that the solution to hunger and famine was more a political and economic endeavour than a technological one, and that if I did discover important genes, the process would be owned, patented and controlled by a Corporation, and the people for whom the seeds were intended would not be able to afford it. It wasn't the technology at fault, but the way in which biotechnology can be controlled and manipulated to deprive people of what rightfully belongs to them. Plant and animal breeding has gone on for many centuries, and has been utilised in intensive agriculture for many decades with conventional plant and animal breeding techniques.
Genetic technologies have huge potential to transform, and improve many aspects of our lives.
We need to focus our scrutiny upon those companies who own and controls these techniques, rather than rejecting biotechnology itself, which is after all, only a tool. Many lives may be saved in the future due to pioneering work done in the area of genetic biotechnology. As consumers we should campaign vigorously to preserve our right to choose food which is not genetically modified, but we should not reject valuable research being conducted to develop foods and treatments which may prevent cancer and other diseases.