These concerns are shared by at least 100 scientists from 20 countries who have signed a World Scientists' Statement calling for a 5 year moratorium and a ban on patents of life-forms. While the 'benefits' from GM crops remain illusory and hypothetical, the successes of sustainable, organic farming are well-documented, in the Third World, as well as in Europe and North America. There is also an enormous 'health bonus' in phasing out agrochemicals which are linked to many forms of cancer, to reproductive abnormalities and degenerative diseases. The current obsession with gene manipulation may be entirely misplaced. Indeed, genes and genomes can remain relatively stable and constant only within a stable, balanced ecosystem.
Organic agriculture is predicated on such a balanced ecosystem.
Those are the real choices for civil society.