According to a new book edited by risk experts Julian Morris and Roger Bate, new agricultural and food technologies, including genetically engineered seed, are generally beneficial both to health and to the environment. Environmental and consumer activists have for a long time blamed pesticides, fertilisers and other aspects of intensive farming for causing environmental degradation and human disease. Yet, as the authors in this book show, intensive farming has enabled growth in food production at a rate greater than population growth, thereby ensuring that people are better fed than ever before, whilst simultaneously limiting the effect of farming on the environment.
Pesticides are bad for the environment and bad for human health.
In addition, the synthetic pesticides themselves are often less toxic than natural pesticides. Overall, synthetic pesticides present a net gain in health terms. Antibiotic resistance in animals is spreading to humans. Nitrate fertilisers are a threat to human health. Instances of food poisoning would be reduced if we had more regulations.