Nothing's going to happen overnight, but in 10 years I could see 10 percent of the country's corn acres devoted to this. Scientists first added genes to plants in 1983, but so far the technology has been used mostly to make crops resistant to weedkillers and insects, which cuts the cost of farming. But biopharming raises many questions familiar from the debate over genetically engineered foods. The main fears are that adding foreign genes to plants will prompt allergic reactions in people who eat them, and that the genes might cause unwanted changes in soil, insect populations and the broader environment. But in transforming plants to grow things that people do not normally consume, biopharming may raise additional concerns.
Some groups see genetic manipulation as an unacceptable exploitation of nature.
Federal regulators say they are keeping a watchful eye on biopharming, requiring permits when new crops are grown in open fields. To prevent pollen from carrying modified genes to new plants, the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires farmers to separate gene-altered plants from conventional crops by several hundred feet. And it sometimes asks growers to remove the pollen-bearing parts of the plant. The facility would have to be dedicated to pharmaceuticals. Still, a debacle last year involving one type of genetically engineered corn gave a black eye to regulators and to biotechnology companies, and has sharpened scrutiny of their work.