Biotechnology: Designer Genes for Familiar Foods
             There are many environmental issues surrounding the agricultural, farming, and ecological applications of biotechnology. Objectors to altered crops express concerns wondering how engineered pest and herbicide resistance might affect local ecology. For example, they ask if herbicide resistance would lead to increased use of dangerous herbicides to kill weeds, since farmers would no longer worry about the dangers of their crops' overexposure to these chemicals. In addition, these people express concern that depriving insects of crops for food would, in turn, deprive birds and frogs of insect prey.
             There are also many objections to the release of genetically engineered organisms into the wild. Environmentalists express misgivings about the effects of introducing new and novel organisms into a given ecological systems. They say that the effects of new organisms - or even ordinary ones with new genes - are too complex to be predicted, and potentially too dangerous to be risked.
             Some of the well-known transgenic crops on the market today are Roundup Ready Soybean, Roundup Ready com, Bt Corn, IMI corn, etc.
             Pros and Cons of Genetically Altered Crops
             Crops could be genetically altered for resistance to drought, frost, pests, disease, and herbicides. As stated above, there are many questions about the ecological impact of these alterations. The addition of any genes into crops could result in these genes' escape into the wild. (This is more of a danger for crops, whose seeds could spread off the farm, than it is for livestock.) Ecologists are uneasy about adding herbicide resistance to crops, fearing that this will eliminate any desire on the part of the farmers to refrain from using too many chemicals, which could affect wild animals. In addition, the concern exists that disease resistance could cause relatively harmless diseases to mutate and become more dangerous, perhaps ...