Herbidical Resistance Due To Cross-Pollination
By engineering certain plants with herbicidal resistance,the cross-pollination of these plants with the very species that they are meant to wipe out will result in herbicide resistance being pass on to these plants.
Thus stronger herbicides will have to be used, posing an even large hazard to human health. Additionally, the use of broad-spectrum herbicides that kill every plant indiscriminately, may come into widespread use because of the need to exterminate these pests that have been granted a strong resistance to other herbicides. These broad-spectrum herbicides will eventually pose a risk to human health.
Double-Edged Sword
A case in point would be the genetically engineered Klebsiella-planticola bacteria. This bacteria was genetically engineered to turn biowaste into alcohol, creating a win-win situation by reducing the need to burn the biowaste, and also producing the alcohol from waste materials.
The broken down waste, still containing the bacteria, was spread in fields as fertilizer. However, the bacteria remaining in the fertilizer entered the root systems of plants, and broke down the plant material into alcohol, producing as much as 17ppm alcohol, where just 1ppm alcohol would be enough to kill the plant. This bacteria came very close to wiping out the region's terrestrial plant life, endangering the ecosystem.
Clearly, strict controls are needed to ensure that these genetically engineered organisms are not released into the wild as their behaviour in controlled laboratory environments cannot act as an accurate simulation of their behaviour in the wild.
Q: Why is genetic engineering of plants considered to be a
“double-edged sword”?
A: [Click Here For Answer]