POOR farmers could soon be growing genetically modified plants from home-grown seeds. The plants have been designed to produce fertile seed that carry desirable new traits, but will be incapable of spreading their alien genes into the environment. This is a crucial feature that could herald a new era in GM crops.
Environmentalists have long warned about the dangers of GM plants transmitting new traits to other plants. Genes intended to make crop plants resistant to weedkillers have already spread to other crops on farms, notably in Canada. To avoid this, biotech companies proposed making their GM crops sterile, using…
