Are GMOs good or bad?

There are legal and socioeconomic risks associated with GMOs

Question: Are GMOs good or bad?
Position1 of 3›: GMOs are bad
Argument1 of 4›: There are legal and socioeconomic risks associated with GMOs

GMOs are patented which restricts the ability for independent research. It also allows corporations to sue when farmers have GM seeds accidentally flow onto their farms. This threatens the livelihoods of non-GMO and organic farmers.

The argument

Companies develop GMOs for several business reasons, and the commercial logic behind them is part of what creates the risk. One reason is that companies can charge much more. GMO seeds are much more expensive than non-GMO seeds. GMO corn seeds can cost $150 more per bag than non-GMO corn seeds, a difference that falls on farmers as a recurring input cost rather than a single purchase. Another reason that companies develop GMOs is that when a seed is genetically modified it is then able to be patented. Patenting converts a plant into intellectual property, and with that come the legal powers an owner holds over how what they own may be used. There are serious legal and socio-economic risks associated with patenting crops. First, patent licenses prohibit others from researching those crops. This restricts the ability of independent organizations and scientists to research the safety of GMOs, which means the evidence available about a product is largely evidence produced or permitted by the company selling it, and safety assurances rest on a body of research the public has no way to check independently. Second, the widespread use of GMOs is threatening non-GMO and organic farming. Seed does not respect field boundaries: pollen and seed travel on wind, water and machinery, so the presence of patented crops in a region is not something neighbouring farms can opt out of. When modified seeds accidentally flow onto non-GMO farms, the GMO corporations (such as Monsanto) can then come after those farmers with patent infringement lawsuits. This threatens those farmers' livelihoods over something they neither chose nor could prevent.

Premises

[P1]GMO seeds are far more expensive than non-GMO seeds, and genetic modification lets companies patent crops. [P2] Patents prohibit independent research into those crops' safety and threaten non-GMO and organic farmers, who can face patent-infringement lawsuits from corporations like Monsanto when modified seeds drift onto their land. [C] Because of these legal and socioeconomic risks, GMOs are bad.

Counter-arguments

Patents do not harm people. Corporations only go after people that purposefully infringe on their patent rights. Patents also don’t impede research. There has already been extensive independent research. GMOs were tested by more than 275 global independent science organizations that all came to the same conclusion that GMOs are as safe as non-GMOs.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] There has already been extensive independent research. [Rejecting P4] Corporations only go after people that purposefully infringe on their patent rights.