ONE OF the greatest worries is that GM crops could harm wildlife. In 1999, an article in Nature reported on an experiment with monarch butterflies and GM pollen. It is well known that about half of the monarch butterflies in the United States spend summers feeding on milkweed in corn-growing regions.
In the experiment, monarch larvae were exposed to milkweed covered with either GM pollen or pollen from regular corn plants. It was found that only 56 per cent of the larvae survived when fed milkweed leaves covered in GM corn pollen, whereas all larvae fed milkweed leaves covered with traditional corn pollen survived.
Follow-up studies by the Department of Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration, and others suggest that this experiment may have been flawed and point to the fact that it was conducted in a laboratory and not in the field. This being so, the experiment should, at the very least, serve as a cautionary tale on the implications of widespread use of GM crops.
Careful analysis of each GM plant involving rigorous, controlled field trials in various locations is required prior to large-scale plantings and release. But it may also be required that some GM plants cannot be introduced to certain locations or if introduced, certain precautions and stringent management need to be practised to minimise damage to wildlife.
