We don't live in a perfect world so that many of our actions have a double effect, one positive and another negative. This is because we can change the existing balance of nature.

For example, in China c. year 2000 was using GM cotton that resisted the bollworm. By the year 2006, mirids were infesting the cotton crop of 5 million farmers. "The five million Chinese GM cotton farmers appear to have created a natural vacuum by growing cotton genetically engineered to kill the bollworm larvae which used to destroy their plants. With the bollworm larvae gone, other pests called mirids have taken over, forcing farmers to eradicate them with lashings of expensive insecticide that have all but destroyed the original economic benefits." (New Scientist) So the Chinese farmer may, in the long run, have to introduce natural predators to restore balance. It has also been noted that Bt Cotton also kills caterpillars or moths and butterflies.

"Some farmers are starting to see morning glory vine and yellow nut sedge, the weeds Roundup has always had the toughest time controlling, moving aggressively into their fields. Some need to mix other herbicides with their glyphosate for total weed control, said Don Schafer, a soybean product manager at Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a major seed company."

In God's wisdom, the natural ecosystem form a unity; all things are related to each other and depend on each other for their existence. So, when man upsets the natural balance he paves the way for opportunistic species to develop and take over the environment. What at first appears as good may in the long run become a nightmare.

The Bishops of South Africa in the year 2001 made this statement,

"Although bio-technology has the capacity to create a greater variety of commercial plants, the trend set by transnational corporations is to create broad international markets for a single product. This encourages genetic uniformity, thereby narrowing the genetic base of our food resources. Genetic uniformity leads to vulnerability. In the case of the Irish potato famine in the 19th century, for example, genetic uniformity in the potato crop meant that all the potatoes were susceptible to a single disease. The same potato blight also struck South America, but there the farmers had planted as many as 46 varieties of potatoes; this genetic diversity gave them protection, as the disease affected only a few varieties.

The assumption that we need to create new crop varieties through the use of genetic engineering technologies overlooks the fact that there is untapped potential within the wealth of existing varieties. In Africa, for instance, more than two thousand native grains, roots, fruits and other food plants are found. These have been feeding people for thousands of years, but most are receiving no scientific attention whatever today." (Bishops of South Africa Nov. 14, 2001, Genetically Modified Food: The Impending Disaster)

Perhaps a short story will illustrate what I have said above. There was once a king who had a cherry tree in his garden but the birds ate some of his cherries. So, he had all birds banished from his garden. The next year the worms infested his cherries because they had no natural enemies. Could it be that Genetic Engineering is motivated more by greed than any other factor?

6. Biodiversity and Genetic Modifications