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Originally Posted by seamus
Why are GMO's bad? I know some of the companies involved are terrible, but why is the GMO itself bad?
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The main thing is the technology is still relatively new. We don't know the long-term consequences of eating GMO produce, so people should be able to find out if the food they're eating contains GMO ingredients.
There are also other issues about ongoing biodiversity - if every plant in every crop is identical because it was genetically modified to be that way, then the whole crop is at risk if some weird insect, virus or disease attacks, there's not the genetic diversity that protects some of the crop - as well as the large amount of human intervention through pesticides, insecticides and so on.
GMO crops also can't reproduce by themselves, so seeds only last for one season, making ongoing farming less sustainable. They make a big song and dance about giving seeds to farmers in poor countries/regions but that's not making a farmer or that community sustainable in the longrun, it's more like a drug dealer offering the first hit for free.