Genetic engineering fails to overcome the flaws of monoculture

I saw an interesting story on the Independent today, claiming that pests are developing resistance to the Bt proteins genetically engineered into some crops. Here is the link:

Worm evolves to eat corn that was genetically engineered to kill it

Although the Independent has gone downhill over the last few years and is rapidly descending into red-top rag territory, I don't see any reason to doubt the story, since evolved resistance is what you'd expect to happen over time.

The reason I think this story is interesting is that it highlights the downsides of misapplying our understanding of genetics. I am not necessarily against genetic engineering for some purposes - fixing genetic diseases in people has my complete support, and introducing genes for some traits into food would be OK too. I have no problem with anyone trying to genetically engineer bigger tastier potatoes for example.

An example of corn monoculture

The problem is when genetic engineering is used to promote and enable the "exterminate everything else" monoculture approach of modern farming. This is doomed to fail because ultimately the pests don't really have anywhere else to go. If you give a plant better disease resistance in a varied ecosystem, the pests will move onto other plants, but if you only grow one plant across wide areas, then the pests must adapt or die. And there are good reasons to expect that adaptation should generally be possible, such as the following:

1. The plant itself must tolerate any toxic chemicals it contains or that are applied, so the chemical cannot be inimical to basic life processes without killing the desired crop

2. Some part of the plant will be consumed by humans, and therefore must also be non-toxic to humans.

3. Plants have been engaged in chemical warfare against pests for as long as both have existed, and yet pests still exist

4. Many plants depend on a supporting web of other life, from pollinators to soil micro-organisms, and in this case any chemical weapon must be selective. Pests may be able to copy non-affected organisms.

The attempt to wipe out all the pests while at the same time retaining a non-harmful, edible plant appears to me to be a war that we simply can't win. The best that can be attained is the fluctuating stalemate which has held throughout history, with one side gaining a temporary advantage for a while which is then neutralised by changes in predator populations or changes in the plants themselves.

Genetic engineering plants to either contain or tolerate poisons is just a risky way to gain a temporary advantage, since there is a high risk of these poisons having adverse effects either on other parts of the ecosystem (e.g. pest predators, beneficial soil microbes, ...) or even on people themselves. How many chemicals were used for decades in the belief that they were safe, only for scientists to later show that they increased the risk of cancer or some other health problem?

A much better approach to pest control is:

1. diversify away from monoculture - give the pests more targets so they either can't specialise, or if they do they cannot wipe out your entire crop

2. Encourage predator populations to maintain a limited but constant stock of pests instead of insisting on complete extermination. This means providing predator and beneficial species with habitat and uncultivated spaces.

3. Use limited and targeted chemicals only when necessary, accepting that they do harm as well as good

But this won't happen as long as the model is industrial monoculture agriculture, where the goal is to minimise the human labour in farming, and to de-skill and automate the process as much as possible.