The Environmental Impacts of Genetically Modified Plants: Challenges to Decision Making

A crucial controversy surrounding genetically modified plants (GMPs) is whether the commercialization of these plants should be delayed because of its potential environmental impacts.GMPs are exotic species introduced into open complex ecosystems of which we have limited understanding.Because they are released widely into the environment, they may have important scale and externality issues.In addition, the possibility of irreversible ecosystem disruptions is present (Gollier, Jullien, and Triech).This possibility exists in part because, despite the precision suggested by words such as "bioengineered," there can be unpredictable and novel effects of gene mixing (NRC 2002).Also, some risk management strategies for reducing environmental risks rely on uncertain compliance by farmers.Little is known about these environmental impacts (Ervin et al. 2001, Ervin et al. 2003, Wolfenbarger andPhifer).This situation raises challenges for decision making with respect to the release and commercialization of GMPs.For many crops, there is little consensus on whether to: (a) take action and release the product and mitigate any potential or emerging negative consequences, or (b) delay any action until there is more certainty about potential outcomes (Lemons, Shrader-Frechette, and Cranor).Selection of which action to take inherently implies answering two fundamental and interrelated questions: "What is an acceptable risk?" and "How do we manage uncertain risks?"Because of a lack of consensus on these Fellows Panel.