The Sociocultural and Food Security Impacts of Genetic Pollution via Transgenic Crops of Traditional Varieties in Latin American Centers of Peasant Agriculture

Abstract

The introduction of transgenic crops into centers of diversity or areas dominated by traditional agriculture threatens genetic diversity as well as indigenous knowledge and culture. It is further argued that the impacts go beyond genetic changes in heterogeneous native crop varieties to embrace effects on evolutionary processes such as gene flow between native crops and wild relatives, and erosion of local knowledge systems such as folk taxonomies and selection of varieties that thrive in marginal environments in which resourcepoor farmers live.