How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom

by Matt Ridley

Demonization of biotechnology led to a vicious circle as far as the companies involved were concerned. The more the activists demanded regulation and caution, the more expensive it became to develop new crops, and the more therefore it became impossible to do so except within large companies. There was thus a strange symbiosis between big industry and its critics. At one point activists demanded that Monsanto make crops that could not survive beyond the first generation, so they could not run riot in the wild as ‘superweeds’ – an entirely false fear anyway since most crops are ill suited to being weeds. In response, Monsanto therefore explored the possibility of developing genetic variants that were incapable of breeding true. Although it did not develop these, activists immediately accused it of introducing ‘terminator technology’ to trap farmers into buying new seed each year. The charge stuck.