I would agree with most of what Hank Misima said except this:
>GM technology will also not help "feed" the world. Farmers in third
>world countries save seed, they don't have money to buy it. US farmers
>produce more food that can be profitably sold.
Seed is food and sometimes it gets eaten (with grains). We will in the next
while enter a period where fossil fuel energy becomes scarcer. Then
transporting grain around the world will become more expensive (in terms of
energy not just money) and in both first and third worlds agriculture is
energy intensive (not just for machinery but also for inputs like fertilizer
-- nitrogen is a component of air but takes a lot of energy to put into
fertilizer. When GM technology gives us grains that fix nitrogen from the
air like legumes it WILL help feed the world.
Unfortuneately the technology should never have become so linked with
private enterprise. It has been abused. But I would reserve judgement on
its future.
Regards, Stan