Engineering Ethics in Agricultural Gene Editing
Gene editing technology like CRISPR allows scientists to directly modify plant DNA for agricultural benefits such as disease resistance, increased plant productivity, and higher nutritional value, but there is a chance for the unintended spread of modified genes to other organisms, as well as human exposure to unintended allergens or pollutants (1). As CRISPR technology continues to advance, the direct biosafety risks may diminish. However, this conversation is not to persuade you that genetically modified foods are harmful or not, instead, I want to highlight some frameworks of engineering ethics related to genetically modifying plants.
​Considering that GM crops can lead to higher yields, there is a collective benefit to society from using this technology: food security. A similar argument can be made about farmers. Higher yields and higher disease resistance provide farmers with more produce to sell, potentially at a lower cost because they might need to use fewer pesticides; note this is only the case if the excess cost of GM crops does not exceed the extra profit farmers make from higher yields and fewer pesticide use.​
This technology also has an opportunity to be abused by those who wield it. I'm going to paint a rather extreme picture, but consider a scenario in which a company has successfully modified a crop resistant to a current virus spreading around farms in the USA. The company has total control over where to set prices, so in theory, they could make the price so high that disadvantaged farmers could not afford the crop and consequently lose all their produce for the season, while industrial farm competition would decrease and their profits would soar. In this scenario, the benefits are less clear than before, instead, we have disadvantaged farmers taking on all the risk from the introduction of this technology, while industrial farming companies reap major rewards.
So with this unequal distribution, what do we do? You might think it’s obvious, to figure out a way to share some of the benefits of this new technology with the disadvantaged farmer. But why should the company developing this technology do that, and what does it mean to share some of the benefits?​
Somewhere, you may be taught that higher profits for the company are the priority, but in the case of developing new technology, as Robert McGinn argues, the technologists behind it have a fundamental responsibility, “to not cause harm or create an unreasonable risk of harm through their engineering work (2).” So in this scenario, the scientists responsible for creating the GM crop should be aware of the price gouge that may occur if management does not respect the values of disadvantaged farmers to maintain a career. They should clearly outline the unequal distribution of risks and benefits at hand and encourage management to communicate with the disadvantaged farmers to set a price that allows them to maintain their occupation.
Sources
(1) CRISPR Variants for Gene Editing in Plants: Biosafety Risks and Future Directions
(2) "The Ethical Engineer: Contemporary Concepts and Cases," Robert McGinn