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Genetic modification (GM) of crops has been accompanied by concerns of environmental impact, including effects to beneficial organisms such as bees. Currently, most commercial GM crops are modified for pest and/or herbicide resistance. Transgenes such as Bt may be expressed in pollen, resulting in exposure to bees. However, studies to date indicate that crops transformed with genes coding for Bt proteins will not harm bees. Herbicide resistant crops are not likely to pose direct toxicity effects to bees; yet, greater weed control in herbicide resistant crops may be responsible for a lower bee abundance in these crops than non-transformed crops. Reduced pesticide use associated with insect resistant GM crops, and reduced tillage that is possible with herbicide tolerant crops, could be beneficial to bee populations compared to conventional agriculture. Risk of GM crops to bees should be assessed on a case-by-case basis in relation to feasible alternatives.

A study published in 1999 by a group of Cornell University researchers caused controversy by purporting that transgenic insect-resistant corn expressing a Bt endotoxin gene was risky for monarch butterfly caterpillars. When monarch caterpillars were forced to eat Bt corn pollen and plant parts associated with pollen, the caterpillars died. The lab experiments were criticized as flawed since they were not predictive of exposure or toxicity in the field. A number of follow-up field experiments with Bt corn conclusively demonstrated that the exposure of monarch butterfly caterpillars to Bt toxin was low, and that their numbers would not be significantly effected by transgenic crops that produced their own insecticide. Again, a false alarm was pulled suggesting that transgenic plants are more risky than they really are.

The monarch butterfly attracted attention as a target of biotechnology risks because it is showy. But what about more obscure but beneficial insects? Would they be harmed by transgenic plants? After all, chemical insecticides kill all kinds of insects when a field is sprayed, not just pests. Would transgenic Bt crops be different? While several researchers have looked for specific negative side-effects of insect-resistant plants, and even found some potential problems in lab experiments, no non-target effects have been conclusively demonstrated in the field. Large field experiments have shown that biological answers for insect control in the form of Bt toxin proteins in transgenic crops are more precise and environmentally friendly that chemical insecticide sprays.

Although Bt transgenic plants are ecologically benign compared with insecticide sprays, there is a concern that insects will eventually evolve resistance to Bt toxin. If that happened, then the transgenic plants would no longer control the pest insects. The mechanism of how Bt toxins kill target insects, and the strategies that have been proposed to delay the onset of resistance to Bt are described. The two most important management practices are high doses of toxin and refugia. For the high dose strategy, a lot of Bt protein is produced in the plant, which makes a high hurdle for evolution to jump in a single bound. The refugia strategy requires non-transgenic plants to be planted in fields next to transgenic crop fields. This would allow large numbers of potential mates for which there is no pressure to evolve resistance that could interbreed with the very rare resistant insects. In combination, these strategies have proven effective.

The remarkable ability of insects to adapt quickly to toxins used to control them threatens agriculture and human health worldwide. The quantity and variety of examples of pesticide resistance also offer opportunities for determining how response to selection is affected by various factors, including behavior, dominance, fitness trade-offs, founder events, gene flow, genetic constraints, haplodiploidy, life-history traits, major and minor genes, multitrophic interactions, and population dynamics. While study of resistance can provide fundamental insights about evolution, efforts to manage resistance enable application and testing of evolutionary theories. In particular, can strategies based on evolutionary principles delay evolution of pest resistance to insecticidal transgenic crops? This chapter deals with the evolution of insect resistance to transgenic plants, focusing on transgenic crops with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins, Bt toxins and their mode of action, the genetic basis of resistance to Bt toxins, the refuge strategy for delaying pest resistance to Bt crops, insect gene flow between refuges and Bt crops, and pink bollworm resistance to Bt cotton in Arizona.

What is the appropriate division of labour between ‘experts’ and policymakers? The Indian Ministry of Environment’s public consultation process in the Bt brinjal case very openly brought these issues to a head in India. This chapter begins by outlining the technocratic and Red Book models of science in regulatory policymaking, and rejects these in favour of a ‘co-dynamic’ framework. This framework is then used to explore the assessment of the possible risks from GM brinjal; exposing the non-scientific and unacknowledged policy assumptions and judgements underlying Mahyco’s assessment of risks. These assumptions determined the framing of the questions, what and how much evidence was sufficient, and the criteria for interpreting the evidence about Bt brinjal. Criticizing the technocratic framework underlying the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill (BRAI Bill), this chapter concludes that it is time that policy stakeholders recognize that their scientific assessments are framed by ‘up-stream’ policy judgements and assumptions.

This chapter details the manner in which wider engagement with stakeholders—experts, practitioners, wider public, administrators, scientists, activists, and businesses—became part of the policy-and-decision-making process. The author argues that public engagement leads to responsive policies, laws that would be observed in letter and spirit, transparency, and accountability. Multi-city consultations held on Bt-brinjal, new regulations governing the Coastal Regulatory Zone and the Green India Mission are testament to this belief. Public interactions also put focus on crucial issues that had not received adequate attention. The draft Fishermen Livelihood Protection Bill, the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel, or review of the hydroelectric power policy in the North-East were all outcomes of public engagements. The author argues that public engagement is the only way to achieve the balance between the equally urgent imperatives of faster economic growth and deeper environmental conservation.

This chapter explores ongoing debates surrounding the environmental safety of genetically modified (GM) crops. Systematic review and meta-analysis provide convincing evidence that Bt crops are safer than insecticides for non-target invertebrate species, such as honeybees and ladybird beetles. In addition, widespread adoption of Bt crops has resulted in reduced use of insecticides and other benefits for the environment. Despite such evidence, there remains a substantial opinion gap between the general public and scientists regarding the safety of GM crops. While systematic review and meta-analysis can help to correct for bias in environmental and conservation science, the oversimplification of environmental issues into blackand- white dichotomies such as pro- versus anti-GM crops can stymie the adoption of genuine solutions.

Agarwala and Herring make the important observation that our view of class politics is often skewed by a misleading preoccupation with the patterns of class politics that arose in nineteenth and twentieth century Europe. They develop this point by analysing the rise of India’s informal workers and its agrarian producers. After decades of being excluded from the formal labour movement, self-employed workers, domestic workers, recycling and sanitation workers, and home-based garment workers have organized to gain legal recognition as workers and secure new forms of labour protection. In agriculture, despite the political decline of ‘bullock capitalists’ in recent years, Agarwala and Herring analyse a new basis for agrarian mobilization—the right to grow genetically engineered Bt cotton. Their analysis of these cases shows that the mutual constitution of class, caste, and local culture affects the success and direction of political mobilization.