纽约时报 令人爱恨交加的转基因作物(2)（在线收听）

By 2003, RoundUp Ready corn and soy seeds dominated the market, and Monsanto had become the largest producer of genetically engineered seeds, responsible for more than 90 percent of G.M.O. crops planted globally.

到2003年，抗草甘膦玉米和大豆种子占据了市场主导地位，孟山都已成为最大的转基因种子生产商，占全球种植转基因作物的90%以上。

But the company's rollout also alarmed and antagonized farmers, who were required to sign restrictive contracts to use the patented seeds, and whom Monsanto aggressively prosecuted. At one point, the company had a 75-person team dedicated solely to investigating farmers suspected of saving seed — a traditional practice in which seeds from one year's crop are saved for planting the following year — and prosecuting them on charges of intellectual-property infringement. Environmental groups were also concerned, because of the skyrocketing use of RoundUp and the abrupt decline in agricultural diversity.

但该公司的做法也引起了农民的警觉和反对，他们被要求签署限制性合同才能使用专利种子，而且孟山都还不遗余力地对他们进行起诉。该公司一度组建了一个75人的团队，专门调查涉嫌保存种子的农民，并以侵犯知识产权的罪名起诉他们，而保存种子是传统做法，即将一年作物的种子保存到下一年种植。环境组织也感到担忧，因为抗草甘膦的使用量激增，而农业多样性急剧下降。

That resistance was compounded because early G.M.O.s — which focused largely on pest — and herbicide-resistance — offered little direct benefit to the consumer. And once public sentiment was set, it proved hard to shift, even when more beneficial products began to emerge. One of these, Golden Rice, was made in 1999 by a pair of university researchers hoping to combat vitamin A deficiency, a simple but devastating ailment that causes blindness in millions of people in Africa and Asia annually, and that can also be fatal. But the project foundered after protests by anti-G.M.O. activists in the United States and Europe, which in turn alarmed governments and populations in developing countries.

抵抗之所以加剧，是因为早期的转基因生物主要集中在害虫和除草剂抗性上，对消费者几乎没有直接的好处。公众情绪一旦确立，即使更有益的产品开始出现，也很难再改变。其中一种有益产品是金米，由两名大学研究人员于1999年制造，他们希望对抗维生素A缺乏症，这是一种简单但具破坏性的疾病，每年导致非洲和亚洲数百万人失明，而且可能致命。但该项目因为遭到美国和欧洲反转基因活动人士的抗议而失败，这反过来又给发展中国家的政府和民众敲响了警钟。