>> “Isn’t natural a little overrated?” <<
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Hybrids are natural.
The problem is not cross-pollenating; it is splicing genes from vastly different species.
There are a few problems with GMO crops. This is from memory from a 2001 graduate genetics class, so sorry, I don’t have sources handy.
1. “jumping genes” that can easily be put into crops can theoretically jump into other organisms (bacteria to crop in lab, then crop to bacteria to other plant in field).
2. Cross pollination contaminates non-gmo crops, whether Monsanto cares or not. The farmer who wants to grow his heritage strain of alfalfa may find his crops containing GM alfalfa from a neighboring field’s pollen.
In corn at least, Monsanto was putting in a kill gene to keep the seed from being viable in the next generation so people had to buy seed again the next year. When this pollen contaminated a neighboring field of corn, it would sterilize the seed in that field too, and that farmer would lose his seed crop.
Cross-pollination can also be a problem when the GM crop is closely enough related to a weed crop that they can cross. Then you have more directly created a “superweed” than just the pesticide resistance mentioned above.
3. possible dangers from the proteins encoded by the implanted genes, as mentioned before. We are told to wash all pesticides and herbicides carefully from food, but some GM crops have pesticides and herbicides built in. Some have the genes only expressed in non-edible plant parts, but alfalfa wouldn’t as the animals eat the whole plant top.
On the other hand, genes don’t always encode for toxins; there was talk of encoding carotene (and other nutrients) into potatoes and rice to help countries where the people subsist on those crops.
4. Poisoning beneficial insects—some GM plants express toxins in their pollen and nectar, killing pollinators.
5. GM crops further the trend toward nationwide monoculture. Climate change will happen and always has. So does the fight between plants and what eats or infects them. The less genetic diversity we have in our food crops, the more likely we are to lose a significant amount of our food source to a new problem.
I am not completely against GM crops, but I do think they should be handled with care and that contamination of neighboring crops and potential escape of the implanted genes can be a serious problem. I would also like to see them do a bit of research on pesticide/herbicide content of meat raised on these crops before they’re deregulated, but I’m not up on the literature enough to know if such studies have been done.
If it wouldn’t or couldn’t happen happen without human intervention, I wouldn’t call it natural, but I think that shows what a big grey area there is in the definition. Splicing genes isn’t inherently good or bad it is just a technology like a gun that can have a good use, or a dangerous use.