Presented to the Industrial and Economic Perspectives Workshop

rate than almost anyone anticipated. The potential of these products to deliver significant value and change agriculture has driven enormous research funding over the last 15 years. In the case of Pioneer Hi-Bred, we increased our research spending from three percent of sales to more than eight percent of sales at the same time that the total sales were increasing rapidly. The need for research funding to develop and apply the new technologies has driven considerable change in agrobusiness and the farm sector. In particular, it has sparked a wave of consolidation of agricultural chemical companies and seed companies. Along with the enormous promise of the technology, there are concerns related to the wide-scale use of this technology. This meeting deals with one of those concerns: the development of pests that are resistant to the genetically altered host. I have been asked to share my thoughts on the management of the new technology so as to minimize the risks as we explore practices that might mitigate the risks of development of pest resistance. Our workshop is to explore these issues from the perspective of industrial and economic concerns. Resistance to synthetic agrochemicals or to gene products produced in crops can develop in insect, pathogen, or weed populations. The general mechanisms and basis of the development of resistance is well understood since it is a case of natural selection. However, the specific controlling factors and their management are much less clearly understood. Current models for minimizing selection pressure and maximizing efficacy of the transgenes is much more limited. Although there are only a few transgenic crops introduced into the market at this time, many more are at various stages of development. A few transgenes like Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis endotoxin) and various types of herbicide tolerance are finding broad acceptance and are being introduced Paper Presented to the Industrial and Economic Perspectives Workshop