Ah, Monsanto's infamous 'Terminator' gene. The problem with it is that, basically, once farmers used it, they would have been completely at Monsanto's mercy - since their plants would be sterile, they might still be able to sell this year's produce, but they'd need to buy seeds to produce anything next year. So Monsanto would have had total power over a large segment of the world's farming industry.

Kharin <hidden@lucifer.com> wrote:

This isn't the first time the advocates have made waves. In the 1990s, the organization -- then called the Rural Advancement Foundation International -- challenged Monsanto and other chemical companies to stop working on genetically modified plants that produced infertile seeds.

After a long fight, Monsanto's research eventually stopped.