Synthetic biology has already been applied in the field of agriculture to produce plants that are more nutritious, more resistant to pests, or lower in fertilizer needs. For example, there is a synthetic biology wheat variant that resists a common fungus, resulting in a crop that yields more wheat while maintaining the same carbon footprint.
However, since synthetic biology organisms are intellectual property, critics worry that commercializing these agricultural products might create a conflict of interest between biotechnology companies and rural farmers. This debate preceded synthetic biology with concerns about agriculture organisms that had been genetically modified without using synthetic biology. Critics fear that the efficient organisms developed with synthetic biology might reduce the demand for conventional crops, making it hard for small farms to compete.
However, synthetic biology has already shown itself to be a field with a generous stance on making beneficial intellectual property available to the public. For example, the development of BioBricks, synthetic biology’s building blocks, involved making the engineering spec for BioBricks open-source intellectual property. In addition, the existing markets for locally grown, organic heirloom produce and efficient crops that can feed billions already overlap very little.