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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.
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。
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