A parable

A farmer, discovering that he did not have enough wheat seed from last year's crop for this year's planting, bought seed from an unscrupulous seed dealer. Unknown to him, the unscrupulous dealer sold him seed from a mutated form of wheat. It looked like regular wheat seed but a lethal gene had been introduced into the plant. The leaves and seeds of the plant were deadly poisonous. The farmer planted the seed and soon his field was green with sprouting wheat. The genetically altered wheat grew rapidly. One morning when the farmer went to take a look at the field, he discovered several cows grazing in the field. They had broken through the fence that seperated them from the field, drawn by the lush green of the young wheat. The farmer drove them back into their field and repaired the fence. The next day the farmer discovered the cows lying dead or dying in their field. An autopsy of a cow revealed that the wheat the cow had eaten had poisoned it. The farmer called the farm agent who broke the bad news to him. The farmer had bought wheat that was toxic not only to livestock but also to humans. It had been taken off the market but the unscrupulous seed dealer had chosen to sell his stocks. The farmer would have to burn the young wheat in the field and then plow under what remained. He would have to leave the field fallow and destroy any wheat that sprung up lest it grow to maturity, seed, and the seeds contaminate the wheat in his other fields and the fields of his neighbors. As a safety measure he would also have to burn off any adjoining fields, plow them under, and leave them fallow. Only after he had given both fire and nature an opportunity to destroy the deadly wheat could he resow the fields with good seed. Even then there was a possibility that some of the poisonous seeds might survive in the ground and sprout with the good seed. If he did not take these steps, the wheat would flower and cross-polinate with the good wheat in his other fields. When it seeded, its seeds could cast into his other fields and those of his neighbors. The whole economy of the area would be affected as well as the safety of livestock and humans. The farmer was devestated. He looked at the green field of maturing wheat and could not imagine that it was really so harmful. It looked to his eyes just like his other wheat fields. Perhaps the farm agent was wrong, he thought. Perhaps something else killed the cows.