There is huge ethical concern over patenting; to claim patents on plants is to try to patent parts of creation. The granting of patents concentrates power in the hands of a few, and means the poor and the weak lose out. While transnational corporations (TNCs) make handsome profits from Third World resources, the poor are receiving nothing. Their knowledge of genetic resources has contributed enormously to the people and companies of the North, but those contributions are not being recognised.
The effect of plant genetic erosion on the poor is perhaps the chief ethical concern. If the extinction of plant species continues, we could be heading for catastrophe for food shortages and famine on an unprecedented scale, with the poorest suffering the most.