In the words of evironmental/vegetarian activist John Robbins (who I happen to agree with ON THIS PARTICULAR issue:
"The biotech companies have invested billions of dollars because they sense in this technology the potential for enormous profit, and the means to gain control over the world’s food supply. It is increasingly obvious that if they succeed, the poor will not benefit, and those who are hungry will not find themselves fed.
If you doubt this, consider this reality. For countless centuries farmers have fed humanity by saving the seed from one years crop to plant the following year. But Monsanto, the company that claims its motives are to help feed the hungry, has developed what it calls a “Technology Protection System” that renders seeds sterile. Commonly known as “terminator technology,” and developed with taxpayer funding by the USDA and Delta & Pine Land Company (an affiliate of Monsanto), the process genetically alters seeds so that their offspring will be sterile for all time. If employed, this technology would ensure that farmers cannot save their own seeds, but would have to come back to Monsanto year after year to purchase new ones.
Critics refer to these genetically engineered seeds as suicide seeds, and they are none too happy with them. “By peddling suicide seeds, the biotechnology multinationals will lock the world’s poorest farmers into a new form of genetic serfdom,” says Emma Must of the World Development Movement. “Currently 80 percent of crops in developing countries are grown using farm-saved seed. Being unable to save seeds from sterile crops could mean the difference between surviving and going under.”
To these companies, the terminator and other seed sterilizing technologies are simply business ventures that have been designed to produce profit. In this case, there is not even the implication of benefit to consumers. “Monsanto’s goal,” says Rachel’s Environment and Health Weekly, 'is effective control of many of the staple crops that presently feed the world.'"
http://www.foodrevolution.org/askjohn/53.htm