ABSTRACT
Environmental damage resulting from the unintended creation of plants with increased weediness has long been recognized as a risk of cultivating transgenic crops (17,18). Although much has been written about the potential for increased weediness of transgenic plants (15,34), there is less in the literature about how to assess whether the risks are acceptable. In this chapter, I describe the purpose and structure of risk assessments and discuss how awareness of these components can guide the efficient collection of data to assess the environmental risks posed by transgenic volunteers and feral crops.
