> anyone involved in designing food crops that can’t reproduce

This is a side effect of many clonal varieties of selective-bred crops. It's why they have to be grafted.

Do you want novel genes propagating throughout the food system by accident? Terminator genes prevent that problem.

Well, as an Iowa farm boy (and farm land owner) I have a more nuanced view. There have been hybrid maizes for many decades. It is possible to create unstable hybrids of normal field corns, which serves as a form of intellectual property protection for seed companies. As a farmer, you certainly can go out and plant heirloom varieties that can self-reproduce if you so choose. At which point, the choice of buying hybrid seed versus planting an heirloom variety is a simple business decision. Now with soy beans, on the other hand, it is not possible to create an unstable hybrid. Even hybrid soy beans can be saved and planted. Which is the direct root of the insanity around Monsanto's Roundup-Ready hybrid seed licensing scheme, and all the notorious law suits around that. We would be better off if Monsanto could sell an unstable soy hybrid. That would eliminate all the craziness that the licensing system creates.

Essentially all commercial apple trees are grafted and don't reproduce true to seed. Been this way for almost a century now.

It is preferable if genetically engineered crops cannot reproduce. The impact of their wild propagation should be studied first, not unleashed upon the local ecosystem.

isn't this just a by-product of seed hybridization which has enabled pretty much all of modern agriculture? A lot of testing goes into finding the two strains that combine together to create high-yield seeds, but the next generations of those seeds won't produce well.

Like seedless grapes?

So you want to destroy all the people who create hybrid plants? Isn't that a bit cruel?

Edit: also, Monsanto has never actually used their non-replicating seeds. This is a common trope in the greenie hippie community that "Monsanto wants to own your food forever".

I hope you don't eat any cultivar fruit or vegetable.