Dan Robitzski of Wired describes the project in New York State as follows: “like putting a bandage over a big, gruesome cut that we didn’t even clean first.”
His point is that if ventures such as this succeed, there might be a temptation to stint on the original problem: our assault on the been population with pesticides and herbicides. An entirely valid point.
On the other hand, climate change will make it much more difficult to feed the global population, and we will need all the reasonable help from technology that we can get.