Over the 20 years of the commercialization of GMOs, not only have they failed to deliver higher yields as promised, but according to numerous reports, they have also led to serious destruction of the environment through causing increased use of toxic chemicals, and the evolution of “super weeds” and “super bugs”.
Bayer, the company currently dominating the seed market for main crops after merging with Monsanto, first introduced “Round-Up Ready” soy for herbicide resistance (via Monsanto). When weeds evolved resistance to the widely applied herbicide and began to overtake crops, the company introduced Round-Up Ready 2, which again began losing ground (literally) to the natural evolution of weeds. In 2010, Monsanto introduced SmartStax with eight new genes added – six for insecticides and two for herbicide resistance.
This strategy of throwing more of the same thing at the problem has been a failure, according to weed scientists with the University of Illinois and elsewhere and reports from farmers across the continent, with greater numbers of resistant super weeds appearing despite more and more use of herbicides. This means farmers are resorting to plowing their fields more once again, causing greater soil erosion, more fuel use, and more chemical runoff.
This extra runoff is the last thing we need, considering the fact that of 20 GMO crops under U.S. federal regulatory consideration, 13 are designed to resist multiple herbicides. In other words, biotechnology companies are creating a new generation of plants to withstand even heavier, multiple doses of extra-toxic weed-killing chemicals, since the less toxic alternatives no longer work (remember, we also eat this stuff!). Many scientists, including the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), fear this will lead to even stronger super weeds.
Another important point: although Round-Up Ready crops don’t die from Round-Up, they certainly don’t benefit from it. As Don Huber, professor at Purdue University wrote in an open letter to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture last year in an attempt to convince him of the need for a moratorium on GMOs, “It is well-documented that glyphosate (Round-Up’s main ingredient) promotes soil pathogens and is already implicated with the increase of more than 40 plant diseases; it dismantles plant defenses by chelating vital nutrients; and it reduces the bioavailability of nutrients in feed, which in turn can cause animal disorders.”
What about the supposed insect pest control of GMOs? It seems that farmers, starting in the U.S., have begun reporting the emergence of super bugs as well, which have evolved resistance to the important insecticide BT. Farmers, even organic ones, have traditionally used BT (a natural bacteria) to kill certain types of major caterpillar pests. GMO corn has the BT bacteria built right into it, and it’s produced throughout the tissue of the crop… all the time.
This is in contrast to the way traditional BT sprays are put on the plants, where they can be exposed to light and die soon after the existing generation of pests get a quick mouthful of the stuff. The GMO version is persistent and ever-present, however, which is naturally leading to the fast evolution of resistant pests: pests that are resistant to the traditional external BT spray as well.
What makes the fact that such GMO crops exist even worse, is that their genes can, and are, contaminating non-GMO crops. Besides the staggering social implications of this (a topic for another article), the contamination of GMOs into non-GMO crops will make it increasingly difficult to ever remove contaminated genes from our food supply if people should ever wake up to the fact that they aren’t beneficial to anyone (including those who are temporarily profiting from the destruction of the environment).
If these issues aren’t enough to reconsider using GMOs, according to a report from the UCS, titled Failure to Yield, GMO crops don’t even get higher yields than traditional crops. According to Monsanto’s own USDA application in 2006, Round-Up Ready 2 soy, for example, produces less than traditional soy (even though later they claimed it produces more, yet showed no evidence).
If you do decide to make the move towards eating fewer, or no GMOs, you can find a handy guide for avoiding them at www.nonGMOshoppingguide.com, where you can also find information on the many negative health consequences of eating GMOs.
