desert dude
Well-Known Member
If you don't like GM crops, you better develop a taste, and tolerance, for insecticides...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/nature/fewer-pesticides-farming-with-gmos/
Between 1996 and 2011, Bt corn reduced insecticide use in corn production by 45% worldwide (110 million pounds, or roughly the equivalent of 20,000 Olympic swimming pools). ...
"There is not a single documented case of anyone being hurt by genetically modified food, and yet this is a bigger problem for people than pesticides, which we know have caused harm, he says. I just shake my head in bewilderment at the folks who take these stringent positions that biotech should be banned.
Even some organic farmers bristle when asked about the anti-GMO movement. Under the U.S. Organic Foods Production Act, they are not allowed to grow GMOs, despite their ability to reduce pesticide applications. Organic farmers still spray their crops, just with different chemicals, such as sulfur and copper. Amy Hepworth, an organic farmer at Hepworth Farms in Milton, New York, says that they, too, can take a toll on the environment.
Hepworth would like to continuously evaluate new avenues towards sustainable agriculture as technology advances. However, her views often clash with her customers in the affluent Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood of Park Slope. Many of them see no benefit in GMOs ability to reduce pesticides because they say farmers should rely strictly on traditional farming methods.
What people dont understand is that without pesticides there is not enough food for the masses, Hepworth says. The fact is that GM is a tool that can help us use less pesticide.
... Its not just a problem in Indonesia, either. In parts of India, farmers spray more than 60 insecticides on their eggplantknown to locals as brinjalduring the growing season, mainly to protect the purple fruit from burrowing bugs, says Ponnuswami Balasubramanian, a plant molecular biologist at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in Coimbatore, India. To reduce the insecticide load without losing the harvest, Balasubramanian, together with public sector researchers and a private Indian seed company, developed Bt versions of four varieties of eggplant that are popular in southern states. Monsanto was not involved, but still public outcry from GMO opponents blocked the eggplants from federal approval.
Nigerian farmers who rely on traditional farming techniques lose up to 30% of their crops.
It was madness to stop Bt brinjal says Kulvinder Gill, an agricultural geneticist at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, who grew up in India and was not involved with the project. People should not even be eating this brinjal because it has so much insecticide on it, Gill says, Anything to reduce that would be extremely beneficial.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/nature/fewer-pesticides-farming-with-gmos/
Between 1996 and 2011, Bt corn reduced insecticide use in corn production by 45% worldwide (110 million pounds, or roughly the equivalent of 20,000 Olympic swimming pools). ...
"There is not a single documented case of anyone being hurt by genetically modified food, and yet this is a bigger problem for people than pesticides, which we know have caused harm, he says. I just shake my head in bewilderment at the folks who take these stringent positions that biotech should be banned.
Even some organic farmers bristle when asked about the anti-GMO movement. Under the U.S. Organic Foods Production Act, they are not allowed to grow GMOs, despite their ability to reduce pesticide applications. Organic farmers still spray their crops, just with different chemicals, such as sulfur and copper. Amy Hepworth, an organic farmer at Hepworth Farms in Milton, New York, says that they, too, can take a toll on the environment.
Hepworth would like to continuously evaluate new avenues towards sustainable agriculture as technology advances. However, her views often clash with her customers in the affluent Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood of Park Slope. Many of them see no benefit in GMOs ability to reduce pesticides because they say farmers should rely strictly on traditional farming methods.
What people dont understand is that without pesticides there is not enough food for the masses, Hepworth says. The fact is that GM is a tool that can help us use less pesticide.
... Its not just a problem in Indonesia, either. In parts of India, farmers spray more than 60 insecticides on their eggplantknown to locals as brinjalduring the growing season, mainly to protect the purple fruit from burrowing bugs, says Ponnuswami Balasubramanian, a plant molecular biologist at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in Coimbatore, India. To reduce the insecticide load without losing the harvest, Balasubramanian, together with public sector researchers and a private Indian seed company, developed Bt versions of four varieties of eggplant that are popular in southern states. Monsanto was not involved, but still public outcry from GMO opponents blocked the eggplants from federal approval.
Nigerian farmers who rely on traditional farming techniques lose up to 30% of their crops.
It was madness to stop Bt brinjal says Kulvinder Gill, an agricultural geneticist at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, who grew up in India and was not involved with the project. People should not even be eating this brinjal because it has so much insecticide on it, Gill says, Anything to reduce that would be extremely beneficial.
