"Confusingly, Crops Engineered To Not Need Chemicals End Up Making Us Use More Chemicals"

[applegrove]

Confusingly, Crops Engineered To Not Need Chemicals End Up Making Us Use More Chemicals

http://www.fastcoexist.com/1682496/confusingly-crops-engineered-to-not-need-chemicals-end-up-making-us-use-more-chemicals

"SNIP....................................


It’s one of the main sells on Monsanto’s website: “[Roundup agricultural herbicides] use on Roundup Ready crops has allowed farmers to conserve fuel, reduce tillage and decrease the overall use of herbicides.”

A new study out from consumer rights NGO Food and Water Watch demonstrates otherwise. Expanding on a Washington State University report put out last year by Dr. Charles Benbrook showing that GMO crops increased herbicide applications by 527 million pounds--and increased pesticide use by 11% overall in the last 16 years--Food and Water Watch’s analysis of USDA and EPA data links increased use of GMO crops to the spread of herbicide-resistant superweeds.


“Herbicide use on corn, soybeans and cotton did fall in the early years of GE crop adoption, dropping by 42 million pounds (15%) between 1998 and 2001,” the report notes. “But as weeds developed resistance to glyphosate [Roundup], farmers applied more herbicides, and total herbicide use increased by 81.2 million pounds (26%) between 2001 and 2010.”

Focusing on herbicides atrazine, glyphosate, 2,4-D, and dicamba, the Food and Water Watch study predicts that herbicide use will only continue to increase as glyphosate-resistant weeds spread to new regions. Use of atrazine, a hormone disruptor tied to irregular menstrual cycles, has remained steady while dependence on herbicide-resistant crops has grown over the last decade. Some agricultural specialists have also suggested using atrazine on cornfields to combat glyphosate-resistant weeds. Glyphosate (or Roundup) use, meanwhile, has mushroomed from 15 million pounds to 159 million pounds from 1996 to 2012, and 2,4-D, which causes liver damage in animals, has also increased by 90% since glyphosate-resistant crops came into vogue.


...................................SNIP"

[JM42]

1. I don't understand most of that, but it doesn't sound like a good situation.

[ananda]

2. Boy, this is scary.

I hate Monsanto. Pure evil.

[bemildred]

3. Chumped again. nt