More GE Crops, More Pesticides

A new report by Charles Benbrook, chief scientist at the Organic Center, says that genetically engineered crops are forcing use of pesticides rapidly upwards.

The report, titled "Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use: The First Thirteen Years" and principally informed by data from the USDA, finds that GE crops have caused an increase in the use of herbicide in the US of 383 million pounds over the 13 years GE crops have been used commercially.

But what about all that talk of GE corn and cotton driving the use of insecticides to celebrated lows? According to the report, the emergence of herbicide-resistant weeds is responsible for the dramatic herbicide upswing, a phenomenon that will not be news to farmers.

"Weed control is now widely acknowledged as a serious management problem within GE cropping systems," the report's preface states. "But skyrocketing herbicide use is news to the public at large, which still harbors the illusion, fed by misleading industry claims and advertising, that biotechnology crops are reducing pesticide use."

Today's GE crops, then, have a "decidedly negative" chemical footprint. While much of the debate about the health and safety of GE crops has focused around the potential danger of the organisms to humans and the unpredictable disturbances of ecological systems, this study brings a new angle on their safety into the debate, both for human and ecological health.

These concerns are very important, considering, as the report concludes, farmers have largely lost control of their seed supplies, so there is nothing they can do about the need to use more pesticides. Benbrook writes in the report's conclusion that:

Until public plant breeding programs and seed companies re-emerge that are dedicated to producing conventional seeds, farmers will have to accept and plant what the seed industry chooses to offer, and the public will have to live with considerable uncertainty over the novel food safety and environmental risks posed by these new crops.

Before all the GM-boosters out there brush off this study as another piece of hippie drivel, let me point out that the study's author was previously Executive Director of the Board on Agriculture of the National Academy of Sciences, and before that Executive Director of the Subcommittee of the House Committee on Agriculture, which has jurisdiction over pesticide regulation, research, trade and foreign agricultural concerns. Further, the mission of the Organic Center is "to generate credible, peer reviewed scientific information and communicate the verifiable benefits of organic farming and products to society."

Without such objective and rigorous assessments of such issues, the report's preface states, "American agriculture is likely to continue down the road preferred by the biotechnology industry." All I can say is genetically engineering our food is looking like a worse and worse idea.

Photo courtesy of andypowe11 via flickr