Deregulation by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) means Roundup Ready crops can now be grown commercially, endangering non-GMO alfalfa and sugar beet crops by transgenic contamination through the increased use of herbicides.
Under the Bush administration, the USDA approved Roundup Ready sugar beet crops, produced and sold by Monsanto, without preparing a standard Environmental Impact Statement. The Center for Food Safety, along with several other organizations including the Organic Seed Alliance and the Sierra Club, filed a suit against the US government in January of 2008, insisting the USDA prepare an Environmental Impact Statement on Roundup Ready sugar be Sierra Club, asked the government to halt the production of the modified beets until further information regarding the crop’s safety was released.
Rather than relying on traditional tilling of the ground to control weeds, the RRS utilizes herbicides. No-till cropping systems are the most demanding when it comes to weed control, as the crop is seeded directly into untilled soil with no follow-up cultivation, leaving weed control dependent on herbicides.
RRS was designed to require the exclusive use of Monsanto’s herbicide, which is currently used in more than 250 million GM acres worldwide. A recent review by Earth Open Source, a group that promotes sustainable food production, suggests that industry regulators in Europe have known for years that glyphosate, first introduced by Monsanto in 1976, can cause birth defects in laboratory animals. According to the 2006-2007 Pesticide Industry Sales & Usage Report, published in February 2011, the agricultural market used 180-185 million pounds of glyphosate between 2006 and 2007, while the non-agricultural market used 8-11 million pounds between 2005 and 2007.Rather than relying on traditional tilling of the ground to control weeds, the RRS utilizes herbicides. No-till cropping systems are the most demanding when it comes to weed control, as the crop is seeded directly into untilled soil with no follow-up cultivation, leaving weed control dependent on herbicides.
Rather than relying on traditional tilling of the ground to control weeds, the RRS utilizes herbicides. No-till cropping systems are the most demanding when it comes to weed control, as the crop is seeded directly into untilled soil with no follow-up cultivation, leaving weed control dependent on herbicides.
RRS was designed to require the exclusive use of Monsanto’s herbicide, which is currently used in more than 250 million GM acres worldwide. A recent review by Earth Open Source, a group that promotes sustainable food production, suggests that industry regulators in Europe have known for years that glyphosate, first introduced by Monsanto in 1976, can cause birth defects in laboratory animals. According to the 2006-2007 Pesticide Industry Sales & Usage Report, published in February 2011, the agricultural market used 180-185 million pounds of glyphosate between 2006 and 2007, while the non-agricultural market used 8-11 million pounds between 2005 and 2007.
David Ehrenfield, Professor of Biology at Rutgers University, has said that “Genetic Engineering is often justified as a human technology, one that feeds more people with better food. Nothing could be further from the truth. With very few exceptions, the whole point of genetic engineering is to increase sales of chemicals and bio-engineered products to dependent farmers. In the United States, the widespread adoption of Roundup Ready crops combined with the emergence of glyphosate-resistant weeds has driven a more than 15-fold increase in the use of glyphosate on major field crops from 1994 to 2005.”
GMOs have an effect on the sustainability of our planet. The production of herbicides, insecticides and synthetic fertilizers that are used to grow GMO crops requires a lot of energy. And this energy requires the burning of precious fuels, which are rapidly being depleted.
Farm chemicals may also be largely responsible for the decimation of honey bees and for deformities in fish and frogs. They may also prove to endanger more species as time goes forward – including humans.
In an interview with the True Food Foundation, Dr. David Suzuki, a Canadian geneticist, has said that anyone who claims genetically engineered food is perfectly safe is “either unbelievably stupid or deliberately lying,” adding: “The reality is, we don’t know. The experiments simply haven’t been done, and now we have become the guinea pigs…. I am most definitely not in favor of the release of GMOs in the food stream and given that it’s too late, I favor complete labeling of GMO products.”
“The experiments simply haven’t been done,” Dr. David Suzuki
