GM crops are claimed by proponents to reduce pesticide use (the term “pesticide” includes herbicides, which technically are pesticides). But this is untrue. Herbicide-tolerant crops have been developed by agrochemical firms specifically to depend upon agrochemicals and have extended the market for these chemicals. Far from weaning agriculture away from environmentally damaging chemicals, GM technology has prolonged and extended the chemically-based agricultural model.

http://earthopensource.org/index.php/5-gm-crops-impacts-on-the-farm-and-environment/5-2-myth-gm-crops-decrease-pesticide-use

Also please see

"GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS (GMOs):

A DANGER TO SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE"

A contribution by WWF Switzerland

to the international public debate

Updated version - May 2005

Yes, definitely, GM crops should remain on trial during the indefinite future. It takes decades to discover the full effect of GM crops on our diet as well as on the animal and bird populations. The entire environment is undergoing change as a result of GM crops.

According to the study in the attached article, GM crops have contributed to a significant reduction in the global environment impact of production agriculture (p. 193).

GM crops are claimed by proponents to reduce pesticide use (the term “pesticide” includes herbicides, which technically are pesticides). But this is untrue. Herbicide-tolerant crops have been developed by agrochemical firms specifically to depend upon agrochemicals and have extended the market for these chemicals. Far from weaning agriculture away from environmentally damaging chemicals, GM technology has prolonged and extended the chemically-based agricultural model.

http://earthopensource.org/index.php/5-gm-crops-impacts-on-the-farm-and-environment/5-2-myth-gm-crops-decrease-pesticide-use

Also please see

"GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS (GMOs):

A DANGER TO SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE"

A contribution by WWF Switzerland

to the international public debate

Updated version - May 2005

There is a danger. Field trial of GM crops will contaminate the natural organic species and that may produce irreversible damage to the biodiversity and bio environment.

Regards,

Anup

Before the GM crops go to commercial trial there should be enough data available for possible hazards, health and safety issues.

How cultivating and growing the GM crops will affect and interact with the normal wild type crop should be taken into account seriously. The long term genetic and toxicological data on commercializing GM crops should be made available before it goes for commercial trial.

Anup's point is very good: the danger that field trial of GM crops will contaminate the natural organic species.

The attached paper provides a detailed study of the impact of GM crops from 1996 to 2012:

A.M. Mannion, S. Morse, GM crops 1996-2012: A review of agronomic, environmental and socio-economic impacts, 2013.

The authors write: Although the most significant advantage of GM crops so far grown commercially is increased yield per unit area due to reduced losses there are other

advantages in relation to the environment. There are also real and potential disadvantages. Reduced pesticide use in the case of insect resistant crops is a major gain. This and direct drilling affect the carbon footprints of cropping systems. In addition there are issues relating to the development of resistance by weeds and insects to engineered herbicide and insecticide traits in crop plants, as might occur in relation to chemical herbicides and insecticides, the potential for modified genes to spread into wild relatives which then become pests, and detrimental impacts on beneficial organisms especiallly insects. As pointed out in the section above, the development of crops with resistance to environ mental stresses may lead to encroachment on

existing natural ecosystems which are currently considered marginal for arable agriculture (p. 15).

My opinion is that the commercial testing of GM crops has been drastically under-regulated. I believe that the viability of GM should continue to be explored, I feel that the level of containment around crops should be greatly increased. Exactly because we still have a very weak understanding on the complex interaction of genes and environmental influence over active and inactive genes we still have no idea of the real effects of GM. The casual nature with which companies observe the effects of their GM, by simply looking for the desired effect in the desired conditions, is very similar to many of the past mistakes we have seen in our history. Heroin was a cough syrup. Why? Because it had the desired effects of reducing coughs, but a broader examination of the drug was not conducted to understand the potential side effects. This is what we are doing with GM. We see the desired effect and charge forward with it without even trying to look at what the negative effects are. In this sense I think that GM trials should be regulated to be 100% isolated from potentially contaminating natural species in all trials. Furthermore a broader examination of GM crops should be forced upon GM crop developers to better understand the unintended consequences of these crops.

Noa,

Excellent post! I agree with you.

One of the worrisome thilngs about GM crops is that GM creates mutations. The attached articles points to three kinds of mutagenic effects associated with the GM transformation process:

> insertional mutagenesis: insertion of a foreign gene into the genome (DNA) of the recipient organism.

> genome-wide mutations: fragments of the GM gene’s DNA can be inserted at other locations in the genome of the host plant. Each of these unintended insertional events may also be mutagenic and can disrupt or destroy the function of other genes in the same ways as the full GM gene.

> mutations caused by tissue culture: Given the fact that hundreds of genes may be mutated during tissue culture, there is a significant risk that a gene important to some property such as disease- or pest-resistance could be damaged. In another example, a gene that plays a role in controlling chemical reactions in the plant could be damaged, making the crop allergenic or reducing its nutritional value. The effects of many such mutations will not be obvious when the new GM plant is growing in a greenhouse and so genetic engineers will not be able to select them out.

I do agree with Noa Lincoln's comment that "this sense I think that GM trials should be regulated to be 100% isolated from potentially contaminating natural species in all trials." But do you think that this regulation can be enforced to the companies like Monsanto?

Haha...well no Anup, given the economic and political weight of Monsanto, and the corruption of global governments I do not think that this regulation can be enforced on companies like Monsanto. But I always start these conversation from a theoretical/ideological perspective until someone introduces realism. :)

In regard to GMO food crops that are tolerant of glyphosate as an example.

Crops are going to be grown with herbicides, cultivation or both. If we do not control weeds in crops the weeds take over. Those plants that have the capacity to take over and dominate a crop have to be controlled. The world wants to eat so crops have to yield. How then will weeds be controlled? In a perfect world there would be lots of very poor people who could go out into our grain production areas and hand weed the crops and get paid a pittance. In a less perfect world we use herbicides. Which herbicides. Glyphosate has proven over many years to be safer than most of the alternatives. I can for instance plant Glyphosate tolerant canola (GM) or triazine tolerant canola and use atrazine. There are more known harmful effects of atrazine than glyphosate. So, should I choose a triazine tolerant canola variety just because it is not a GMO? As a farmer I have to make choices and they are best made on the available evidence. In my other life as a scientist that is what I must do. I am hearing emotion and unjustified fear here rather than evidence based thinking. I would prefer to be the wealthy landholder who sent the poor people out to weed my fields rather than the modern farmer who has to choose which herbicide to use. You may prefer that kind of world.

"In a perfect world there would be lots of very poor people who could go out into our grain production areas and hand weed the crops and get paid a pittance."

I donʻt know what your perfect world looks like, but in my perfect world there would be some equity in the equation, and we as humans would value our food, our environment, and our fellow people enough that we would work out a solution that did not require poor people to go weed for a pittance, and also did not use persistent chemicals that have been shown to cause detrimental health effects in the environment. In fact, in my perfect world there are no poor and no herbicides period.

Just because Glyphosate is "safer than most alternative," that does not in any way mean it is safe. Forcing people to work for pittance and live a destitute life of poverty is better than slavery, but that doesnʻt mean that it is a good option.

There is a lot of emerging science showing the detrimental effects of the chemicals and cropping systems associated with GM crops. My point is that the science is typically not done to look at the detrimental effects...it solely looks at the effects of increasing profit. So your "informed" decision and our "unjustified fear" is based on a highly skewed batch of data that has only ever investigated the positive responses. I live in the GMO testing capital of the world, and there is absolutely no way I will accept that the chemicals used in association with them are not harmful, because we can literally see their effects on our communities and environment.

And, by the way, a relevant article on glyphosate in Ecologist just released a couple days ago:

A pilot study of American mothers' milk has found levels of the herbicide glyphosate around 1,000 times higher than allowed in European drinking water. Campaigners are demanding a ban on the use of glyphosate on food crops.

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2374941/glyphosate_found_in_breast_milk.html

That is a worry and if there was not a significant benefit to the environment and food production and socially from the use of chemicals in farming then an immediate ban could be considered. I would be surprised if this group did not have a cause to propagate. That does not mean they have not found a problem that must be addressed. Neither does it mean that what is written there is the truth of the matter. As it stands a call for an independent scientific study is the way to go. You can detect almost anything in anything these days. At what level is there potential harm? If there is no of harm established at these levels then we as scientists must draw conclusions based on the data not emotion. Anything less is not in keeping with what we stand for as scientists.

Continuous Scientific data strongly support to stop any field trial with new transformation events, since the unintended or off-targets effects are much more risky than previously thought. In the annex what we found in terms of pleiotropic effects.

Rubens Nodari, UFSC

Now, the article

Rubens Nodari, UFSC

"The European Commission has told Serbia that it should change its laws on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in order to join the World Trade Organization"!!!

http://www.b92.net/eng/news/business.php?yyyy=2013&mm=10&dd=17&nav_id=88036

The question carries a yes or no answer. It is always preferable to have a pilot trial before embarking on commercial trial. There must be very strict regulations and safety evaluations for example even on any pilot trial. The concerned authorities/regulators must satisfy that any risks posed from GM crops can be managed to protect the health and safety of people and the environment. Since GMW food crops are relatively new, regulators take a cautious approach when assessing their safety for human consumption.