System Failure: Will GM Crops Collapse the Food System?
Weekend Edition June 27-29, 2014
System Failure
Will GM Crops Collapse the Food System?
by JIM GOODMAN
When Genetically Modified (GM) crops were first planted commercially in 1996 they were just another technological innovation that fit well into the trend of larger farms and fewer farmers. Since weed control was a time consuming task, chemicals that killed the weeds without harming the crop struck farmers as a good idea.
Often when a technology is introduced one never considers why it was introduced or what future events and connections may be put in motion. Clearly the trend to global crop production and marketing has changed the face of agriculture. Now we are left to decide if it was a good thing, this world changing shift in crop production brought about by GM crops.
While GM has been very widely adopted and praised by some, particularly in the U.S., Canada and South America, results have been mixed, at best, in India and Africa. American farmers have used the technology to convert vast swaths of land from prairies, tropical rain forests and former mixed livestock/crop farms into a vast corn/soy mono-culture.
After nearly 20 years of GM crops, genetic modifications for herbicide resistance and pest resistance are still the only two commercially viable traits of any significance. There are no yield genes that will revolutionize farming, and weeds and insects are quickly developing resistance to the GM technologies.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/27/will-gm-crops-collapse-the-food-system/
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)But with the impossibly large world population, declining diversity of species, and coming water and other resource shortages, GM Crops will reduce yields and grower independence to a place from which we will not recover, not for generations and generations.
It's happening now.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)the dangers of mono cropping were known and pointed out.
And that was long before millions of acres were put into production of the same crop.
Now, banana plantations are dying becaue of a virus
and coffee trees
Killing genetic diversity is never a good idea.
Cha
(297,812 posts)smart and kicked them out.. and so did the Big Island of Hawai'i.
Trillo
(9,154 posts)"...good ideas" by Jim Goodman
roseBudd
(8,718 posts)I guess he thinks tilling is done by Prius
And may not realize tilling releases sequestered CO2
Crowquette
(88 posts)GMO crops demand massive inputs of herbicide, pesticide and chemical fertilizer...
"...Pesticides and manufactured fertilizer are made from oil, inputs are transported from production site to farms worldwide, using more oil. Grain and grain fed animal products are marketed world wide using more oil.
'Given that oil sources are drying up, or located in unstable parts of the world, the U.S. is seeking more domestic production through fracking which among its many drawbacks is the fact that it uses tremendous amounts of water..."