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Planting GMOs Kills So Many Bugs That It Helps Non-GMO Crops (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: One of the great purported boons of GMOs is that they allow farmers to use fewer pesticides, some of which are known to be harmful to humans or other species. Bt corn, cotton, and soybeans have been engineered to express insect-killing proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, and they have indeed been successful at controlling the crops' respective pests. They even protect the non-Bt versions of the same crop that must be planted in adjacent fields to help limit the evolution of Bt resistance. But new work shows that Bt corn also controls pests in other types of crops planted nearby, specifically vegetables. In doing so, it cuts down on the use of pesticides on these crops, as well.
Entomologists and ecologists compared crop damage and insecticide use in four agricultural mid-Atlantic states: New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. Their data came from the years before Bt corn was widespread (1976-1996) and continued after it was adopted (1996-2016). They also looked at the levels of the pests themselves: two different species of moths, commonly known as the European corn borer and corn earworm. They were named as scourges of corn, but their larvae eat a number of different crops, including peppers and green beans. After Bt corn was planted in 1996, the number of moths captured for analysis every night in vegetable fields dropped by 75 percent. The drop was a function of the percentage of Bt corn planted in the area and occurred even though moth populations usually go up with temperature. So the Bt corn more than counteracted the effect of the rising temperatures we've experienced over the quarter century covered by the study.
Entomologists and ecologists compared crop damage and insecticide use in four agricultural mid-Atlantic states: New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. Their data came from the years before Bt corn was widespread (1976-1996) and continued after it was adopted (1996-2016). They also looked at the levels of the pests themselves: two different species of moths, commonly known as the European corn borer and corn earworm. They were named as scourges of corn, but their larvae eat a number of different crops, including peppers and green beans. After Bt corn was planted in 1996, the number of moths captured for analysis every night in vegetable fields dropped by 75 percent. The drop was a function of the percentage of Bt corn planted in the area and occurred even though moth populations usually go up with temperature. So the Bt corn more than counteracted the effect of the rising temperatures we've experienced over the quarter century covered by the study.
We already have roundup-resitant amaranth. I can't wait for BT resistant insects.
BT-resistant moths were found in Hawaii about 20 years ago, and were the likely result of an organic farmer who overused the pesticide/bacterium/whatever you want to call it.
Overuse of any pesticide, organic or not, leads to resistance - and embedding Bt into plants basically qualifies as overuse. Planting a monoculture of GMO corn in the same spot, year after year, surrounded by non-GMO corn growing in the same spot, year after year, is almost certainly going to lead to Bt becoming useless in the fairly short term.
#DeleteChrome
The things that kill bugs don't affect humans most the time.
Plants do have toxins which affect mammals to various degrees. For example, after a drought in Texas the surviving grass was fairly toxic to cows and it put off seed that produced grass that was fatal to cows.
Many foods humans eat require fermentation, cooking, aging, grinding, washing, deskinning and other preparation methods.
And it's a problem when humans eat these food "raw". Raw vegetables can be bad for you. Juicing uncooked Kale, Broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables are known to enlarge your thyroid when eaten raw in larger quantities.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
BT is produced by i.e caterpillars in nature, it's not an invented chemical. It's also used as a pesticide by non-GMO farmers including organic farmers. And the method by which BT affects insects is well known and understood, the things it attacks in the insects does not even exist in mammals.
(for varying values of Monsanto)
They already do it when the seeds drift.
If they can show the benefit of the GE crop has drifted they will assign a value to that benefit and send a lawyer and an invoice.
https://www.vanityfair.com/new...
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick