That's remarkable. Tons more pesticides and herbicides for no actual improvement in crop yields.
Annoyingly, the NYT article focuses repeatedly on bullshit "health" controversies, ignoring the actual reasons that GMOs are largely banned in the EU - namely, their environmental risks. It's extremely strange how virtually nobody on any side of the debate in America or in the media seems to be aware of this.
There is no wide ban of GMO's in the EU there is an authorization process (which isn't technically unique for GMO's any type of new crop or livestock has to be approved) and most of them do get authorised, only a few GMO products those which were engineered to produce biotoxins that can act as pesticide are actually banned.
This isn't a process that would take a year or even two, it is likely to take decades and in all honesty it's more likely to be reversed than expanded.
And more importantly since the GMO ban is effectively a ban only on cultivation this is more of a step to protect and subsidise the farmers in the EU rather than an ecological or public health related policy.
As long as the US, China and AfriChina (read about it) produces GMO crops and exports them it wouldn't matter.
Environmental risk of GMOs is not limited to biotoxins. I imagine parent commenter was mostly referring to the impact of Roundup, a synthetic pesticide used in GMO crops.
You do understand that normal crops require at the least as much pesticide and herbicide as GMO's right?
The environmental impact is monoculture and even that isn't exclusive to GMO's and the real one that effectively the farmers have to give in to the demands of the seed companies and they often are forced to sign exclusivity deals for their fields.
>You do understand that normal crops require at the least as much pesticide and herbicide as GMO's right?
Doesn't sound like you read the article. Suggest you do. Here is a supplementary source as well.
A paper published in the peer-reviewed Environmental Sciences Europe found that overall, GMO technology drove up herbicide use by 527 million pounds, or about 11 percent, between 1996 (when Roundup Ready crops first hit farm fields) and 2011. By 2011, farms using Roundup Ready seeds were using 24 percent more herbicide than non-GMO farms planting the same crops.[1]
Well they haven't been focusing on yield, really. They've been doing things like making the crops resistant to glyphosate to make weed control easier, or incorporating Bt to decrease the need for insecticide. Nothing specifically targeting yield increases, to my knowledge.
Herbicide-resistant weeds are not unique or new (natural selection is not dependant on GMO's ;)), there is now ones that are also resistant to Glyphosate/Roundup...
Glyphosate resistant GMO crops were developed in the mid 90's and early 2000's, Roundup was on the market in the 70's....
Resistance to pesticide and herbicide has been always developing, the fact that we have weeds that are resistant to Glyphosate doesn't have anything to do with GMO's, Glyphosate would still be used.
Glyphosate usage has also increased in normal crops since seed treating technology was introduced which enables seeds to sprout in soil treated with herbicide regardless of GMOs (this actually predates GMOs by about 2 decades).
The use of Glyphosate has been steadily increasing even before the introduction of EPSPS crops.
You used to do spot sprayings with glyphosate... because it would kill any plant. Now that we have Glyphosate resistant GMO crops we just spray the entire field.
Normal conditions in nature don't favor a heavily glyphosate resistant plant, multiple sprays of glyphosate in a season does.
Annoyingly, the NYT article focuses repeatedly on bullshit "health" controversies, ignoring the actual reasons that GMOs are largely banned in the EU - namely, their environmental risks. It's extremely strange how virtually nobody on any side of the debate in America or in the media seems to be aware of this.