Whether or not GMO foods are completely harmless to human health, as the industry claims, the use of the pesticides on these crops is harmful to the environment. Many scientists think that producing GMO foods as a new technology has not had time enough to prove that it is completely harmless. The agro-chemical industry claims that farmers have been hybridizing for millennia. It is a frequent talking point of GMO proponents. They are including the ancient methods of cross-pollination that farmers have used to the modern GMO technology where genes are spliced, species crossed over and DNA is altered. Modern GMO technology does not compare with traditional hybridization. GMO is not a science, it is a technology. I don't accept that those who prefer organic food are anti-science, another talking point.

GMO foods may be safe to eat but their cultivation has a heavy ecological footprint. Super weeds are becoming a problem, stronger dosages of toxins are required every year for the large mono crops, all seeds are terminal and are discarded every year. The plants do not evolve like natural plants.There is little biodiversity, and the agriculture is hard on the soil.

Monsanto’s Newest GM Crops May Create More Problems Than They Solve
But others think the benefits will at best be short-lived. Weeds may soon become resistant to the new herbicide mixtures, resulting in new generations of ever-more-intractable weeds that will need to be controlled with yet more herbicides.

The new crops now await commercial deployment pending an ongoing review by the Environmental Protection Agency. If approved, it will “demonstrate once again that biotechnology in agriculture is all about increasing pesticide use and dependence,” said Bill Freese, a science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety, an advocacy group that opposes the crops. In a critique of the USDA’s evaluation, Freese warned of “an era of much increased use of and dependence on pesticides.”

And it is not sustainable.

Did Farmers of the Past Know More Than We Do?

In one sense, that is still how modern agriculture works. You look to the future and discard the past. A modern rotation includes only corn, soybeans, fertilizer and pesticides. Whatever you may think about genetically modified crops, the switch to those varieties has driven the rush to the two-crop system. Those crops are designed to tolerate the presence of herbicides. The result is that farmland has been inundated with glyphosate, the herbicide genetically modified crops are engineered for.

The very structure of the agricultural system, as it stands now, is designed to return the greatest profit possible, not to the farmers but to the producers of the chemicals they use and the seeds they plant. And because those chemicals depend on fossil energy, the entire system is inherently unsustainable. What farmers used to return to the soil in the form of labor and animal manure — not the toxic kind you find in livestock confinement systems — they now must purchase, just the way they buy diesel for their tractors.
[…]
This study is a reminder of something essential. Modern agriculture is driven by diminishing biological diversity and relentless consolidation, from the farms themselves to the processors and the distributors of the crops and livestock. But you cannot consolidate the soil. It is a complex organism, and it always responds productively to diversity. The way we farm now undervalues and undermines good soil. Our idea of agricultural productivity and efficiency must include the ecological benefits of healthy soil. The surest way to improve the soil is to remember what industrial agriculture has chosen to forget.

I question the goodness of GMO foods and prefer to buy organic food. My concern is with the labelling and I wonder why the agrochemical industry resists labelling.

Regarding the new Arctic apple, developed to avoid having the apple turn brown after it is cut, I asked the producers in BC Canada if they were going to label it as a GMO/GE product. This is the response I received:

Hello Marilyn,

Thanks for reaching out to us with your question!

While Arctic apples are still a few years away from being widely available to consumers, we do plan for them to be labeled: http://www.okspecialtyfruits.com/arctic-apples/labeling

This way, consumers can find out specific information about our apples and how they were developed and can seek them out or avoid them as they choose. Additionally, we do our best to provide detailed information online on how we "make" our apples nonbrowning: http://www.arcticapples.com/blog/julia/how-did-we-make-nonbrowning-apple

If you have any additional questions for us, please don't hesitate to let us know!

Kind regards,
Joel

--
Joel Brooks

Marketing Communications Specialist
Okanagan Specialty Fruits
www.arcticapples.com
@ArcticApples”

What has been scientifically proven about Roundup Ready GMO crops is that the spraying of this herbicide is killing off the milkweed plant. This has been named as the major cause of the 80% decline of Monarch butterflies. That's for another essay for Thursday Morning Greens.

To discuss GMO and Monsanto’s Roundup containing glysophate, I found out recently that we need to get the terms right so that the discussion doesn’t get bogged down with semantics like “it’s a “herbicide” not a “pesticide.” So I have provided a few terms below:

Glossary
GMO means “genetically modified organisms”

GE means “genetical engineered”

Pesticide

www.epa.gov/pesticides/about/
Though often misunderstood to refer only to insecticides, the term pesticide also applies to herbicides, fungicides, and various other substances used to control pests. Under United States law, a pesticide is also any substance or mixture of substances intended for use as a plant regulator, defoliant, or desiccant.Aug 5, 2014

Monsanto
It is a publicly traded, American multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation headquartered in Creve Coeur, Greater St. Louis, Missouri.

Roundup
It’s a pesticide/herbicide in wide use in North America. Its active ingredient is glyphosate

Glyphosate
It is (N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine) and was discovered to be an herbicide by Monsanto's John E. Franz in 1970.