As part of Biology Fortifiedโs seriousย The Promise of GMOโs, geneticist Anastasia Bodnar,ย the co-founder of the website, asks: Have GMOs lived up to their promises?
We often hear: “Biotech is helping to feed the world by:ย Lowering volumes of agricultural chemicals required by crops-limiting the run-off of these products into the environment [and]ย Using biotech crops that need fewer applications of pesticides.โ
Looking at the most up to dateย EPA data on agricultural pesticide use, we see that use of herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and other conventional pesticides (such as miticides) all have aย downwardย trend between 1998 and 2007. The slopes of the linear trendlines are in the legend of the chart to the right. Strangely, other pesticidal substances (such asย sulfur, petroleum, and other chemicals used as pesticides) has a strong upward trend, which caused the total to increase.ย If you were to look at just the total, you wouldnโt get the overall picture.
Share this article
Verdict:ย Promise metย (for herbicides specifically, insecticides will be covered in another post) .
Read the full original article:ย The Promise of GMOs: Herbicides
