The [Trump] Administration claims that GMOs should be accepted on scientific grounds. And it says that its motivation for this policy is to provide large benefits to rural economies that grow these crops, and sustainability.
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GMOs have also facilitated the consolidation of the seed industry, through patents and contracts….These increase exposure of the environment, farmers, and residents of rural communities to harmful pesticides, as well as increase costs to farmers.
The unsustainability of industrial agriculture is epitomized by increasingly dysfunctional weed control, aided and abetted by GMO herbicide-resistant crops. The skyrocketing increases in glyphosate herbicide use encouraged by these crops has resulted in an epidemic of weeds no longer controlled by this important herbicide.
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If future GMO crops are to have a possibility of playing positive environmental and social roles, on balance, it will require that they are developed and deployed under policies and other conditions that favor and value agro-ecology, rural society, food sovereignty, and the environment over corporate control and excessive profit…But until there is fundamental change in food and farming systems, the technologies will be dominated by GMO crops designed to foster industrial agriculture. This is hardly a formula for either rural benefit or sustainability.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: The Trump Administration’s False Promise to Rural America
