Not all produce have a insect-resistant type however. So pesticides are still needed to protect certain plants.
So, GMO good (or allows for significant benefits), current products kind-of pretty bad. My 2c.
If this is the case then non GMOs sounds more appealing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup_Ready
The crops are designed to withstand Roundup, while weeds are not, so farmers can use Roundup to control weeds with crops that would normally be killed by the herbicide.
Drift from 2,4d will wipe out plants (like your garden, or my vineyard, or like, endangered native plants) many kilometres away.
(I'm sort of in biotech.) This is one way to look at it. But I'm pretty sure one of the mechanisms that allow the plants to survive being covered in certain pesticides also allows them to effectively decontaminate / degrade the pesticide.
A plant engineered to express an enzyme capable of degrading organophosphates [0] could allow for both the plant to be protected from exposure to the toxin & even after harvesting still express low levels of the enzyme which should clean the plant.
That's the idea at least... From experience, it's not nearly that simple. E.g., the degradation products are also somewhat toxic.
It is important to know what is done and where the GMO is used: In some container or open air or open water.
Living next door to this and trying to grow things that aren't corn or soy is "fun", let me tell you.
The one rare GMO plant engineered to require less poison spraying nearly always does that by producing the poison itself, and having it in large amounts on every tissue. I wouldn't want to eat that stuff pretending that it's an improvement, thank you.
There exist some odd research GMO that resist bugs or require less herbicides due to some effect that does not involve producing poison. I haven't heard of any that left the lab, but I imagine it's possible there is some commercial crop of something like that somewhere.
When you look at Roundup, GMOs are designed to resist pesticide, not the actual pest.
Breeding poisonous crops has its own obvious disadvantages. Is it better to spray poison on your food that can be washed off, or is it better for the food to be naturally suffused with poison?
And in fact, the effort to breed naturally pest-resistant crops keeps running into the problem that pest-resistant crops are also human-resistant. It's all the same thing from the plant's perspective.
We're talking about replacing pesticides. Monsanto is in the business of selling herbicides and pesticides, so of course they're not going to use the tech to neuter their profits. If anything they are benefiting from the negative press and comments like your own as it discourage the public from supporting the necessary government research. I doubt this will come from private corporations as the profit motive just isn't there.
Maybe you mean "RoundUp Ready?"
The actual real world of GMO, the stuff that is actually marketed and sold -- it's like 90% about herbicide resistance, nothing else.
Insecticides are also pesticides.
I have my Ontario sprayer's license in my wallet. I had to take a day long course on this topic to get it. Own a hobby farm.
Thanks.
In theory, GMOs don't need pesticides. I'm asking about practice. Most other comments support my skepticism.
> Bt corn is a variant of maize that has been genetically altered to express one or more proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis[8] including Delta endotoxins. The protein is poisonous to certain insect pests. Spores of the bacillus are widely used in organic gardening[9], although GM corn is not considered organic. The European corn borer causes about a billion dollars in damage to corn crops each year.[10]
> In 2018 a study found that Bt-corn protected nearby fields of non-Bt corn and nearby vegetable crops, reducing the use of pesticides on those crops. Data from 1976-1996 (before Bt corn was widespread) was compared to data after it was adopted (1996-2016). They examined levels of the European corn borer and corn earworm. Their larvae eat a variety of crops, including peppers and green beans. Between 1992 and 2016, the amount of insecticide applied to New Jersey pepper fields decreased by 85 percent. Another factor was the introduction of more effective pesticides that were applied less often.[18]