{"id":180999,"date":"2016-10-31T20:37:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-01T01:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/10\/31\/muck-fonsanto\/"},"modified":"2016-10-31T20:37:00","modified_gmt":"2016-11-01T01:37:00","slug":"muck-fonsanto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/10\/31\/muck-fonsanto\/","title":{"rendered":"Muck Fonsanto"},"content":{"rendered":"
The New York Times<\/i> has looked into the potential benefits of transgenic crops, and found no evidence that these benefits exist<\/a>:<\/div>\n

The controversy over genetically modified crops<\/a> has long focused on largely unsubstantiated fears that they are unsafe to eat.<\/p>\n

But an extensive examination by The New York Times indicates that the debate has missed a more basic problem \u2014 genetic modification in the United States and Canada has not accelerated increases in crop yields or led to an overall reduction in the use of chemical pesticides<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The promise of genetic modification was twofold: By making crops immune to the effects of weedkillers and inherently resistant to many pests, they would grow so robustly that they would become indispensable to feeding the world\u2019s growing population, while also requiring fewer applications of sprayed pesticides.<\/p>\n

Twenty years ago, Europe largely rejected genetic modification at the same time the United States and Canada were embracing it. Comparing results on the two continents, using independent data as well as academic and industry research, shows how the technology has fallen short of the promise.<\/p>\n

An analysis by The Times using United Nations data showed that the United States and Canada have gained no discernible advantage in yields \u2014 food per acre \u2014 when measured against Western Europe, a region with comparably modernized agricultural producers like France and Germany. Also, a recent National Academy of Sciences report<\/a> found that \u201cthere was little evidence\u201d that the introduction of genetically modified crops in the United States had led to yield gains beyond those seen in conventional crops. Continue reading the main story<\/a> <\/span> <\/p>\n

At the same time, herbicide use has increased in the United States, even as major crops like corn, soybeans and cotton have been converted to modified varieties. And the United States has fallen behind Europe\u2019s biggest producer, France, in reducing the overall use of pesticides, which includes both herbicides and insecticides.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s a suggestion, how about invalidating patents on plant species and granting farmers the unconditional right to replant their seeds. <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
This was the state of affairs for about 15,000 years of human history, and we did just fine.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Times has looked into the potential benefits of transgenic crops, and found no evidence that these benefits exist: The controversy over genetically modified crops has long focused on largely unsubstantiated fears that they are unsafe to eat. But an extensive examination by The New York Times indicates that the debate has missed …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[923,768,924,913,914],"class_list":["post-180999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-agriculture","tag-fail","tag-genetics","tag-ip","tag-patent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180999"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}