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Part 3
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GMO Corn Farmers are Losing Land, Swimming in Debt Says New Research
If
you’ve wanted to look at GMOs purely from the financial bottom line,
then this news should make you think twice about Biotech’s promises of
better farming and better business. If GMOs really produced a higher yield and feed more hungry people, then why are GMO corn farmers losing land and pushing through debt?GMO corn farmers are suffering primarily due to Bt-corn. Bt stands for Bacillus thuringiensis; it is the donor organism for genetically modified plants that are supposedly resistant to Round Up Ready chemicals, used profusely by Monsanto. There have been invasions of Bt-corn into organic crops, but this isn’t the issue in a purely financial assessment of GMOs.
GMO-free advocate, Farmer-Scientist Partnership for Development has just released a book which explains the adverse effects of GMO-corn on farmers and shows ‘evidence of failure’ of what was supposed to have given farmers increased yields and better income. They are calling GMO a ‘vicious cycle of poverty’. Farmers all over the world are finding themselves with poor harvests and lack-luster incomes.
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Now Farmers, not Biotech Giants, Being Blamed for GMO-Spawned Superbugs
Major studies have illustrated the negative impacts of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on the environment and everything in it again and again.
In the 16-year period between 1996, when GMOs were introduced, to 2011, pesticide use that was supposed to decrease due to genetic modification actually increased by 404 million pounds. Superbugs and superweeds that did not exist before are threatening crops and taking over the land. Independent studies continue to confirm this vast increase in widespread pesticide use is also killing America’s honeybees. Comparative studies have even shown that GMO food is nutritionally void and toxic; some 65 health risks have been associated with GMO in independent studies. The list goes on and on.
Over at The Motley Fool.com, however, biotech giants like Monsanto, BASF, Dow and Syngenta can seemingly do no wrong. In fact, the site has declared that hating Monsanto actually impedes global economic growth. Seems sadly true at this point; with 3 billion acres of GMO grown in 29 countries in 2011, it’s everywhere and getting harder and harder to avoid all the time. In addition to companies like Monsanto selling patented seeds and suing anyone who tries to reuse them season to season or who might find their fields unknowingly tainted by them, GMO has been found to continually require more and more pesticides year after year as pests become resistant.
Now Motley Fool is arguing that farmers may be to blame for superpests:
“A study conducted earlier this summer by the University of Arizona discovered that five of the 13 major agricultural pests had developed resistance to genetically modified crops. It is important to note that each case of resistance was highly localized.”Even though it’s another study proving GMO causes these problems, the author continues:
“Don’t let a study’s conclusion get in the way of the chance to publish more headlines that report the failures of biotechnology and jump on GM seed companies such as Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow Chemical, and DuPont.”See, the argument is that superbugs are all the farmers’ faults because farmers aren’t dutifully planting their refuge plots — an area of non-GMO within their GMO fields:
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