GMO Crops May Cause Major Environmental Risks, USDA Admits

A report published by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Economic Research Service on Feb. 20, 2014 states that the vast majority of corn and soybean crops grown in America are genetically-engineered variants made to withstand certain conditions and chemicals. The consensus: no one is certain about the longterm effect GMOs will have on the environment!

GMO seeds have been sowed on US soil for 15 years now. However, Americans still have concerns about consuming custom-made, laboratory-created products, although not as much as in Europe and elsewhere where such crops have been banned.

Between 1984-2002, the number of GMO varieties approved by USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) grew exponentially. Today GMO crops are found in most of America’s biggest farms, and scientists have in the last several years discovered new ways to make situation-specific GE (genetically engineered) seeds for corn, soybeans, cotton, potatoes, and other crops that have traits more desirable than traditional crops. In 2013, GMO crops were planted on about 169 million acres of land in the US, or about half of all farmland from coast-to-coast.

Around 93% of all soybean crops planted in the US last year involved GMO, herbicide-tolerant (HT) variants, while HT corn and HT cotton constituted about 85% and 82% of total acreage, respectively. HT crops are able to tolerate certain highly effective herbicides, such as glyphosate, allowing adopters of these varieties to better control pervasive weeds.

As herbicides are applied to more and more fields containing HT crops, USDA experts warn that they could have major, as-yet-uncertain impacts on the environment:

“Because glyphosate is significantly less toxic and less persistent than traditional herbicides…the net impact of HT crop adoption is an improvement in environmental quality and a reduction in the health risks associated with herbicide use (even if there are slight increases in the total pounds of herbicide applied). However, glyphosate resistance among weed populations in recent years may have induced farmers to raise application rates. Thus, weed resistance may be offsetting some of the economic and environmental advantages of HT crop adoption regarding herbicide use. Moreover, herbicide toxicity may soon be negatively affected (compared to glyphosate) by the introduction (estimated for 2014) of crops tolerant to the herbicides dicamba and 2,4-D.”

The chemical 2,4-D is a component in Agent Orange, a herbicide that had been widely used during the Vietnam war. This chemical is highly toxic to fish and other aquatic life, considered a possible carcinogen according to the World Health Organization, and increases the risk of abnormally shaped sperm and fertility problems in humans.

If the USDA allows GMO companies to manufacture 2,4-D-resistant crops, then that agent could appear in alarming numbers across America’s farmland. But while anti-GMO advocates consider that just one of the reasons they oppose the influx of man-made crops being grown in exponentially large numbers across the county, the USDA said activism along those lines has been comparatively small in the US.

Over 60 countries including members of the European Union, Japan and China, already label genetically engineered foods. Many consumers in the European Union, Middle East, and South America have indicated a reluctance to consume GE products. In other countries, including the United States, expression of consumer concern is less widespread.

Despite the rapid increase in adoption rates for GE corn, soybean, and cotton varieties by US farmers, some continue to raise questions regarding the potential benefits and risks of GE crops.

According to the USDA report, GE crops are being grown in record numbers, causing herbicide manufacturers to experience a surge as well. Herbicide use on GMO corn increased from about 1.5 pounds per planted acre in 2001 to more than 2.0 pounds per planted acre in 2010.