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Soybeans Are NOT Providing the Benefits They Were Claimed To Have
Noted biotech expert Dr. Charles Benbrook, of the Northwest Science and Environmental Policy Center, released an explosive report on herbicide-resistant Roundup Ready (RR) soybeans May 2.
The report, based upon recent USDA and university research, not only reaffirms previous studies that RR soybeans produce less of a yield (5-10% less) than conventional soybeans, and that weeds are growing resistant to Roundup, but also that farmers growing the GE soybeans are using considerably more herbicide than farmers who are cultivating non-GE varieties.
As Benbrook points out, RR soybean growers are on the average using one-half pound more of herbicide (in this case Monsanto' s broad-spectrum Roundup) per acre-which amounts to 20 million more pounds of toxic herbicides being sprayed this year on American soybean fields. "You just can't say with a straight face that the Roundup Ready system reduces herbicide use if the measurement you're talking about is pounds per acre," Benbrook said.
Even more alarming for Monsanto are Benbrook's observations that RR soybean plants, due to damage to an important chemical plant pathway, are more susceptible to plant diseases such as sudden stress syndrome. The American Soybean Association (ASA) immediately attacked Benbrook's report, calling it "sowing seeds of distrust" in a national press release.
Interestingly enough, the ASA had nothing credible to say in terms of disputing Benbrook's central thesis (less yield, growing weed resistance, and more use of pesticides), but rather relied on the well-worn argument that RR soybeans must be great since so many farmers are planting them.
Of course the main reason hapless US soybean farmers (who generally receive less money per bushel for their beans from ADM and Cargill and other wholesale buyers than it costs to produce them) are planting RR beans, besides the massive "price support" subsidy the USDA provides to soybean growers, is to save them time.
It takes less time to spray several applications of Roundup than it does to spray several of the 15 or so different herbicides which non-GE soybean grower's use.
With 88% of the average farm family's income now derived from off-farm employment, soybean farmers are desperately searching for anything that will save them time-which in this case turns our to be genetically engineered soybeans.
But as Benbrook's report indicates even this "benefit" will likely be short-lived as weeds develop increasing resistance to Roundup and as the herbicide-resistant plants themselves degenerate in terms of hardiness and resistance to disease over time.
"There's a clock ticking now for Roundup," Benbrook stated. A press release from the
University of Missouri in Columbia 2/5/01 reported that soybean seed germination rates were "down sharply" this year, a likely reflection of the lack of hardiness and susceptibility to disease of genetically engineered plants. Roundup and other glyphosate products made up $2.6 billion of Monsanto's $5.5 billion in sales last year.
St. Louis Post Dispatch May 3, 2001
DR. MERCOLA'S COMMENT:
This documents the lies that Monsanto has been promoting to promote the sale of its products.
Even if the GMO crops worked as advertised I and most serious scientists would be opposed to their use. But the sad tragedy is that they don't, as this article documents, even provide the benefits they are claimed to.
Related Articles:
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Risks of Genetically Modified Foods
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Modified Crops Worry Some Scientists
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Altered Plants Might Alter You
Americans
Don't Know They are Eating Genetically Modified Food
Genetically
Modified genes jump the "species barrier"
©Copyright 1997-2001 by Joseph M. Mercola, DO. All Rights Reserved. This content may be copied in full, with copyright; contact; creation; and information intact, without specific permission, when used only in a not-for-profit format. If any other use is desired, permission in writing from Dr. Mercola is required.