| | 15/April/25
| | GMO crops have led to increased tillage and greenhouse gas emissions in US corn-soy Citing a scientific paper in Nature Food, researcher Glenn Davis Stone comments on X: "Can't judge impacts of GMO crops on the 1st few years of use. HT [herbicide-tolerant] corn-soy only led to decreased tillage until 2008, then weed resistance led to INCREASED tillage and GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions." The Nature Food paper does indeed show just that, and is available here. The paper concludes, "As weed resistance persists or grows, tillage intensity is anticipated to continue rising, probably increasing GHG emissions. Our results imply that farmers’ choices in managing herbicide resistance may help mitigate agricultural GHG emissions, underscoring the importance of an alternative strategy to control weeds." Glenn Davis Stone on X, commenting on paper in Nature Food Pesticide increases from supposedly pesticide-decreasing GM crops – new scientific analysis An incisive new analysis from an international team of authors, including Glenn Davis Stone and K.R. Kranthi, states in its abstract, "Genetically modified (GM) crops are a technology with the theoretical potential to make agriculture more efficient as a function of yield per input (e.g., water, fuel, fertilizer and pesticide) or unit of land. Like other technological efficiencies, however, the increased use of GM crops over the past 30 years has not contributed to input reductions nor to land reclamations, but to the expansion of agricultural land and increased use of the very pesticides these technologies are purported to curtail. Here, we present a global analysis of Herbicide Tolerant crops and an empirical case study from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton in India. In lowering the costs for pesticide applications at the farm level, GM crops not only induce greater overall consumption of those pesticides but also help to sustain this larger system of chemical-intensive monoculture." The paper adds, "Though promoted with the potential to reduce agrichemical applications, purporting to make the system less costly, dangerous and environmentally destructive, their [GM crops'] aggregate adoption and subsequent normalization has had the opposite effect of spurring ever-greater agrichemical use." Journal of Agrarian Change India: Supreme Court hears pleas against GM mustard cultivation Today, 15 April 2025, the Supreme Court of India was set to hear pleas filed by environmentalists against the commercial cultivation of GM mustard in the country. This case is set for hearing after the top court’s verdict on 23 July 2024, questioning the validity of the central government’s decision in favour of the environmental release of GM mustard. Kavitha Kuruganti, a representative of the Coalition for a GM-Free India, said, “GM mustard has all the risks that you can imagine. GM mustard is unsafe, unwanted, and unneeded.” India Today New GM techniques (NGT): OPTA Europe calls to protect organic industry and consumers with clear and enforceable rules OPTA Europe – the voice of the organic processing and trade industry in Europe – has called for the text of the EU GMO deregulation proposal to be improved by providing the effective means for enforcing the right of organic food and drink makers to keep their products free from gene-edited organisms. Traceability and labelling along the supply chain is necessary, says OPTA Europe. BioEco Actual Selling the past as innovation in Africa Rising global hunger has prompted calls for a reckoning over what is wrong with food systems, writes Timothy A. Wise. A growing number of farmers, scientists, and development experts now advocate a shift from high-input, chemical-intensive agriculture to low-input ecological farming. However, the new initiatives have been met with a chorus of derision from an unsurprising group of commentators, many associated with agribusiness interests, who accuse agroecology proponents of rejecting "20th century agricultural technologies" like pesticides and GMOs. But Wise writes that these commentators "are wilfully ignorant of the scientific advances in agroecology and the growing consensus that business as usual is no longer an option... they present those 20th century agricultural technologies as effective innovations for the future when in fact they are innovations of the past, with a checkered record of success. These are now failing anew under the banner of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)." Food Tank (note: this article is from 2021 but it's still timely and relevant) We hope you’ve found this newsletter interesting. It was made possible by GMWatch supporters. To become one, please support our work with a one-off or regular donation. Thank you! __________________________________________________________ Website: http://www.gmwatch.org
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