Genetically Modified Foods Do More Good Than Harm
CON (4 arguments)
Definitions:
GMO foods- plants or animals whose DNA has been altered in a non-natural way.
GMOs may be toxic to non-target organisms, specifically bees. Bees are important to the ecosystem because they pollinate.
Despite their size, the impact bees have on the environment is almost unparalleled. In fact, bees are responsible for pollinating about one-sixth of the flowering plant species worldwide and approximately 400 different agricultural types of plant. In 2014, 37 million bees dropped dead in Ontario due to large GMO corn fields being planted. According to farmer Dave Schuit, “Once the corn started to get planted, our bees died by the millions.” He and many others, including the European Union, believe a class of GMO insecticides are what caused the problem. According to the USDA, GMOs have led to a 400 million kilogram increase in pesticides, with overall pesticide usage 20% higher on GMO farms than on non- GMO farms.
If bees went extinct, the whole food chain system would collapse. Animals such as lizards, toads, and snakes, that eat bees and butterflies wouldn’t have a large source of food, so they would die out and eventually leading to all living things dying, including humans. Additionally, the loss of the bees would be devastating to our economy. According to Professor James Zacharia, pesticides kill bees and result in the loss of species that pollinate many plants. As a result, the USDA estimates that US farmers alone lose at least $200 million a year from reduced crop pollination and pesticides eliminate about a fifth of honeybee colonies and harm an additional 15% per year.
truth-out.org, onegreenplanet.org; thepost.on.ca, yournewswire.com,
Pesticides are an important part of growing crops, to keep bugs and and weeds away. If weeds are able to become resistant to pesticides, we will need to continue to create new pesticides to battle weeds.
According to Dow Chemical, the infestation of superweeds has more than doubled since 2009, and the most logical explanation is GMOs. These superweeds have already cost over $1 billion dollars in damage to crops. As Neil Harker, a weed ecologist says, “We’re losing the effectiveness of herbicide tools.” Bill Freese, an expert at the Center for Food safety claimed there were better, natural ways to fight weeds. “We don't need pesticide-resistant GMOs,” he said. According to a USDA study, GMO crops have been directly responsible for the addition of 24 new superweeds. These superweeds are extremely common, growing on nearly 20% of US farms for a total of 61 million infected acres. This becomes very problematic when an analysis from the USDA’s National Agriculture Statistics Service found that superweeds increase the volume of herbicides needed each year by 25%.
Clearly, herbicide and pesticide resistant crops are not helping, rather they are wasting money and making it harder to battle weeds. According to Purdue University, superweeds can cause 100% crop loss, resulting in less food being produced and money being wasted. In addition, according to the Des Moines Register, a moderate infestation of a superweed, has robbed farmers of over ⅔ of their total crop yields. Overall, the moderate increase in yields is drastically outweighed by a loss of ⅔ of overall crop yields because of the superweeds that are caused by GMO crops.
NBC; New York Times
When compared to non GMO foods, GMO foods take just as long to mature as well as the same amount of effort, therefore showing that there is NO real economic value to having GMO in foods and it hurts the economy. Thousands of food producers are upset about the economics of growing and producing GMO food. Estimated and promised profits that GMO crops were expected to bring in, have not yet materialized for the majority of growers and farmers. When economist, Michael Duffy of Iowa State University analyzed soybean crops, he found GMO soy HAD LOST way more money per acre than non-GMO soy after every single factor was considered. GMO soy had lost $8.87 an acre while on the other hand, non-GMO soy only lost 2 CENTS per acre. According to Dr. Charles Benbrook, from 1996 to 2001 American farmers paid close to $659 MILLION in price premiums to buy and plant GMO corn. Farmers lost $92 MILLION or about $1.31 per acre from raising this crop. A “technology fee” that dramatically raises the cost of seeds by 25 to 40% is added to GMO seeds. Furthermore, farmers must sign a legal contract with GMO seed producers whereby farmers agree that they cannot and will not save seed from their harvests despite the common farming practice of saving seed for the next planting. Farmers are legally PREVENTED from saving seed. Globally in 2005 farmers paid a premium of $2.2 billion for GMO seeds, which represents the “technology fee”.
Overall, there is absolutely ZERO economic benefit to have genetically modified foods. While there is no benefit, there is a clear and dramatic deficit in economic profits. The evidence above proves that GMOs hurt the economy and our farmers.
Canada’s national farmers Union; New York Times
When genetically modified plants are eaten by animals, they can cause the animals to die out, like bees and butterflies. And when the animals themselves are genetically modified, like fish that we eat, the genetically modified fish can eventually take over the natural species habitat, which leads the natural species to become extinct.
A few weeks ago, at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Cancun, Mexico, 160 global groups called for a moratorium on new 'genetic extinction' technology which they say, poses serious and irreversible threats to biodiversity, national sovereignty, peace and food security. Gene drives, developed through new gene-editing techniques, are designed to force a particular genetically engineered trait to spread through an entire wild population - potentially changing entire species or even causing deliberate extinctions. Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher, representing the Federation of German Scientists, said:
"We lack the knowledge and understanding to release gene drives into the environment - we don't even know what questions to ask. To deliberately drive a species to extinction has major ethical, social and environmental implications."
In a 2015 interview with CNBC, Oregon Representative Peter DeFazio, stated, "Monarch butterflies are becoming extinct" because of increased use of crops genetically modified to withstand pesticides. Additionally, professors from Purdue University, using computer models and statistical analysis, have warned that genetically modified organisms, when introduced into wild populations, could make the natural species extinct. Professor William Muir and Richard Howard, illustrated that transgenic fish--fish that have had genes from another species inserted into their own--released into the wild could cause the extinction of non-transgenic fish in 20 to 40 generations.
You cannot overstate the potential impact of GMOs on our planet. Judge- we are talking about mass extinction of all living things being replaced by all genetically modified forms of life.
The Ecologist; Natural Products Insider