Is the claim by the biotech industry that GM crops require less use of pesticides true? 

Answer: 

No. GM crops have increased, rather than decreased the use of pesticides. GM crops were first grown in the USA in 1996 and sold to farmers with the promise that they would require less use of pesticides, thus saving farmers time and money.  Less use of pesticides would, promised the biotech industry, benefit the environment.   These benefits did not materialise. After three years of growing GM crops weeds developed resistance to the herbicide (weed killer) used on the crops, and ‘volunteer’ crops appeared in the fields the following season, necessitating the need for use of more and stronger herbicides. In the USA, between the years 2001-2003, seventy three million pounds more pesticides were sprayed as a result of growing genetically modified crops.

(For more information on this and other effects GM crops have on the environment, see Three Reports Show GM Crops Harmful to the Environment.)

GM crops are grown in ‘crop trials’ before they are planted commercially. Do these ‘crop trials’ guarantee that the GM crop is safe for the environment? 

Answer:  

Unfortunately, the purpose of carrying out GM field trials is not to discover if they harm the environment.  Field trials are carried out by biotechnology companies to test how successfully they can grow a certain GM crop in a certain location. GM crop trials have not prevented contamination crises (see GM Contamination Crises in the USA). The only environmental tests carried out anywhere in the world (to date) were undertaken in England where GM maize, GM beetroot and GM oilseed rape were tested for their effects on weeds and invertebrates.  These trail tests proved conclusively that GM oilseed rape and GM beetroot cause more harm to the environment than conventional crops. The trial on GM maize was inconclusive because the experiment used a pesticide banned in Europe which distorted the results. (See Three Reports Show GM Crops Harmful to the Environment.)

Have countries growing GM crops experienced environmental damage due to the commercial growing of GM crops?

Answer:

Ninety nine percent of all the GM crops grown commercially in the world are grown mainly in four countries – America, Canada, Argentina, and China, (followed by Brazil and South Africa).   America, Canada and Argentina have grown GM food and feed crops (soya, maize, oilseed rape or canola) on a large commercial scale and have experienced contamination crises which have effected not only the environment but the food and feed supply. (To date, China has only grown GM cotton commercially.)  GM food and feed crops grown in North America have escaped into the environment and contaminated conventional and organic crops. Non-GM soya, oilseed rape and maize, can for all practical purposes, no longer be grown in Canada.  (See  Can GM Crops Be Contained?) 

Argentina has been growing GM soya for seven years and researches claim it has caused an environmental crisis. The wide scale growing of GM soya has produced ‘superweeds’ and ‘volunteer’ crops which have had to be controlled with heavy use of pesticides.  Over use of pesticides has poisoned the land – bacteria and soil micro-organisms necessary for healthy soil have been destroyed leaving the soil inert and unable to support crops.  Charles Benbrook, head of the Northwest Science and Environment Policy Centre in Sandpoint, Idaho, USA is quoted as saying, “Argentina didn´t take proper safeguards to manage resistance and to protect the fertility of its soils.  Based on the current use of Roundup Ready (a herbicide used on GM soya), I don´t think its agriculture is sustainable for more than another couple of years.”  (See S. Branford, “Argentina’s Bitter Harvest”, New Scientist, April 17 2004.)