The Environment, Part 1: Herbicides and Pesticides

One of the main and most loudly touted features of genetically modified foods is the fact that they can help reduce the use of pesticides. Pesticides are damaging to the health and environment. They can kill organisms, and may get absorbed in plants that consumers eat later. They have been linked to cancer and birth defects. With the advent of modern genetic engineering, however, scientists have been able insert new genes into crops so that they can make their own pesticides. For example, in order to prevent pests from ruining corn, scientists have inserted a gene from the bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis, into the crop. With this new DNA in its genetic makeup, the corn is able to produce Bt toxins, a known killer of corn borers. Corn borers are pests capable of ravaging any part of the corn plant, which corns are now able to kill by themselves without the use of pesticides. Also, 64 percent of cotton crops in the U.S. have been genetically modified to contain this gene for the same purpose of killing pests.

Genetically modified foods may also reduce the use of herbicides, which is often used for weed control. Herbicides, like pesticides, have been known to be unhealthy. It kills not only weeds, but organisms that help crops, like worms. Several herbicides also debilitate or kill the crops along with the weeds. With the use of genetic engineering, scientists have been able to make the crops immune to the damaging effects of different herbicides; this way, only weeds will die. Farmers can now afford to use greater volumes of milder herbicides that do not inflict as much damage to the environment. For example, scientists have been able to make glyphosate-resistant soybeans by taking a gene from a bacterium and inserting it into the soybean. This gene allows the GM soybeans to resist glyphosate, a type of herbicide. Because these GM soybeans are able to resist glyphosate, farmers do not have to use expensive and special herbicides to kill weeds around soybeans.

Yet, even with these benefits, there is much to take into consideration. The next part of this segment explains why.

Top image courtesy of odofin.com, bottom image courtesy of USGS website (for more information, go to bibliography page)