Our report calls for caution in pesticide use going forward, noting recent trends that may threaten progress made with the adoption of GE crops. Acute (or short-term) toxicity of overall herbicide use after the introduction of GE crops decreased for all three major crops (corn, soybean, and cotton) and chronic (or long-term) toxicity of herbicides decreased by 78% in soybean, but increased by 7 percent in corn and by 91 percent in cotton.However, trends in herbicide use are better measured by changes in toxicity (volume X toxicity) rather than by volume alone, as adoption of herbicide-tolerant crops has changed the mix of herbicides used.Since glyphosate-tolerant crops became widely adopted in the early 1990s, use of glyphosate and overall herbicides has increased in corn, soybean, and cotton (as well as in non-GE crops like wheat and barley).The first generation of herbicide tolerant crops were designed to withstand spraying of the herbicide glyphosate, which is relatively less toxic than most other chemical herbicides in common use.The impact of GE herbicide-tolerant crops upon herbicide use depends on which crop, which trait, and which herbicide(s) one considers.GE insect-resistant crops have been associated with a significant reduction in insecticide sprays across all crops engineered with traits for insect resistance.The debate over pesticide use and GE products should only apply to GE crops with traits related to pesticide use, not traits unrelated to pesticide use, such as non-browning apples and potatoes.There is no simple answer to whether the net impact of GE crops on pesticide use has been beneficial or adverse.The impacts of GE crops on pesticide use must be considered on a case-by-case basis: crop by crop and pesticide by pesticide, with particular attention to substitution effects and their implications for the net toxicity of pesticides applied on each crop.
How has the adoption of herbicide-tolerant crops impacted the use of herbicides?.How has the adoption of insect-resistant crops impacted the use of insecticides? and.Our new report, “ In the Weeds: Understanding the Impact of GE Crops on Pesticide Use” identifies specific questions that need answering in order to assess the impact of these crops on agriculture’s chemical footprint, and begins to answer those questions. And so a case-by-case consideration of each product is necessary.Īt Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), we set out to answer the question of whether GE crops increase the use of pesticides, and dove into the weeds of the available data. Crops engineered with insect resistance produce their own biological pesticides which are toxic to insects but (ideally) not to humans. Also, different GE crops are engineered with different traits and are designed to interact with specific herbicides or insecticides in different ways.Ĭrops engineered with herbicide tolerance allow farmers to spray those specific herbicides to kill the weeds around a plant, but enable the plant to survive. The problem with these sweeping statements is that “pesticides” is a broad category that includes herbicides (pesticides used to destroy weeds), insecticides (pesticides used to repel insects), and more. You may have seen scientists and advocates of different persuasions argue one way or another-either genetically engineered (GE) crops increase the use of pesticides, or GE crops decrease the use of pesticides. While they provide important benefits to farmers, chemical pesticides can pose varying levels of risk to humans and the environment depending on their properties and how they are used. Pesticides-substances used to destroy or repel pests-are one of several pest management tools that farmers use to prevent crop loss and increase the efficiency of crop production. It’s a polarizing question with no simple answer.
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