Source: Epoch Times
For a long time now, Americans have been told by the scientists who developed genetically modified (GM) crops and organisms that GM is safe and wonderful. This was done with the blessing of government regulators, such as the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). It was alleged that GM crops, such as Bt and Roundup Ready, to use the best known biotech products, are good for biodiversity, increase yields, are resistant to pests, reduce the need for pesticides, are more profitable for the farmers, and less labor intensive.

But a close examination of the benefits of transgenic crops will reveal that the benefits, if they occur, are way overstated, and the costs are often ignored. Denise Caruso devotes a chapter in her new book, Intervention: Confronting the Real Risks of Genetic Engineering and Life on a Biotech Planet (2006), to assessing the evidence. She cites a thorough study of Bt cotton in a state of India, funded by the government, where the results were less than stellar: farmers spent more than twice the money for Bt seeds than non-Bt seeds, and the reduction in pesticide use was only 12%.Meanwhile, the farmers’ net profits for Bt were less than non-Bt hybrids and yields were about the same. This transgenic cotton had been hyped up and so the results would be disappointing to the Indian farmers.

Potentially more disturbing than the economic side of the technology, the transgenic cotton had some peculiar “side effects.” After two years, the primary cotton pests were developing resistance to the Bt toxin, which could have a devastating effect on other crops in the area. Also, the Bt was somehow mysteriously infecting the soil so that no other crops would grow in the same soil. Apparently too, the advocates for Bt didn’t consider that Indian farmers would make their own illegal hybrids of Bt, using their own seeds. This means that a substantial amount of Bt is being grown all over India with unknown consequences. [more]