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The issue of genetic modification renders financial burdens on farmers.
“ Worldwide sales of GM food rocketed from an estimated $75m in 1995 to $2.3 billion in 1999. (Tyson 2001) This growth has caused a reduction of market share for all natural food producers, hence their revenues and profit. Not only is there less farmland available for farmers to grow all natural crops but corporations are also monopolizing on related products. This is evidence in the case of Monsanto’s “roundup ready” soybeans that are tolerant to their namesake herbicide, cutting in other forms of herbicide to be used on these crops. Along similar lines most biotechnology research are sponsored and funded by large corporation, which are traditionally and by most account interested in increasing their profits and share price, this leads to a biased research.
The media has done a good job of selling GM foods to the public by hyping up its positive effects (which were determined from the biased research) and downplaying the negative effects of GM foods. As much, as we would like to believe that adverse effect of GM foods is non-existent, it has been proven otherwise from its effect on the ecosystem, to the health risks it introduces.
It is best to begin with the centuries old battle between the farmers and their weeds. Generally, farmers do not want to accept that weeds are part of the ecosystem and because of this belief they have been trying so hard to get rid of all weeds. The reasons that farmers hate weeds so much are because weeds compete with their crops for nutrients, light and moisture in the soil. This would mean a loss to the farmers if the weeds win. Also, weeds bring a lot of diseases to the crops which reduces the crops purity, it is not surprising that some farmers were at first happy about the introduction of herbicide resistant crops.
Herbicide resistant crops are genetically engineered to be immune to poisonous weed control chemical. Ironically, the use of herbicide resistant crops might actually increase the amount of herbicide that is used in the farm for several reasons. One of the reasons is psychological. Farmers believe that they can spray as much herbicide to kill all the weeds in their farms because their crops are herbicide resistant. Unfortunately, these farmers do not realize that the use of too much herbicide is bad for the environment because it affects the waterways, ground waters and affects organisms living in those areas. It could also affect these farmers in terms of health risks since most farmers (at least in developing countries) depend on the environment for their living, for example, a farmer could eat a fish that has been affected by this herbicide and it would be detrimental to his/her health. The topic of health risks would be discussed further in this paper.
Another problem that individuals who are very excited about GMO have not considered is the issue of super weeds. Super weeds are created when a genetically modified plant pollinates and the pollen from this plant fertilizes other plants. The formation of these super weeds would be a disadvantage to farmers because these weeds would mean paying more money to get herbicides to kill them. This leads to a damaging economic situation for developing nations that depend solely on agriculture. For example, a farmer in a developing nation accepting this herbicides thinking that it would be getting rid of all the weeds in his/her farm might be introducing super weeds into his/her farm, which would mean that he/, she would have to depend on other nations for money. Therefore, increasingly putting him/her in debt to the banks, since the banks borrow money from developed nations, this would further increase the dependence that developing countries have on developed countries.
Apart from the effect of herbicides and herbicide resistant crops on the farmer, herbicides also affect soil by making the soil lose its fertility. For example, glyphosate, which is a kind of herbicide, inhibits the growth of fungi in the soil. This inhibition is not good for the crop because fungi helps plant roots absorb plant minerals from the soil.
Another effect of the use of herbicides is that it does not aid in biodiversity. Biodiversity is having different forms of organisms within specified geographical areas. Farmers wiping out all the weeds would affect biodiversity. Clearing up the weeds would mean clearing up the insects since insects make a very essential part of the food chain, other organisms within the environment would suffer since they depend on these insects for food. For example, when one takes into consideration that weeds are home to insects that are food to the bird. Then clearing up all weeds might mean no insects, thus, leading to no birds within a region. This brings up the issue of species preservation.
To reiterate, our aim as an environmental organization, is to ensure that we preserve the environment for future generations. We are trying to ensure that, the species that have been entrusted into our hands by past generations would be available for the education and enjoyment of the general public in future generations. The introduction of genetically modified organism might have the unpleasant effect of depleting the environment of our remaining wildlife species.
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