Other recent research suggests it can interfere with hormones. Yet the really big unanswered question is the potential health effect of low levels over extended periods of time. The EPA is reviewing its approved uses of glyphosate and expects to release a preliminary assessment of the human health risk later this year. This is expected to include new restrictions. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka, alarmed by suspected links to human kidney disease , has banned it. Brazil is considering a similar move.
Mexico and the Netherlands have imposed new restrictions, and Canada has just begun a process to consider new rules. All rights reserved.
So what do we know about glyphosate? Five key questions and answers: How Is Glyphosate Used? Share Tweet Email. Why it's so hard to treat pain in infants. This wild African cat has adapted to life in a big city. Animals Wild Cities This wild African cat has adapted to life in a big city Caracals have learned to hunt around the urban edges of Cape Town, though the predator faces many threats, such as getting hit by cars.
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Animals This frog mysteriously re-evolved a full set of teeth. We learned in high school composition class that when you claim that information comes from a particular source USDA, for example , you need to cite a USDA publication. Hey, John I appreciate that. To be clear, though, UCS is a nonprofit science advocacy organization. The current chair of its board of directors is a distinguished environmental science professor at Dartmouth.
Consequently, their reports are not considered merely opinion pieces. Maybe we should step back a bit, though. The important question is presumably this: is it true that herbicide use has increased due to glyphosate tolerant crops on the order of hundreds of million pounds? The results are provided in increased herbicide use per hectare.
With this article and USDA acreage data, you get an estimate comparable to the UCS report — on the order of hundreds of million pounds of herbicides since these GT crops were introduced. As a reminder, glyphosate is the herbicide that primarily composes this increase, and glyphosate is considered less toxic than most other herbicides as I state in the article.
This dampens the deleterious effects of increased herbicide use and is why some reports but not all find the environmental impact of this increased herbicide use is still lower than if conventional crops had been used instead. It really looks like you wrote your own ideas independent of the scientific body of knowledge, then cited the first or simplest thing that came up in a Google search. The best way to ensure that you get the topic right is to read the existing literature first, then compose your essay as a synthesis of the information you read.
Rain forests produce tremendous amounts of nitrous oxide during leaf litter decomposition. Remember that words have meaning. The bottom line here is that scientific communication needs to be based on facts, rather than your opinion. I think this conversation is getting kind of out of the scope of utility. Jordan is providing you with peer reviewed sources when you ask for them—if you disagree that the sources support his claims, that is a valid thing to bring up, but please stop with the accusations and personal attacks.
If one can not be found, USDA can not be referenced. Wilkerson could claim that the value came from the Organic Center and reference his source, but he runs the risk of citing untrue information that came from a biased source. I hope the point that Wilkerson is taking from this is that information and sources need to be adequately vetted in scientific communication.
We agree that it was misleading to attribute that figure directly to the USDA, and we have corrected that in the text.
Thanks for pointing that out! Also, the original Organic Center report actually has a whole supplemental table about where its data came from. One perfect example is that labeling of fertilizer use as excessive. To say that in scientific communication, the author must have some data showing that more fertilizer is being used than is necessary to produce a particular crop yield. The problem with playing fast and loose with terms like that is that they can be easily misinterpreted. Why would Harvard publish something without data to back it up?
In scientific communication, every word matters, we need to be very specific about what we say, and we need to have proper data for every assertion we make. Just like Jordan did, the public is going to read an article like this and take every word to be the solemn truth. Words matter. The problem with your comments is that instead of directly responding to the data and peer reviewed sources that Jordan sends you, you seem to just want to lecture him about how to communicate and attack him personally instead of first actually understanding whether or not he is in fact communicating false information.
If so, I would love to get the link to that. Again, if you can provide links that would be great. Tables of the report addresses that with respect to corn and soybeans. If you have further questions, please contact the authors of the report. Forest soils are often have much higher levels of phosphorus and potassium among other nutrients than agricultural soils. I think this is where the author is inserting his own opinion and bias, instead of writing a fact-based essay.
The scientific literature supports the statement made before this one that less tillage results in less off-site transport of nutrients via soil runoff. Even soils just a few feet apart on the same farm can have wildly different nutrient profiles. Painting soils not under agricultural production with the same broad brush is also misleading and incorrect — unless you have soil test data to prove that.
The author should either change that passage to be correct and use proper sources, or he should strike it from this essay. Not seeing the forest for the trees.. Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences. DOI: Also, most of nitrous oxide the 3rd most influential anthropogenic greenhouse gas emitted by humans is from agricultural soils. The higher nitrogen content is a consequence of humans adding excess fertilizer to the soil.
I am going to be very Naive here. But surely messing around with crops and mutating them by genetically modifying them even though there are superior benefits. Again I am Naive on this subject but also feel mother nature always wins over time. Many crop varieties came from natural mutations which were desireable and propagated — seedless bananas. Some varieties including organically grown ones were developed using radiomutagenesis a slegehammer approach.
GMO are development is much more controlled. Even though genetic engineering is new, humans have been creating unnatural organisms since Roman times.
This is through the technique called selective breeding also known as artificial selection. Domesticated cats and dogs are both examples of this. For a long time now starting around 10, years ago , farmers found larger corn cobs more desirable, so they would collect their seeds and plant those for the next year. Over time, this effectively altered the genetic make-up of corn. Importantly, modern corn — even corn labeled organic — is not really a natural crop. The crop only exists because humans tinkered with corn breeding to their benefit over centuries.
Genetic engineering is a much different technique than this. A finely written article. But I do agree with the man who is pointing out the somewhat indiscriminate word disqualifiers you used. And people-killer. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? You cannot so confidently state or prove this kind of a negative assertion without access both to far more data and to much better data assimilation and analysis.
How does the author know for sure that this is true? Over the centuries, we have been confident time and again that our inventions would be safe, and time and again that has proven not to be true. From lead paint to DDT to margarine, the list is nearly endless. Just because the research is not yet? That the effects are hard to measure does not mean that common sense suggests that nature prefers genetically-modified crops to crops that evolved to be in harmony with it, or at least that were bred via more typical means of reproduction.
And again, this is common sense: genes that spring forth naturally are much more likely to be robust and tested in nature in the past, whereas brute-force-tweaks are much more likely to have unforeseen consequences.
Here, we just make a brute-force tweak and then mass-produce it and spread it around the world. And common sense suggests the answer is yes.
It is not clear to me if any of the people who have commented here are close to the soil or understand the difference between USDA certified Organic and true sustainable practices in harmony with Nature which was simply known as organic farming prior to the federal government commandeering the word organic.
Are we ready for a world without Roundup? This is a very unusual article for this website. Your blog has provided useful information for the work. All the tips in the post are great. Thanks for sharing. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Currently you have JavaScript disabled. In order to post comments, please make sure JavaScript and Cookies are enabled, and reload the page.
Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your browser. Skip to content by Jordan Wilkerson figures by Brian Chow Summary: In the history of agriculture, no technology has been adopted so quickly and completely as genetically engineered crops. A win for farmers and the environment Assuming that farmers only use Roundup at the recommended rates in their weed management techniques, results show that farming practices associated with Roundup Ready crops actually have a lower environmental impact.
Possible concerns about Roundup Ready crops These benefits only occur if spraying Roundup is the only weed management technique required. Rise of superweeds, return to old farming practices Unfortunately, these studies had one major problem: the croplands they created for their experiments were rather small [1]. References Devos, Y. Environmental impact of herbicide regimes used with genetically modified herbicide-resistant maize.
Transgenic Res. Dale, P. Potential for the environmental impact of transgenic crops. Nature Biotechnology Padgette S.
Ackerman, J. Food: How Altered? National Geographic. United States Environmental Protection Agency. Union of Concerned Scientists. University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources. Facts about Glyphosphate Resistant Weeds.
The Glyphosphate, Weeds, and Crops Series. Weed Science. December Farmers Cope with Herbicide Resistant Weeds. New York Times. Glyphosate is a very simple molecule. Soil microbes eat it decompose it for lunch. Your reply is rediculous because organic farming prohibits the use of any commercial chemicals.
Thee are a number of chemicals allowed in organic farming. Organic farming is a marketing scam. Additionally, glyphosphate seems to suffer similar problems with sustainability. While glyphosate has been known for many years to pose health risks to fish, and as such, its use near water is strictly regulated, a paper last year claimed that it could pose a risk to bees. The study found that glyphosate levels in flowers could affect the bee microbiome, potentially affecting their health.
However, given that the study used just 15 bees per group when comparing glyphosate exposed bees and non-glyphosate exposed bees , this also remains somewhat tenuous. However, such is the political pressure surrounding the use of glyphosate that many strongly suspect it will begin to be phased out, regardless of the scientific conclusions, in the near future. French authorities banned the sale of a form of Roundup earlier this year.
President Macron has vowed to outlaw glyphosate-based herbicides altogether by , and both Germany and Italy are reportedly considering following suit.
Following Brexit, there is also the potential that the UK, too, will change its current stance on the use of glyphosate in agriculture. A House of Commons briefing paper on glyphosate suggested that ministers at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs may well take a different approach from the EU. Efsa is pressing for further discussions about the potential consequences on farming and the food industry of banning glyphosate before drastic measures are taken, but whether its call is heeded remains to be seen.
What would a world without glyphosate and herbicides mean for agriculture and biodiversity, food prices, consumers? And what are the risks and benefits? But for Barton and the many plaintiffs, there remains no doubt in their minds that the high levels of glyphosate exposure, which they encountered throughout their working lives, have contributed to their illnesses. International Agency for Research on Cancer IARC is funded by the World Health Organization and its research is regarded as the benchmark for determining what agents may be cancer-causing.
Some examples of its classifications below…. Group 1 carcinogens Carcinogenic to humans. Group 2A Probably carcinogenic to humans. Group 2B Possibly carcinogenic to humans.
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