Monsanto fail: GMO crops are losing their pest control powers

[marmar]

Monsanto fail: GMO crops are losing their pest control powers

by Sarah Laskow
29 Aug 2011 11:39 AM


Monsanto crops bred to thwart western corn rootworms, which love eating corn roots, are no longer are doing their job. The rootworms developed a resistance to the natural pesticide the crops produced and are chowing down.

The alternatives for farmers: buy other genetically modified seeds (which will totally work forever!); spray nastier insecticides; abandon the economic model of monoculture and GMO crops. Guess which one's going to happen. Maybe which two out of three.

Scientists are already working on a new way to make buggies regret they ever thought for a second about eating corn: it's called RNA interference, and it builds genetic code into plants that turns off essential genes of any bugs that eat it. At least, we hope it only applies to bugs.

straight to the source:
Monsanto Corn Plant Losing Bug Resistance, Wall Street Journal

http://www.grist.org/list/2011-08-29-monsanto-fail-gmo-crops-are-losing-their-pest-control-powers

[MissHoneychurch]

1. Monsanto is the personification of evil n/t

[get the red out]

2. Absolutely!

They must not believe in evolution either or they would figure out that insects can evolve through natural selection to be able to eat their aberrant products. It just takes a few of the little buggers not dying when they eat it and off they go. I did crappy in basic college biology class and I know that much.

[marmar]

3. To quote Jeff Goldblum's character from Jurassic Park: "Life finds a way."

Nature will always win in the end.

[Maine_Nurse]

4. Absolutely!

Trying to outpace things that have very simple genetic codes which can adapt/mutate over the course of a few (often rapid) generations is a losing battle.

[ixion]

5. Monsanto needs to be sued out of existence

and their execs jailed for corrupting our food supply.

[SwissTony]

6. Of course, no-one could have predicted thus

Do I neewd a sarcasm thingy?

[NickB79]

7. The farmers bear some responsibility for this as well as Monsanto

It was always known that the insects would develop resistance over time. Therefore, from the very release of the first GE corn with the insecticidal genes, farmers were told to plant non-GE plots of corn in their fields as well as GE plots to act as population reservoirs to keep the non-resistant varieties in the genetic mix. By breeding with any resistant individuals that arose from the GE fields, these native-strain bugs would dilute out any resistance that started to rear up, derailing what we're now seeing.

Predictable, farmers didn't plant those non-GE plots, but instead planted an even more monocropped landscape in order to get higher yields per acre in the short term, science be damned.

My dad is a farmer, and we had this exact same argument many times. It drove me nuts, but it was to be expected, human nature being what it is.

[kristopher]

8. Thanks for that information.

It's always pleasant to learn something important.

[Name removed]

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[eridani]

9. Another link

http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/49-49/7238-monsanto-corn-spawning-superbug

[Name removed]

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[freethought]

12. Natural Selection in action!

And people wonder why infectious pathogens have become resistant to antibiotics. Who was that candidate for Senate who wondered why we don't "see" evolution.