|
by Ethan A. Huff
staff writer
May 24, 2011
from
NaturalNews Website
For years, biotechnology companies have been making lofty,
unsubstantiated claims that genetically-modified organisms (GMOs)
are the cure for world hunger, and that without them, people will
starve to death.
But according to many agricultural
scientists and researchers, such claims have absolutely no basis in
reality, and are nothing more than deceitful marketing.
One researcher from the Union of
Concerned Scientists (UCS) recently compared the nonsensical
industry rhetoric in favor of GMOs to giving cigarettes away free to
children - in other words, claims that GMOs are the answer to world
hunger are nothing but a ploy to hook farmers and consumers
into taking the deadly bait.
Biotech mouthpieces and their media lackeys routinely hail GMOs as
superior to conventional and organic crops because they say yields
are better, less pesticides are needed to grow GM crops, and GM
crops can be grown more densely in a given area than alternatives
can.
But is any of this actually true? To
date, GMOs have not surpassed conventional or organic crops in terms
of yields.
And since 1996, which is right around
the time GMOs were first introduced,
pesticide use in the US has increased
by nearly 400 million pounds.
On the other hand, a recent
United Nations (UN) report explains
that eco-farming, which uses natural growing methods rather than
chemical- and GM-based methods, has actually boosted food production
much more significantly than any GM methods have.
"Today's scientific evidence
demonstrates that agro ecological methods outperform the use of
chemical fertilizers in boosting food production where the
hungry live - especially in unfavorable environments," said
Olivier De Schutter, a UN Special Rapporteur, at a recent
presentation.
"To date, agro ecological projects
have shown an average crop yield increase of 80 percent in 57
developing countries, with an average increase of 116 percent
for all African projects. Recent projects conducted in 20
African countries demonstrated a doubling of crop yields over a
period of three to ten years."
In truth, GMOs have failed in
virtually every category of supposed benefit - they simply do
not live up to the industry hype.
And besides offering no benefit or
improvement upon natural growing methods, GMOs are also a
significant threat to both environmental and human health. There are
no credible safety studies that
have ever been conducted proving that "Frankencrops" are safe or
beneficial.
Video
Sources
|