# STUDY REVEALS ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS



## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

I don't doubt the accuracy of their numbers but if they are truly trying to gauge the environmental impact of genetically modified crop farming they need to at least mention that there is much less fuel used and far less soil erosion compared to the older, more traditional methods of farming. 
Soybean farming in the 60's and 70's didn't use a lot of chemicals because there just weren't any products that could kill broad leaf weeds in beans post-emergent. Care to guess how they controlled those nasty weeds back then? Yup, every good farmer, "walked" his bean fields with hoe in hand back in those years to get the weeds in the rows that the cultivator couldn't reach.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

jim lyon said:


> I don't doubt the accuracy of their numbers but if they are truly trying to gauge the environmental impact of genetically modified crop farming they need to at least mention that there is much less fuel used and far less soil erosion compared to the older, more traditional methods of farming.
> Soybean farming in the 60's and 70's didn't use a lot of chemicals because there just weren't any products that could kill broad leaf weeds in beans post-emergent. Care to guess how they controlled those nasty weeds back then? Yup, every good farmer, "walked" his bean fields with hoe in hand back in those years to get the weeds in the rows that the cultivator couldn't reach.


Not too long ago sugar beat growers use to hire out rows for kids to hoe, by hand. The row crop tillage equipment would till down the rows, then kids were hired by the row to hoe the weeds twice before harvest. 
It did not pay very well but kids needed the money and the work got done. 
....good thing for RR sugar beat farming...how many kids would they find to hoe those weeds.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

All good if you're a farmer but when they start posting the results of glyphosate in our US honey crops may change some things. 
It's in everything we eat at this point and is starting to look awfully lot like a carcinogen.
Once it comes out that our honey is tainted too we're kinda screwed. 
Twice the amount allowed in Europe is being found in American honey. Too late. See link below. 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carey-gillam/fda-finds-monsantos-weed_b_12008680.html

^^^ This can't be good.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Don't they say the same thing about butyric acid? (BeeGo)


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

Ian said:


> Don't they say the same thing about butyric acid? (BeeGo)


don't know if they say the same thing but it's interesting stuff, butyric acid. have you read up on it at all?


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

There was a push on to ban it a few years back


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

>>Once it comes out that our honey is tainted too we're kinda screwed. <

Beekeepers complaining about toxins in their honey...I guess Beekeepers pick and choose their complaints


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## TWall (May 19, 2010)

I think the numbers are not accurate. He only looked at a very short window. Besides what Jim mentioned about reduced trips across the field, etc., I look back to how we grew corn and soybeans back in the '70's and '80's. Both crops got pre- and post-emergant herbicides. Corn was cultivated at least once and nitrogen was side-dressed once. Beans were often cultivated twice if planted in rows. Corn herbicide choice and application had to be careful because we always rotated crops. We couldn't have any broadleaf herbicide carryover that would damage soybeans the next year. The actual amount of active ingredient used per acre is also less now. 

I remember when we had a spray tank mounted on a disk that broken loose and burst just after starting a field. Nothing grew in the field for years. I would not be surprised it if was still a barren spot in the field. It has been 15-20 years since I have been back to that farm. A cousin farms it now.

Tom


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