Which countries have banned genetically modified crops? GMOs: truth and myths about genetically engineered products GMOs are grown
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The term "genetic modification" refers to the unnatural processes of taking genes from one species and, through special tools, viruses or bacteria, is introduced into another organism. This process never occurs in nature. So, when it comes to seeds and genetically engineered ingredients in our food, we are talking about completely unnatural processes.
Traditional breeding has been around for thousands of years. People can cross breeds, for example, of tomato plants with favorable qualities: better taste, resistance to natural diseases, etc., with other tomatoes. This is not what happens when we talk about genetically modified seeds.
Most GMO seeds currently being developed can withstand high doses of herbicides when sprayed. The company that creates the seed also sells chemical fertilizers for them. This is a package of services.
GMO Myth #2: We should use GMO seeds to control weeds and pests.
Facts: Ironically, GMO technology has actually made pest problems even worse.Most GMO seeds used today have been genetically modified or produced with their own pesticides in-house and are able to withstand high doses of chemical pesticides that would normally kill the plant.
In 2012, 154 million acres were planted with genetically modified soybeans, corn, alfalfa, cotton, canola and sugar beets designed to withstand chemical dousing with herbicides.
About a third of this land is now home to superweeds, problem plants that do not die after being sprayed with pesticides.
Most GMO seeds are designed to contain high doses of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup.
Weeds have quickly become resistant to glyphosate, meaning more concentrated and more frequent applications of pesticides to control weeds.
Professor Chuck Benbrook, Ph.D., a research professor at Washington State University, recently found that between 1996 and 2011, GMO technology actually increased herbicide use by 250 million kilograms—that's an 11 percent increase.
Every time the dose of pesticides and insecticides is reduced, GMO seeds do not produce the required yield.
GMO Myth #3: GMO reduces farmers' dependence on older, more toxic pesticides.
Facts: Currently in the Department Agriculture The US is asking to approve a new generation of GMO corn and soy crops designed to withstand high doses of 2,4-D, an old toxic herbicide, because current ones no longer work.21 weed species are now resistant to glyphosphate.
Millions of acres of farmland are now ; some farmers pay up to $150 per acre per hour for hand weeding.
GMO Myth #4: GMO ingredients are safe to consume.
Facts: GMO ingredients have never been adequately tested for long-term public health effects, despite their use since 1996.There are about 600 studies on the composition of genetically engineered products in terms of the amount of calories, proteins, fats and vitamins.
These are mostly industry-funded studies that are typically performed to show the nutritional value of food and drug products that are comparable to non-GMO foods, or to convince livestock producers that GMO feeds are on par with non-GMO feeds.
Both types of research have nothing to do with human health and safety, Dr. Benbrook warns.
Some of the very few researchers looking at the short-term health effects are alarmed. A carefully designed meta-analysis of 19 long-term published studies in mammals found that feeding GMO corn or soybeans showed potential indicators of chronic kidney disease, liver disease, and bone marrow damage.
GMOs have also led to a rapid increase in food allergies.
Roundup, which is often sprayed on GMOs, has been linked to certain types of cancer, DNA damage, premature birth, and ADHD.
Glyphosphate levels can build up in the body and this can lead to:
Violations in endocrine system leading to obesity, heart problems, circulation problems and diabetes.
Low glyphosphate levels are also associated with damage in immune system, birth defects, cell death, etc.
Also, GMO feed harms animals. In a recent study published in the Journal of Organic Systems, researchers in Australia and the US found that pigs fed the genetic diet were much more likely to develop severe stomach inflammation and uterine density, a condition that can mean endometrial cancer, endometriosis, gynecological polyps, fertility.
GMO Myth #5: GMOs are safe for the environment.
Facts: GMOs are pressing on and have already destroyed several plant species.The catastrophic decline of Monarch butterflies due to the use of glyphosate, used in GMO cultivation. Glyphosate kills milkweed plants near fields and roads; Monarchs use milkweed to reproduce and feed on its leaves.
Insecticides that are sprayed on GMO plants cause neurological problems in bees.
Agricultural holdings and farmers use so much Roundup that it has been found in air currents and even rain, which can be harmful to humans.
GMO Myth #6: GMO technology is an exact science
.Facts: Although GMO technology is improving, it is still young and not very reliable.
When inserting a foreign gene into a plant, there is a 1 in 100 trillion chance of inserting two genes instead of one, says researcher Howard Vlieger.
The characteristics of the seeds indicated by the plant may have other characteristics, including those that we have not even discovered yet. We don't know how this might affect human health, but GMOs have already led to a rapid increase in food allergies.
Science knows very little about the genome of any crop species and its genetic, biochemical, and cellular functioning. Even where gene insertion is considered "safe", it is possible to obtain a toxic yield or poor nutritional value, or reduce its ability to resist disease, pests, droughts or other challenges, described in the Earth Open Source report
GMO Myth No. 7: Only thanks to GMO technologies can we feed the growing population of the planet
The amount of products produced can already feed about 10 billion people. But the lion's share of this production goes to biofuels and other types of energy. Yet more than 1 billion people on Earth go hungry every day.This is not due to the quantity of products produced, but to the current state of affairs with the distribution of resources.
On June 24, the State Duma banned the cultivation of GMOs in Russia. Why was this law required and in whose interests was it adopted? Are GMOs so scary and why are they banned? What will this ban do for Russia? Will the quality of products improve or, conversely, will production volume decrease?
What is the essence of the new GMO law?
On June 24, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted a law banning the cultivation and breeding of genetically and engineered plants and animals in Russia - an exception was made only for conducting examinations and scientific research.
“It is prohibited to bring into the territory Russian Federation and use for sowing (planting) seeds of plants whose genetic program has been changed using genetic engineering methods and which contain genetically engineered material, the introduction of which cannot be the result of natural (natural) processes, with the exception of sowing (planting) such seeds during examinations and scientific research work,” the text of the law says.
It is noteworthy that the import of products obtained using genetically modified organisms (GMOs) new law does not prohibit. True, these products will have to pass mandatory registration. A ban or permission to use them will be given based on the results of the examination.
The law will come into force on July 1, 2017. For violation of the new rules for the use of GMOs, fines are provided: for officials - from 10 to 50 thousand rubles, for legal entities - from 50 to 100 thousand rubles.
How has the spread of GMOs been regulated in Russia so far?
The adopted ban was the result of many years of struggle between supporters and opponents of GMOs in Russia, full of drama and intrigue. The intensity of passions reached its next peak a couple of years ago. In the summer of 2013, tens of thousands of citizens signed a call to declare Russia a “GMO-free zone.” By this time, according to the National Union for the Protection of Consumer Rights, in Russia, despite the ban, about 400 thousand hectares were already sown with GM crops (mainly corn and soybeans), and the import of some varieties of soybeans, corn, potatoes, and rice was allowed and sugar beets.
It is obvious that dependence on imported planting material poses a direct threat to the country's food security. However, to revive domestic selection and seed production using traditional technologies, according to experts, is impossible - over the past decades the country has fallen very far behind such leaders in this field as the USA and the Netherlands. You can turn the situation around only by using the most modern technologies, equally new for all market participants. According to scientists, in such a situation one cannot abandon the development of genetic engineering. However, in conditions market economy and reductions in government funding, the ban adopted by the State Duma may lead to a forced curtailment of research in this area.
In Russia, it is allowed to sow genetically modified grains - this follows from government decree No. 839 adopted on September 23, said Oleg Sukhanov, head of the market research department at Bunge (one of the world's largest sunflower oil producers).
Now in Russia GMOs can only be grown in experimental plots; the import of certain varieties of corn, potatoes, soybeans, rice and sugar beets is allowed (22 plant lines in total). However, several Vedomosti interlocutors know that vertically integrated agricultural holdings have previously quite actively sowed their fields with GMO fodder. Food products using GMOs are allowed in Russia, but are subject to labeling.
Registration of GMOs is the responsibility of several departments: the Ministry of Health will deal with those used for the manufacture of medicines, Roszdravnadzor - medical devices, Rospotrebnadzor - food products, Rosselkhoznadzor - animal feed. The completed certificates will be entered into a special register of GMOs and products obtained with their use, which will be maintained by the Ministry of Health.
The first permits can be obtained 1.5-2 years after the start of registration, says Arkady Zlochevsky, President of the Russian Grain Union. ICAR General Director Dmitry Rylko says at least three years. The resolution does not say how much it will cost to obtain the certificate. "It will depend on regulatory documents, where the order will be regulated,” says Rosselkhoznadzor representative Alexey Alekseenko.
The most promising GMOs are soybeans, corn and sugar beets, says Vladimir Petrichenko, general director of the Prozerno company. Zlochevsky believes that GMOs will be popular among farmers: “The seeds of genetically modified soybeans cost about 1.5 times more than conventional ones (from 25,000 rubles per 1 ton), but their use can reduce the cost of the final product by 20%.” According to Sukhanov, the soybean yield in Russia in 2013 was 0.97 tons per 1 hectare with a harvest area of 1.2 million hectares, and the average yield of GMO soybeans in Argentina, Brazil, and the USA was 2.5-3 tons per 1 ha.
According to Rylko, in the United States, 85% of corn, 91% of soybeans and 80% of sugar beets are GMO. “Soybean is a high-margin crop that may be of interest to agricultural investors, but they may lose the export premium for non-GMO products,” says Sukhanov. Zlochevsky is confident that GMOs will not completely replace traditional varieties due to consumer demand for eco-products.
Importers of GMO seeds to Russia can be Syngenta, Monsanto, KWS, Pioneer, says Petrichenko. In Russia, according to Zlochevsky, the Center for Bioengineering of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the All-Russian Research Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology are engaged in development, but domestic seed production only covers a third of the needs; Russia remains import-dependent.
According to the website gmofree.ru, in Russia 14 regions are classified as GMO-free zones, including Moscow, St. Petersburg and the Belgorod region. It is because of this that Efko, which owns one of the country’s largest soybean processing plants, is in no hurry to introduce GMOs. “The main consumers of our soybean meal are meat enterprises in the Belgorod region, a GMO-free zone. If the region’s policy changes, then we may switch to GMO soybean seeds,” says Evgeniy Lyashenko, general director of Efko Management Company.
Alekseenko believes that the resolution was adopted prematurely: “Significant efforts will be required to carry out laboratory work for assessing the quality of seeds." It is also wrong to draw conclusions about the safety of seeds based on the dossier compiled by the applicant, Alekseenko is sure.
The production of GMO products is possible; no health or environmental risks have been registered yet, says Dmitry Yanin, Chairman of the Board of the International Confederation of Consumer Societies. Rospotrebnadzor also supports the use of GMOs.
The impression that the use of GMO seeds reduces production costs is deceptive, says the Union’s director of external relations organic farming Anna Lyubovedskaya: “GMOs do not reproduce. Farmers will be forced to constantly purchase such seeds abroad, since we have almost no seed production of our own.” To grow them, special and very poisonous herbicides are required, which will also have to be purchased from Western manufacturers, Lyubovedskaya is sure.
Rylko does not see an explosive growth in the use of GMOs by farmers in the future. In a 10-year perspective, a maximum of 20-30% of corn will be produced using these technologies, he is sure: “If we see more aggressive growth, it will mean that the process has become uncontrollable.” We will have to spend money on separate storage and a laboratory monitoring system, which will also slow down the transition of agriculture to GMOs, he is sure.
Maxim Basov, general director of Rusagro, said in an interview with Vedomosti in 2011 that with the help of GMOs, irrigation and targeted farming, sugar production can be increased by at least 2 times. One of the problems of Russian agriculture is a small set of crops, which leads to a delay in the development of the agricultural industry: for example, there is already enough wheat and no more is needed, he continued, and some GMOs - rapeseed, soybeans, corn - would allow the peasant to diversify his crop rotation.
How to check whether seeds are GMO or regular hybrids?
There are two ways:
1. Find laboratories in your city that perform such analysis and order an analysis for them at your own expense. Perhaps there are such laboratories at the Sanitary and Epidemiological Station, perhaps somewhere else. I don’t have exact information on this yet, but I’ll look for it.
2. Plant seeds taken from the F1 harvest and check in practice - if the plant produces at least some fruits, then it is a regular hybrid, if there are no fruits at all, it is a 100% GMO hybrid. Since one of the characteristics of GMO seeds is complete sterilization of plants - i.e. the second generation will simply bloom exclusively with male flowers and produce no fruit at all. Therefore, those who bought hybrids and tried to get second-generation seeds from them, but were faced with such a phenomenon as the absence of fruits at all - this means that they used seeds from GMO plants.
Why do GMO seeds produce sterile plants in the second generation?
Plant sterility is one of the main characteristics of GMO seeds. This is due to the fact that producers of GMO seeds are aimed at obtaining constant profits from their sales. Farmers, knowing about the sterility of GMO hybrids, are forced to constantly purchase such seeds from their manufacturers, which provides a constant and fairly large income. It is precisely for the reason of profitability that GMO producers sterilize their seed products at the genetic level.
This property of plant sterility is manifested in the fact that the second generation taken from GMO plants will produce exclusively male flowers.
What is the danger of planting seeds of GMO hybrids and conventional varieties?
If plants tend to cross-pollinate among themselves, then such a danger exists. If a regular variety is cross-pollinated with a GMO hybrid, you can lose your variety completely, as it will not only lose the purity of its variety, but will also dramatically lose its yield, which will ultimately lead to its complete degeneration.
Corn, legumes, peppers, and cruciferous vegetables (cabbage, rapeseed, radishes, turnips) are especially easily pollinated. By the way, our fields are often sown with rapeseed using GMO seeds, which prevent its re-sprouting in the third year. Those. Having sowed rapeseed in the fields, in the second year the plants will be sterile and in the third year the field will be completely cleared of both the rapeseed itself and the weeds that the rapeseed suppresses during growth.
It is very easy to purchase corn from GMO producers. Corn is one of the first and one of the main crops that has undergone such genetic processing. GMO producers, knowing this, were able to make millions in profit from those farmers whose fields were pollinated by theirhybrids. Knowing about the ease of cross-pollination of corn, GMO producers did a DNA analysis of the plants of these farmers and, naturally, the tests turned out to be positive, as a result of which the GMO producers sued the farmers for very large sums money, accusing them of deliberate cross-pollination.Hundreds of farmers not only went bankrupt because of this, but also committed suicide, unable to pay such huge sums. Other farmers went bankrupt, losing all their harvests as a result of accidental cross-pollination of varieties and GMO hybrids.
Why are GMO seeds attractive to farmers?
Despite all the events described above, GMO seeds are still attractive to those would-be farmers who care exclusively about monetary profit based on the “here and now” principle. After all, GMO seeds have properties and qualities that are not yet available to conventional varieties - this includes resistance to diseases, resistance to chemical treatments, This high yields and beautiful fruits, this is their hardness and increased shelf life of products - after all, they are genetically programmed for this.
Such fruits, of course, are more attractive for sales and therefore farmers prefer to grow GMO plants rather than domestic varieties.
This choice is dictated by business conditions, which are focused on quick and large profits, to the detriment of the moral and ethical side.
GMOs are most widespread in such socially poor countries as Argentina, Brazil, China, and India. Now Ukraine and Russia have joined them. Other countries, such as Holland, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Germany, also grow GMO plants, but not for the domestic market, but to import their products into these same socially poor countries.
The USA surpasses all countries in sowing and producing GMO products. After all, this is where the main areas and bases of MONSANTO are located, and that’s where it all began... It would seem that this is not a poor country, why does GMO flourish in it? You can look for the answer on the Internet, where some sources indicate that the Rothschilds and some representatives of the US government, interested in big profits, are behind this company.
If GMOs are so harmful, why is it becoming so widespread around the world?
GMO producers actively bribe and even physically eliminate their opponents, as evidenced by numerous publications in the Western press. They pursue their aggressive policy against dissenters and those who scientifically criticize their products.
But, despite such an aggressive promotion policy, many Western farmers categorically refuse to grow GMO products on their territory. They organize themselves into communities called GMO-Free Zones. And recently there are more and more such farmers in the West.
Here I provide a map of the distribution of GMO plants across the world. The figures indicate sown areas in millions of hectares. data on Russia, as always, is classified, which gives the impression that it is free from GMOs. :)
However, Russia is the country where the main products of GMO vegetables are exported, here is the map:
On the debate about the benefits and harms of consuming GMOs in scientific and public world:
Disputes between the usefulness and harmfulness of GMO plants have been going on in the scientific and public world since the creation of the technology itself. However, this debate is about nothing. Evidence of the harmlessness of GMO products is provided by the producers of GMO seeds themselves. Naturally, they are extremely interested in pushing their products onto the market, so you cannot trust their evidence base - of course.
Scientists different countries, who conducted research on experimental animals, identified numerous side effects from the consumption of GMO plants, in particular such an effect as sexual dysfunction in experimental mice, up to sterility in subsequent offspring (remember the sterility of GMO seeds), congenital deformities, reduced life expectancy in mice, starting from the second and third generation, etc. .d.
Here are the results of the experiments of individual scientific researchers:
However, such studies were often abruptly stopped or the evidence was destroyed with special care due to the same aggressive policies of GMO producers, who were followed by a whole trail of crimes against scientific organizations that disagreed with the results of the research of the GMO producers themselves.
It is precisely because of the dangers of consuming GMO products that many countries actively resisted the introduction of these products into their markets.
Japan, whose standard of living is quite high and, being one of the most developed countries in the world, is an active opponent of the introduction of GMO plants into its market. The cultivation of GMO seeds is prohibited in the country, although the supply of imported products is not excluded. Average duration The life expectancy of the Japanese is 80 years - this is one of the highest rates in the world (especially compared to our 62 years and 72 for the Americans). If GMO plants were truly harmless to people, then Japan would be one of the first to introduce them into its production and distribution, just as it introduces all scientific developments in electronics and technology. But, apparently, she, better than anyone, understands the unsafety of such products. However, if her government is bribed, then, most likely, she will give up her position before the onslaught of the MONSANTO corporation, which uses not so much marketing promotion as financial and political influence on individual members of the government.
Global statistics are available from summary reports published by International service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) - www.isaaa.org (in English) and the Biotechnology Industry Organization - www.bio.org (in English)
Statistics on GMO cultivation by country
Statistics on GMOs for 2000
Thirteen countries grew genetically modified crops commercially produced in 2000, and of these, the majority are produced in the United States. In 2000, 68% of all GMO crops were grown by American farmers. In comparison, Argentina, Canada and China produced only 23%, 7% and 1% respectively. Other countries that grew commercial GMO crops in 2000 were: Australia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Mexico, Romania, South Africa, Spain and Uruguay.
Statistics on GMOs for 2007
In 2007, 114.3 million hectares of the world were sown with GM crops.
Statistics on crops
Soybeans and corn are two of the most widely grown crops (82% of all GMO crops harvested in 2000). 74% of these GMO crops were modified to resist herbicides, 19% were modified to resist insect pests, and 7% were modified to resist both herbicides and insects. Globally, the area where GM crops are grown has increased 25-fold in just 5 years, from approximately 4.3 million hectares in 1996 to 109 million acres in 2000 (almost twice the size of the UK). About 99 million acres were devoted to GMO crops in the US and Argentina alone.
In the US, approximately 54% of all soybeans grown in 2000 were genetically modified, up from 42% in 1998 and only 7% in 1996. In 2000, genetically modified cotton varieties accounted for 61% of the total cotton harvest, up from 42% in 1998 and 15% in 1996. The share of GMO corn has apparently undergone an equally dramatic increase. The amount of genetically modified corn increased to 25% of all corn grown in 2000, about the same in 1998 (26%), up from 1.5% in 1996. As expected, the amount of pesticides and herbicides used on these GMO varieties has decreased and yields have generally increased (for details, see the UDSA publication on
