The problem is that they are spraying it on the product that is consumed, such as soybeans and wheat. It should only be used to eradicate weeds before the crop is planted, where the residual glyphosate is consumed by soil bacteria after eight days have elapsed.
The Roundup Ready series of crops should be banned from consumption because of contamination potential, and for being genetically engineered.
Tell me you have never lived on a farm, without telling me you have never lived on a farm. I say this, because if you had lived on a farm; you would know it's really, really fucking difficult to spray a chemical on a bunch of weeds separately when they are infesting your entire crop...
Though I do agree with the premise that we should only be using it on the weeds, if at all. I personally don't think we should be using it at all though, because we can easily deal with all the weeds and such; by hiring laborers.
Congratulations, we just created a new job market out of an old profession that should have NEVER gone away.
P.S. Just as an FYI for anyone who figures this would be silly to do...
We already do it to some degree with crops that are better off hand picked... And there are A LOT of people who could use that job... and would have no problem doing it either.
> if you had lived on a farm; you would know it's really,
> really difficult to spray a chemical on a bunch of weeds
> separately when they are infesting your entire crop...
It's difficult, so we should let the farmers poison our children? Writing secure software is difficult, should we accept security issues so the poor devs won't have to work hard? Keeping airplanes in the sky is hard, should we let Boeing crash a passenger jet every year to save some grueling engineering work?
Farmers know that it's used not only to kill weeds but also as a desiccant just before harvest, to harvest sooner. That is likely the cause of the contamination in the food supply.
> because we can easily deal with all the weeds and such; by hiring laborers.
This, or a combination of laborers and robots. Robotic arms and cameras have come a long way – surely we can invest enough in them instead of conducting large chemical trials on the human population?
luckily these things are getting easier. with spot treatment from drones you can hit areas of crops that are affected by bugs or weeds. blanket chemicals won't be eliminated from soil prep for a long time though.
Yes, the drone approach is very tempting. But I still insist on us removing the need to use of manmade chemicals that don't exist in nature naturally... (That I am aware of...)
For instance, I am all fine and dandy with using lye soap and vinegar to kill weeds. It's not 100% effective, but it's also not going to poison you just because your potatoes happen to be near by. Lye is a tricky example, because it's not exactly always natural, but not exactly always manmade either. You can get naturally occuring sources, etc.
Genetic engineering is a tool. I'd be happier if E.G. the crops were engineered to have high flavor, nutrient content, and maybe even lower sugar / starch concentration / etc.
It's that they were engineered to survive things harmful to those eating the crops, that's the evil part.
Unfortunately, reality shows that this is being used to the opposite effect. Currently glyphosphate manufacturers (such as Monsanto) use genetic engineering to create crop seeds that will survive blanket application of their pesticide. In Monsanto's case, these are called "Roundup Ready" seeds.
It's a tool used by people who are happy to cover up health and environmental effects, and are most definitely not using that tool for the common good.
Hi there. You actually just kind of stepped into my ring here... sort of. Not an expert; but definitely more knowledgeable than the random person out there.
I used to work with G.E organisms. Particularly enzymes.
Long story short is this. While you are technically correct, there is a glaring issue surrounding the more... radical... kinds of G.E. See, the problem is that nothing on earth really is (at least as far as we can tell) meant to be cross bred between completely different species of plant/animal; or plants with animals...
That's not to say it is all immediately bad, harmful, dangerous, etc. BUT it does mean we should be careful we aren't causing ourselves more problems than solutions by mucking around with the genetic code of the things we eat...
And that's not just my opinion... This is just a fact of life when it comes to human nature. For every solution we come up with, we tend to find 2 to 3 more new problems to solve.
Now I don't know about you, but I prefer my food to not be causing me issues that would have never existed before except for scientists playing god with our food...
Take it or leave it, that's my stance on it. IF they can prove it is actually safe over the course of a multi-year study with full follow up procedures; then I am fine with eating it. Mostly.
If not however, then I really don't care about anyone's opinion on the matter. Because at the end of the day, there is a HUGE difference from what Norman Borlaug was doing with Wheat; and what we are doing with things like Corn today.
Where are all you people when we invented artificial fertilizer and grew the human population by 5 billion in 100 years?
Yet here we are with concern trolling over absurd scenarios where the well-meaning genetic scientist "inserts" a gene and produces some kind of killer organism. Meanwhile evolution is just out there rolling the dice every time.
> See, the problem is that nothing on earth really is (at least as far as we can tell) meant to be cross bred between completely different species of plant/animal; or plants with animals...
Everything is crossbred! You are made out of all imaginable crosses! We subsumed mitochondria!
The Roundup Ready series of crops should be banned from consumption because of contamination potential, and for being genetically engineered.