3 ms·
Unsurprisingly, insect-resident crops. If you're in the US, there's a good chance you're already doing it. Farmers generally use less insecticide when they pla
by krona 10y ago
Unsurprisingly, insect-resident crops. If you're in the US, there's a good chance you're already doing it.
Farmers generally use less insecticide when they plant Bt corn and Bt cotton. Corn insecticide use by both GE seed
adopters and nonadopters has decreased—only 9 percent of all U.S. corn farmers used insecticides in 2010. Insecticide
use on corn farms declined from 0.21 pound per planted acre in 1995 to 0.02 pound in 2010. This is consistent with
the steady decline in European corn borer populations over the last decade that has been shown to be a direct result of
Bt adoption.
--Fernandez-Cornejo and Caswell, 2006; NRC, 2010
- clord 10y agoWith bt, use is down but the plant itself is producing it! I think that's more likely to cause exposure.
- krona 10y agoIf you're talking about Bacillus thuringiensis or the toxin it produces, it occurs naturally in all kinds of things.
- sebleon 10y agoI can't tell if krona is trolling. We're exposing people to more insecticides in their diet when the plant itself produces insecticides! At least spraying puts insecticides on the outside of the plant, which is somewhat washable. Making the kernels of corn that we eat produce insecticides makes it impossible to remove these chemicals from our dinner plates....
- maxerickson 10y agoAs a layperson, I'm pretty sure I'd rather eat corn laced with Bt than corn with organophosphates rinsed off.
- sebleon 10y agoThat's kind of a strawman argument - what about corn laced with organophosphates vs corn that's been genetically modified to generate organophosphates in the kernels?
- krona 10y agoI can't tell if sableon is ignorant, or just scare mongering. We calculate that 99.99% (by weight) of the pesticides in the American diet are chemicals that plants produce to defend themselves. -- Dietary pesticides (99.99% all natural) Vol. 87, pp. 7777-7781, October 1990 Medical Sciences Note the date. In other words, it's insufficient to say that pesticides are dangerous to humans, since most aren't in the quantities that occur naturally. On the toxicity of organophosphates, it's been well known since the second world war.