not sure if this is allowed on here...

shelbystatic

To all my clean eating friends. Here is something you need to know about gm corn and soy and what a company has created. And the opportunity to sign a petition if your into it.

http://act.watchdog.net/petitions/1353?l=MwRU7Lz7I38

RobynC79

I agree with the sentiment that Monsanto is a corporation of highly dubious ethical practices, but the hyperbole about a devastating swarm of superworms is a bit misinformed.

Insecticide resistance is an inevitable outcome of continued use of a given chemical agent, irrespective of whether its applied by sprays, produced in plant tissue normally (quite common) or produced via genetic modification. In any population of crop pests there are some with natural resistance to whatever poison is being applied. Those ones aren't killed (because they are naturally less susceptible), and as long as their resistance is even weakly heritable, in only a few generations you have a resistant pest.

This why most farmers use rotations of crops, pesticides and fields - a few generations without continued selection for resitance and the population restores to pretty much mostly susceptible.

This is important - why should this be the case? If resistance is all good, the population should remain mostly resistant. But it doesn't - in all studied cases, resistance itself is not ideal when the pesticide is not there. That is, the resistant animals have made some kind of trade-off in their fitness and without the presence of the pesticide to give them the edge, they don't do as well as susceptible individuals.

So - 1. Just because these worms are pesticide resistant doesn't imply that they are any more destructive, stronger or better reproducers than their susceptible cousins. In fact they are likely to be less so. They are not 'super' - in fact they are likely to be a bit feeble and dodgy.
And 2. There's nothing special about what is happening here - resistance is inevitable in pest populations, and crop management, not requiring labeling of retail foods, will assist in keeping resistance in check.

JUDDDing

I agree with the sentiment that Monsanto is a corporation of highly dubious ethical practices, but the hyperbole about a devastating swarm of superworms is a bit misinformed.

Clearly, you have never watched the documentaries, 'Squirm' or 'Tremors'...

This is not a topic to bury your head in the sand about...