GM Contamination Accelerating No Co-Existence Possible

Rhea Gala

Untried and untested GM crops are out of the bottle even in the UK where no GM crops are commercially grown.

GM crops, the vast majority engineered for just two traits - herbicide tolerance and Bt pesticide, or stacked with both - have been released on five continents for up to nine years, causing widespread contamination of food, feed, seed and the environment across the globe.

Genetically modified DNA from any part of a GM plant can enter the environment unobserved, for example, through pollen transfer to a conventional crop, through seed dispersal or plant decomposition and persistence in soil ecology. The toxins encoded in the DNA also kill wildlife and contaminate soil and water, as do herbicides such as glyphosate and glufosinate ammonium that are an essential component of the herbicide tolerant crop system.

Outcrossing between a GM crop plant and a wild relative and over dependence of the GM crop on herbicides to which the crop is tolerant, are causing a wave of "superweeds" to emerge in the US and elsewhere; the UK has reported a potential candidate earlier this year.