[dragontamer]

I mean, its sorta why GMOs exist. To reduce the need of pesticides that are sprayed on farms. I've always considered GMOs to be the lesser evil when compared to standard pesticide usage.

Not all produce have a insect-resistant type however. So pesticides are still needed to protect certain plants.

[ptero]

I do not agree with the current bout of GMO scaremongering, but I think your first sentence is off the mark. I heard from the friends on the biotech side (and sorry, do not have a citation) that many current GMO cultures are engineered specifically for high pesticide tolerance so farms can pump in pesticides to kill all other flora and fauna without killing specific crops.

So, GMO good (or allows for significant benefits), current products kind-of pretty bad. My 2c.

[nostromo]

Yes this is common now. For example Monsanto has Roundup Ready GMO crops & Roundup:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup_Ready

The crops are designed to withstand Roundup, while weeds are not, so farmers can use Roundup to control weeds with crops that would normally be killed by the herbicide.

[cmrdporcupine]

Roundup (glyphosate) ready is baby stuff compared to the newer stuff that is resistant to 2,4d/Dicamba. Mostly because the weeds have outsmarted the glyphosate.

Drift from 2,4d will wipe out plants (like your garden, or my vineyard, or like, endangered native plants) many kilometres away.

[gepi79]

That is the problem with GMO. It is a useless word.

It is important to know what is done and where the GMO is used: In some container or open air or open water.

[sndean]

> high pesticide tolerance so farms can pump in pesticides

(I'm sort of in biotech.) This is one way to look at it. But I'm pretty sure one of the mechanisms that allow the plants to survive being covered in certain pesticides also allows them to effectively decontaminate / degrade the pesticide.

A plant engineered to express an enzyme capable of degrading organophosphates [0] could allow for both the plant to be protected from exposure to the toxin & even after harvesting still express low levels of the enzyme which should clean the plant.

That's the idea at least... From experience, it's not nearly that simple. E.g., the degradation products are also somewhat toxic.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryldialkylphosphatase

[bigmit37]

Is there a regulation to how much pesticides they can spray into foods?

If this is the case then non GMOs sounds more appealing.

[cmrdporcupine]

No, mainstream popular production GMOs have precisely the opposite purpose. They're there to be be selectively resistant to bucketloads of herbicides while everything around them dies.

Living next door to this and trying to grow things that aren't corn or soy is "fun", let me tell you.

[projektfu]

There are several different approaches to GMO crops. One, like you say, is the herbicide-ready crop. Another is the insecticidal crop, like Bt-Corn, that produces insecticides that kill common pests, and works in the way that the other poster suggests. Yet a third is to impart nutritional characteristics to a crop that weren't there before, like vitamin-A-producing rice. Of course, there are also the usual goals of higher yield, drought resistance, reduced waste, ease of harvesting and regularity of product. The hybridization and selective breeding processes have done the majority of work in those areas and are not considered GMO by most activists, but they are nonetheless modified.

[zzzeek]

it's almost like someone at Monsanto thought this approach might allow them to sell 5000 times more chemicals too. pretty lucky cooincidence they got there after all that science happened to show them that this is the most effective approach to solve world hunger (how is that going btw?)

[marcosdumay]

Nearly all GMO plants out there are engineered to resist some kind of poison (herbicide or pesticide) so people can spray more of it.

The one rare GMO plant engineered to require less poison spraying nearly always does that by producing the poison itself, and having it in large amounts on every tissue. I wouldn't want to eat that stuff pretending that it's an improvement, thank you.

There exist some odd research GMO that resist bugs or require less herbicides due to some effect that does not involve producing poison. I haven't heard of any that left the lab, but I imagine it's possible there is some commercial crop of something like that somewhere.

[maxxxxx]

"I mean, its sorta why GMOs exist. To reduce the need of pesticides that are sprayed on farms. "

When you look at Roundup, GMOs are designed to resist pesticide, not the actual pest.

[thaumasiotes]

> I've always considered GMOs to be the lesser evil when compared to standard pesticide usage.

Breeding poisonous crops has its own obvious disadvantages. Is it better to spray poison on your food that can be washed off, or is it better for the food to be naturally suffused with poison?

[kup0]

Equating GMOs and "poison" is intellectually dishonest

[thaumasiotes]

I'm not equating GMOs and poison. I'm equating pesticides and poison. A plant that doesn't need pesticides is just a plant that produces them internally.

And in fact, the effort to breed naturally pest-resistant crops keeps running into the problem that pest-resistant crops are also human-resistant. It's all the same thing from the plant's perspective.

[kup0]

Sorry, I think I misread/misunderstood your original post or inferred something from it that wasn't there. Often I get frustrated with the extreme anti-GMO crowd, and likely let that emotion cloud my response to you.

[tomp]

How does it work in practice though? Monsanto's RoundUp hasn't been getting rave reviews lately ...

[tynpeddler]

That's a pr problem, not a science problem. But you bring up a good point, even if you come up with the perfect technical solution, if people are suspicious, or there are bad actors out there with pseudoscience products to sell, you can get dumpstered for no good reason. The fact that we're struggling to maintain herd immunity in certain population segments tells you how hard it can be to defend good solutions in the face of irrational paranoia.

[slacka]

Why are you conflating RoundUp (NOT even a pesticide) with all GMOs? Attacking GMO technology because of one company's misuse is like attacking electricity because of the electric chair.

We're talking about replacing pesticides. Monsanto is in the business of selling herbicides and pesticides, so of course they're not going to use the tech to neuter their profits. If anything they are benefiting from the negative press and comments like your own as it discourage the public from supporting the necessary government research. I doubt this will come from private corporations as the profit motive just isn't there.

[cmrdporcupine]

RoundUp is a pesticide. Glyphosate. A herbicide.

Maybe you mean "RoundUp Ready?"

The actual real world of GMO, the stuff that is actually marketed and sold -- it's like 90% about herbicide resistance, nothing else.

[throwaway5752]

RoundUp is the trade name for glyphosate, which is an herbicide, not a pesticide. RoundUp Ready is the trade name for glyphosate-resistant strains of crops. RoundUp and RoundUp Ready are both copyrights of Monsanto.

[cmrdporcupine]

Herbicides are pesticides.

Insecticides are also pesticides.

I have my Ontario sprayer's license in my wallet. I had to take a day long course on this topic to get it. Own a hobby farm.

Thanks.

[throwaway5752]

Thanks for the correction - that's been a long term misconception of mine, apparently. I thought pesticides as a term excluded herbicides (basically catch all term for insecticides, rodenticides). Seriously, I appreciate that very much.

[chabes]

Herbicides are technically a class of pesticides

[tomp]

I'm not conflating. I'm providing an example of a GMO that's still requires a pesticide. I'd like a counterexample of a GMO that actually REDUCES/ELIMINATES pesticide usage, as the parent claimed that GMOs do.

In theory, GMOs don't need pesticides. I'm asking about practice. Most other comments support my skepticism.

[dragontamer]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_maize

> Bt corn is a variant of maize that has been genetically altered to express one or more proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis[8] including Delta endotoxins. The protein is poisonous to certain insect pests. Spores of the bacillus are widely used in organic gardening[9], although GM corn is not considered organic. The European corn borer causes about a billion dollars in damage to corn crops each year.[10]

> In 2018 a study found that Bt-corn protected nearby fields of non-Bt corn and nearby vegetable crops, reducing the use of pesticides on those crops. Data from 1976-1996 (before Bt corn was widespread) was compared to data after it was adopted (1996-2016). They examined levels of the European corn borer and corn earworm. Their larvae eat a variety of crops, including peppers and green beans. Between 1992 and 2016, the amount of insecticide applied to New Jersey pepper fields decreased by 85 percent. Another factor was the introduction of more effective pesticides that were applied less often.[18]

[chabes]

Herbicides are pesticides. You’re probably thinking of insecticides..