This is why we need to stop fearing GMOs

Take a look at the size of the field in this picture.
There are more extensive averages than this used all over the world.
All dosed by millions of tons of pesticides annually.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/24/gmo-pesticide-regulation-hawaii_n_5618265.html?utm_hp_ref=gmos

Check out this article and video:
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2013/03/201331313434142322.html

Never assume that others can't or don't read and research.

I don't assume anything OT.

You use words like "doused" but do you know how much active ingredient per acre is applied? Nope. You don't. Do you understand that pesticides are not used willy billy because they are expensive and many farmers have very tight budgets? Do you understand that by using pesticides and not tilling to remove weeds you save the soil from erosion and lower each farm's carbon footprint?

Glyphosate resistant corn CAN be sprayed 5 times from pre plant until plant is 48" tall. The rate is 32 oz of product per acre. Since most glyphosate formulations are 41% active ingredient(glyphosate) I'll do the math for you.

5x32 oz= 160 oz
160 oz x .41 (41% active ingredient) = 65.6 oz per acre
1 acre is 43560 sq feet.
65.6 oz / 43460 = .00151 oz/ sq ft
For the sake of argument let's say each corn plant occupies 3 square feet
That means each corn plant gets .00453 oz of glyphosate AT MAX

Again, many farmers do not need 5 applications and try to avoid spraying because of cost.
Here is a cost breakdown

Generic glyphosate is around $90 for a 2.5 gallon jug
For easy math let's say a farmer has 1000 acres of corn
Let's use the max rate of 160 per acre

160 oz x 1000 acres is 160,000 oz of generic roundup
There are 128 oz per gallon
160,000/128 = 1250 gallons.
Each jug is 2.5 gallons
1250 gallons/2.5 = 500 jugs
500 jugs x $90 per jug =$45000

So, you can see, first, crops are not "doused" and second it is in farmer's best interests to use as little glyphosate as needed.

Another thing about GMOs.. Not all are created for herbicide resistant. Many are created to resist disease like the papaya in Hawaii. Without GMO papaya, the papaya would have ceased to exist. Those are facts. Most GMOs manipulate 1-5 genes total and each gene is KNOWN to scientists are to what it's function is. They are strictly tested for safety. They are tested for allergens. Traditional breeding practices alter up to thousands of genes whose use is unknown to those doing breeding. They are not tested for safety or allergens. Did you know they have a GMO peanut that hasn't been released. They know the specific gene which causes people to have peanut allergies and have shut this gene off. That is cool. That could save lives and yet it is shelved because of irrational fears.

Have a great evening

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2946087/

Over 1 billion pounds of pesticides are used in the United State (US) each year and approximately 5.6 billion pounds are used Worldwide
It is estimated that approximately 1.8 billion people engage in agriculture and most use pesticides to protect the food and commercial products that they produce. Others use pesticides occupationally for public health programs, and in commercial applications, while many others use pesticides for lawn and garden applications and in and around the home (1,2). Pesticides are defined as “chemical substances used to prevent, destroy, repel or mitigate any pest ranging from insects (i.e., insecticides), rodents (i.e., rodenticides) and weeds (herbicides) to microorganisms (i.e., algicides, fungicides or bactericides)” (1,3).

Over 1 billion pounds of pesticides are used in the United State (US) each year and approximately 5.6 billion pounds are used worldwide (1). In many developing countries programs to control exposures are limited or non-existent. As a consequence; it has been estimated that as many as 25 million agricultural workers worldwide experience unintentional pesticide poisonings each year (4). In a large prospective study of pesticide users in the United States, the Agricultural Health Study, it was estimated that 16% of the cohort had at least one pesticide poisoning or an unusually high pesticide exposure episode in their lifetime (5).

6). The US Department of Agriculture has estimated that 50 million people in the United States obtain their drinking water from groundwater that is potentially contaminated by pesticides and other agricultural chemicals (7, 8).

Read on .......

Using your own article of 1 billion pounds of pesticides I made some quick calculations..

Let's say only farmers use pesticides... They don't.

There is 2,167,000 acres of farmland in USA that is 461 lbs per acre or 1/100 of a pound per sq foot. Again. Those numbers sound scary until you apply math.. Try again

Just read the report.
We live in an increasingly toxic environment.

I read it. I'm not afraid.

Consumer Reports: Pestcides in Produce

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/health/natural-health/pesticides/index.htm

All well below safe levels. The body does not have a pesticide storage area when it holds pesticides until they reach a dangerous level. Our bodies are amazing at cleansing itself

Keep telling yourself that.

I don't have to. Science shows it. Keep telling yourself you are being poisoned when there is little if no evidence that pesticides on foodstuffs is causing issues. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"-- Carl Sagan

http://www.enveurope.com/content/24/1/24

US Department of Agriculture probes Oregon Monsanto GM wheat mystery

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/22/agriculture-oregon-monsanto-gm-wheat

Company cries foul over appearance of genetically modified wheat but scientist who found it doubts claim of sabotage
Field of wheat

The Department of Agriculture is investigating the presence of genetically modified wheat plants in an Oregon field.

It is a mystery that could cost the American farmer billions: how rogue genetically modified wheat plants turned up on a farmer's field in Oregon.

The scientist who first discovered the renegade grain – by dipping a plastic strip into a tube of pulped plant, in order to check its genetics – believes the GM wheat could have entered America's food supply undetected years ago, and could still be in circulation.

"There's a lot of potential for how it could have got into the supply," said Carol Mallory-Smith, a professor of weed sciences at Oregon State University. "It could have already been processed. It could have gone for animal feed somewhere or it could have gone for something else. It could have gone for storage."

The Department of Agriculture, which is conducting a secretive investigation into the renegade GM wheat outbreak, maintains the GM wheat remained confined to a single 125-acre field on a single farm in eastern Oregon. Officials said there was no evidence the contaminated wheat was in the marketplace.

Monsanto, which manufactured the altered gene and conducted field trials of the GM wheat several years ago, strongly suggested in a conference call with reporters on Friday that the company was the victim of sabotage of anti-GM campaigners. Robb Fraley, Monsanto's chief technology officer, said:

It's fair to say there are folks who don't like biotechnology and who would use this as an opportunity to make problems.

The real story is unlikely to emerge – if at all – until the publication of the final report by 18 Department of Agriculture investigators who are now scouring grain elevators, farmers' fields and university research stations in eastern Oregon, hunting for a few grains of suspicious wheat.

The stakes are high for America's wheat exports, with Japan and South Korea cancelling shipments; for Monsanto, which faces lawsuits from farmers for falling wheat prices and a consumer backlash against GM products; and for the US government, which must shore up confidence in the safety and integrity of the food supply.

The crisis for wheat farmers began in late April, with a phone call from a crop consultant seeking the advice of researchers at Oregon State University in Corvallis. The consultant had sprayed Roundup, a weed killer also manufactured by Monsanto, on some fallow land. Ordinarily, glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, would be expected to clean out the entire 125-acre field. This time, however, some plants survived.

The consultant, fearing he had come across a "superweed", got in touch with the university and sent some plants in for testing. A clump of plants, carefully wrapped in plastic to keep them green, arrived by Fed-Ex on 30 April. Scientists separated 24 samples and tested them for the presence of Monsanto's Roundup Ready gene, CP4, which was developed to be resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup weed killer.

"They all came up positive," she said. So did a second battery of tests by another lab at the university and independent testing on a different set of wheat plants collected by researchers from the Department of Agriculture. The scientists were still slightly disbelieving, however. The only chance for contamination by the GM wheat, it was thought, was from field trials Monsanto conducted in the late 1990s until 2005.

The wheat was grown in more than 100 test plots in 16 states over several years, but the company wound down the last of the trials in 2005, because it saw little market potential. Unlike the other big crops – corn, soybeans, cotton and canola – American farmers have never raised GM wheat on a commercial basis. The US exports much of its wheat to Asia and Europe, who do not want GM products. The Oregon field trials stopped in 2001.

"Our customers have zero-tolerance for GM wheat," said Wally Powell, president of the Oregon Wheat Growers League.

Monsanto is currently testing a next generation of GM wheat in North Dakota and Hawaii. The company insists the seeds from those earlier trials were shipped backed to its labs in Missouri or destroyed in the field and driven deep into the earth with a backhoe.

"Most of the seed was destroyed in the field," said Jeff Koscelny, who heads Monsanto's wheat sales team. "It never left the site, and it was buried. To us, it's not logical there were any seeds out there."

An activist protests against US biotech giant Monsanto
Monsanto has faced a backlash over GM products. Photograph: Nigel Treblin/AFP/Getty Images
While Monsanto's chief technology officer suggested eco-activists were to blame, Mallory-Smith said deliberate contamination was the least likely scenario:

The sabotage conspiracy theory is even harder for me to explain or think as logical because it would mean that someone had that seed and was holding that seed for 10 or 12 years and happened to put it on the right field to have it found, and identified. I don't think that makes a lot of sense.

She was also sceptical of Monsanto's claims to have gathered up or destroyed every last seed from its earlier GM wheat trials. In recent years, as American farmers rely increasingly on GM crops, there have been a spate of such escapes, including rice, corn, soybean, and tomato. Oregon is still trying to contain a 2006 escape of GM bentgrass, used on golf courses, which has migrated 13 miles from where it was originally planted.

"Once we put a trait or a gene into the environment we can not expect that we are going to be able to retract or bring back that gene and find every last gene that we put out there," said Mallory-Smith. Tracing the course of an escape so long after Monsanto's field trials will be even more difficult, she said. "It's like finding a needle in a hay stack," she said.

One morning in late June, farmers from wheat-growing areas in Oregon, Idaho and Washington state drove their pick-up trucks to the station, to learn about the latest advances in farm technology – including toy-sized drones – and to catch up on the latest on the GM wheat escape. Some of the farmers were relatively relaxed – those whose land sits relatively high up and don't expect to harvest their crop until August.

Wheat prices reached historic highs before the GM discovery. If there is no further evidence of contamination, they figure they can ride out the crisis, store their wheat, and wait until Japan and South Korea place orders again. But there is also an undercurrent of suspicion and anger at the unidentified farmer who reported finding GM wheat on his land – consequently putting all of their crops in jeopardy.

"It's a mystery to me how they even found that GM wheat," said Herb Marsh, 80, who has been farming in eastern Oregon his entire life. "It's hard for me to swallow that he would go, and actually get it tested.

"It's just a big mystery," he said.

Monsanto has actually pledged 4 million dollars to habitat creation for butterflies. Still waiting for the big organic's money...

The above is why I have very little respect for most environmental groups. Unfortunately they prefer to blow it on lawyers, bad science, etc Vs acquiring and preserving land

While you may not agree as to the use, DU, PF and RMEF do a lot more for habitat preservation than most if not all environmental groups

To mitigate concerns and damage created.

Monsanto is charging Indian farmers steep annual royalties for seeds, contributing to a horrifying spike in the suicide rate.
Monsanto, one of the world’s most evil corporations, just keeps getting worse. Monsanto's latest victims? Poverty-stricken Indian farmers.

In 2012, 13,754 farmers in India committed suicide. That’s one suicide every 38 minutes.

Why? Massive, crippling debts, made worse by exorbitant annual fees charged by Monsanto for seeds.

There’s no way poor Indian farmers can stand up to Monsanto alone. So we’re launching a campaign to demand that Monsanto stop charging the crippling annual royalties causing so much suffering.

Monsanto's GMO crops were introduced in India in 2002, and since then there’s been a sharp rise in the suicide rate among Indian farmers -- and it’s not hard to see why.

For centuries, farmers made a living by saving seeds from one year’s crop to the next.

But today, Monsanto is claiming patent rights over seeds --the fundamental source of all plant life -- and forcing farmers to pay for new seeds every single year.

The result is a crippling cycle of poverty, from which farmers see no way out.

Mega-corporations like Monsanto act like they can destroy people’s lives as long as they’re improving shareholder returns. But time and again we’re showing these corporations that we will shine a light on the practices they want to hide in the shadows.

Like when Newmont mining company sent a private security firm to intimidate Máxima Acuña Chaupe, thousands of us chipped in to bring her allies to Newmont’s shareholder meeting where the CEO pledged to stop development of the mine.

As Vandana Shiva has said, when corporations control seeds, they control life. Monsanto is taking a renewable common resource and turning it into a nonrenewable, patented commodity.

We know that Indian farmers can’t fight Monsanto alone. That’s why SumOfUs was created -- to leverage the global power of consumers from around the world to fight multinational corporations together.

Kaytee, Jon and the team at SumOfUs

P.S. Over 100,000 of us have signed to keep Monsanto's lobbyists at arms distance in the U.S. Presidential race -- but Monsanto's reach is truly global.

********* For more information:

Monsanto and the Seeds of Suicide, Common Dreams, March 27, 2013 Monsanto’s Shares Surge as its Drive to Force GM Crops into India Gathers Pace, RINF, February 4, 2015

SumOfUs is a worldwide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy.

https://ksj.mit.edu/tracker/2013/03/demolishing-myth-monsantos-engineered-cr/

Did Monsanto Organize a Fake Grassroots Campaign in Favor of GMOs?
Michelle Schoffro Cook
Jun 30, 2015
The company that brought you genetically-modified foods, the carcinogenic pesticide Roundup, and what many would describe as global mayhem, may be stooping to a new low, according to the Organic Consumers Association (OCA). According to the non-profit advocacy group that works to protect the food supply, Monsanto is now using a fake grassroots campaign in an effort to raise political support for their products. Called “astroturfing,” the approach involves manufacturing an artificial grassroots campaign of citizens or coalitions that is actually a corporately-created and/or funded campaign and a front for corporate interests.

According to the National Director of the OCA, Ronnie Cummings, “When the first email came in describing Monsanto’s latest campaign of trickery and deception, I thought it sounded far-fetched. But then other activists chimed in, and I realized it was true. According to reports from our activists on the ground in California, Washington State and Oregon, Monsanto is organizing its own powerful and convincing ‘astroturf’ movement.”

The organization states that it received “a detailed email, with pdf images of documents sent to one of our activists from a Monsanto ‘astroturf’ leader” proving that the company is engaging in the arguably unethical practice of astroturfing. Monsanto representatives are apparently calling moms who are in favor of labeling genetically-modified foods, pretending to agree with them, couriering them documents that include letters addressed to members of Congress and containing their personal stories and asking the Congress members to support H.R. 1599—a bill that is known by environmentalists as the DARK Act because it “Denies Americans the Right to Know” what’s in their food.

Initiated by the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the bill blocks the ability of state and local governments from requiring genetically-modified foods to be labelled. Instead companies would simply notify the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to inform them that the companies’ food products that contain genetically-modified organisms are “substantially equivalent” to non-genetically modified foods.

Says Ronnie Cummings, “It’s a direct attempt to deceive and confuse busy moms and deluge Congress members with letters of support for a federal bill that would not only ban labeling forever, but also preempt bans on GMO crops, preclude pre-market safety testing of GMO foods,, and take away food companies’ right to voluntarily obtain independent GMO-free certification.”

According to Global Research, over 90 percent of Americans want genetically-modified organisms labelled, yet the Grocery Manufacturers Association, funded by large corporations like Monsanto, CocaCola and Starbucks, continues to press for contradictory legislation.

Recognizing that 90 percent of American taxpayers want genetically-modified organisms labelled, Representative Peter DeFazio introduced bill HR 913, also known as the Genetically-Engineered Food Right to Know Act. This act requires genetically-engineered food and any food that contains genetically-engineered ingredients to be labelled as such. However many environmental and food safety advocates are concerned that industry pressures may persuade government representatives to vote in favor of the DARK Act. This may be particularly an issue now that Monsanto seems to be orchestrating an astroturf movement.

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/did-monsanto-organize-a-fake-grassroots-campaign-in-favor-of-gmos.html

AFTER YEARS OF IGNORING CALLS TO BAN DANGEROUS PESTICIDE, EPA BEGINS TO ACT ON CHLORPYRIFOS
Victory: Communities remain at risk from widespread agricultural use, protections still needed.

Farmworkers and their families, who are predominantly low-income and majority Latino, bear the brunt of poisonings from pesticides and pesticide drift.

By revoking all chlorpyrifos tolerances, EPA would ban all uses of chlorpyrifos on food. This is what we have been seeking for years. EPA’s own findings show that chlorpyrifos causes brain damage to children and poisons workers and bystanders.

Patti Goldman
Managing Attorney, Earthjustice
July 1, 2015

Washington, D.C. — Some 15 years after Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned chlorpyrifos from residential use, the agency announced yesterday that it may ban the neurotoxic pesticide from use in agricultural fields as well. The announcement came after a recent court of appeals decision directing the agency to act on a 2007 petition to ban the chemical.
Environmental health and farmworker advocates who brought the legal case are calling the announcement an important step in the right direction, and potentially more far-reaching, if the agency fully commits to a ban next year. EPA states in its report to the court:

“EPA intends to grant the Petition by publishing in the Federal Register not later than April 15, 2016, a proposed rule pursuant to 21 U.S.C. section 346a(d)(4)(A)(ii) to revoke all chlorpyrifos tolerances to address drinking water exposure concerns in small sensitive watersheds throughout the country.”

“By revoking all chlorpyrifos tolerances, EPA would ban all uses of chlorpyrifos on food. This is what we have been seeking for years. EPA’s own findings show that chlorpyrifos causes brain damage to children and poisons workers and bystanders,” said Patti Goldman, the Earthjustice attorney handling the case. “At long last, EPA is taking steps to protect children, workers and their families by banning this hazardous pesticide.”

In December 2014, EPA finally acknowledged the extensive body of peer-reviewed science correlating chlorpyrifos exposure with brain damage to children, including reduced IQ, delayed development, and loss of working memory. For 15 years, EPA has been allowing exposures at levels far greater than those leading to the harm to children’s brains. As a result, advocates continue to press for greater protections for children at both state and federal levels, until the agency cements its commitment to a ban.

EPA’s report to the court cites harm to workers as another reason to act on a ban.

“Every year, farmworkers and families in rural communities are exposed to chlorpyrifos, and EPA is finally acknowledging the damage this exposure can cause. It’s high time for EPA to follow the science and take action,” said Dr. Margaret Reeves, Senior Scientist at Pesticide Action Network. “A ban would ensure that both workers and families in rural communities are safe from this drift-prone, bad actor pesticide.”

“The types of brain damage chlorpyrifos causes are every parent’s worst fears—reduced IQ, attention disorders, delayed development,” said Jennifer Sass, senior scientist at Natural Resources Defense Council. “EPA must act to stop exposures to this pesticide and protect children’s brains from this type of egregious harm.”

“If EPA does ban chlorpyrifos, it’s a step forward on the path to environmental justice,” said Virginia Ruiz of Farmworker Justice. “Farmworkers and their families, who are predominantly poor and majority Latino, bear the brunt of poisonings from pesticides and pesticide drift.”

See:
http://earthjustice.org/our_work/cases/2010/chlorpyrifos-pesticide-challenge

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/06/why-people-are-so-scared-of-gmos-according-to-someone-who-has-studied-the-fear-since-the-start/

Irrational fears.

Unless you are tank mixing concentrated chlorpyrfiros you aren't in danger

http://www2.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/revised-human-health-risk-assessment-chlorpyrifos

Guess that's why they decided to ban it.

French Court Finds Monsanto Guilty of Chemical Poisoning
EcoWatch
Sep 15, 2015

Written by Lorraine Chow and reposted with permission from EcoWatch

An appeals court in Lyon, France has upheld a 2012 ruling against Monsanto, in which the agribusiness giant was found guilty of the chemical poisoning a farmer named Paul François.

The grain grower said that in 2004 he became ill due to Monsanto’s weedkiller, Lasso. François claimed he suffered from neurological problems, memory loss, headaches and stammering after inadvertently inhaling the herbicide.

In François’ case, doctors determined the cause of his ill-health was monochlorobenzene, a highly toxic substance that made up 50 percent of Monsanto’s herbicide, according to teleSUR. The substance sent François to the hospital, where he entered in a coma. Subsequent tests showed that the farmer suffered permanent brain disease, teleSUR reported.

In 2012, he filed suit against Monsanto for not providing a warning on the product label and won. Monsanto appealed the decision shortly after.
Yesterday’s ruling, however, stamps another victory for the farmer. The appeals court said Monsanto was “responsible” for the intoxication and ordered the company to “fully compensate” François, Reuters reported.

“It is a historic decision in so far as it is the first time that a (pesticide) maker is found guilty of such a poisoning,” François Lafforgue, François’ lawyer, told the news agency.

RT reported that the farmer (pictured above in 2011) was happy with the outcome, adding: “David can win against Goliath. … And a giant like Monsanto is not above the law.”

Monsanto’s lawyer Jean-Daniel Bretzner said the company plans to take the case to France’s highest appeal court.

“The decision is very surprising given the inaccuracies and errors that dot Paul François’ evidence,” Bretzner said. “But this is just another step and the discussion is going to go on and the fight will go on.”

According to Reuters, Bretzner also said that the potential compensation for the farmer would be decided after the highest court makes a decision. Nonetheless, he said, the award amount would be very low.

“We are speaking about modest sums of money or even nonexistent. He already received indemnities (by insurers) and there is a fundamental rule that says that one does not compensate twice for a loss, if any,” Bretzner said.

Lasso, the herbicide in question, was banned in France as well as in all other European Union member countries in 2007. The product has been phased out in the U.S.

However, another active ingredient in Lasso, alachlor, is still the second most widely used herbicide in the country, according the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It so happens that the odorless, white chemical is heavily used on corn and soybeans in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Its rampant use is confounding, as even the EPA says alachor “has the potential to cause damage to the liver, kidney, spleen, nasal mucosa and eye from long-term exposure.” The agency also considers it an endocrine disruptor and a carcinogen.

Lasso is not the only Monsanto product considered harmful. In March, the World Health Organization’s cancer arm—the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)—listed glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s wildly popular weedkiller Roundup, as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Monsanto maintains the safety of their products and has also demanded a retraction from the IARC.

In related news, just this week, California’s Environmental Protection Agency issued plans to label glyphosate as known to cause cancer, the first state in the country to do so.