Every industry likes to pretend that its products are the most extensively researched and regulated products in existence. The nuclear power industry has made this claim, as have the makers of vinyl chloride, dioxin, fen-phen, MSG and Olestra. Back in 1992, the FDA decreed that genetically engineered foods were no different than conventional foods. Testing biotech crops for their environmental safety is equally lax. It is up to the USDA to ensure that genetically modified crops are ecologically safe.
Biotechnology is therefore good for the environment.
This year, more than half of the US soybean crop was genetically engineered to survive spraying with Monsanto's best-selling weedkiller, Roundup. An analysis of 8,200 university research trials revealed that farmers planting Roundup Ready soybeans are using two to five times as much of the herbicide as farmers growing conventional varieties. Chuck Benbrook, who reported the results of the studies, said nobody is testing the crops for increased residues of Roundup. The EPA, moreover, has raised the allowable residue limits for Roundup on forage crops. Producing a plant that can make its own insecticide so that farmers don't have to spray insecticides may sound like a good idea, but anything more than the most superficial consideration reveals otherwise.