Study Raises Concerns with GMO Crops

Agriculture Experts Raised a Number of Concerns with Genetically Modified Crops, Including Safety and Spreading Weed Resistance

The study, led by the National Research Council (NRC) and sponsored in part by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, comes at a time of growing consumer suspicion of genetically modified crops, which are used in a variety of packaged food products. Many U.S. states are seeking mandatory labeling of foods with GMO ingredients, and a growing number of food companies are offering non-GMO products.

The study also comes as some important U.S. trading partners, notably China, are showing reluctance to allow imports of some GMO grain.

The stated goal of the study is to examine the concerns along with the benefits of GMO crop technologies and "inform the public discourse." The NRC said its work will be "an independent, objective study" to be completed by 2016.

Findings can't come soon enough, many said.

"There is not a universal consensus in the scientific community about many aspects of this technology," Chuck Benbrook, research professor at Washington State University, said in his address to the study group.

Benbrook said a lack of confidence in the safety of consuming the specialty crops is due in part to a U.S. regulatory system that lacks independent review and relies largely on research supplied by the companies that develop GMO crops.

"For us to turn the tide on this erosion of confidence... we have got to do the work," Benbrook said.

Major Goodman, a crop genetics expert from North Carolina State University, said at the meeting that weed resistance tied to widespread use of Roundup herbicide and GMO crops engineered to be used with treatments of Roundup, was a major problem hurting farmers who are seeing crop yields choked off by weeds that are getting harder to kill.

Source: Agroprofessional

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