CHARTS: World's GMO Crop Fields Could Cover the US 1.5 Times Over | Mother Jones
As my colleague Tom Philpott reported earlier this month, nearly half of all US farms now have superweeds that can resist Monsanto's herbicide Roundup, which is sprayed on crops engineered by Monsanto. A 2012 study by Washington State University showed that overall, GMOs lead to a net increase in pesticide inputs. And a Department of Agriculture paper out this month found that genetically modified doesn't necessarily mean higher crop yields (PDF), one of GMO's biggest selling points.
There's been some doubt about the wisdom of GMOs in the rest of the world, too. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has pointed out (PDF) some of the downsides of GMO for small farmers and consumers, such as pest resistance, contamination of non-GMO crops, and potential toxicity of GM foods and products. According to the FAO, in 2011, 161 countries ratified the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, an international agreement designed to ensure the safe transfer and handling of GMO crops "that may have adverse effects on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, taking also into account risks to human health, and specifically focusing on transboundary movements."
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