How Monsanto made a monster of benign Bt For millions or billions of years, Bt existed in the soil, emerging only seasonally, but never crossed genetic barriers between all species. Then Monsanto forcibly introduced the Bt soil bacteria gene into the cotton plant’s DNA. Its poison no longer acted selectively when consumed by a pest. Instead Bt was made an inherent part of its genetic structure - the entire plant from roots to stalks to leaves was rendered toxic and death-dealing. A cotton ‘Frankenplant’ was born. Bt cotton’s initial 1996 introduction in USA was disastrous: Monsanto had to withdraw five million pounds and pay damages to US farmers; later repeated in some other countries. For a few years, pesticide use decreased and yields rose, then reversed. As with the so-called Green Revolution’s ‘high yield variety’ seeds, performance fell after peaking for a few years. Bt cotton killed the bollworm’s natural parasitic enemies, and encouraged secondary pests to become major problems.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 09:18:57 +0000
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