{"id":347,"date":"2011-01-15T12:15:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-15T17:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/toxic-corn-and-cotton-pollute-our-streams.html"},"modified":"2011-01-15T12:15:00","modified_gmt":"2011-01-15T17:15:00","slug":"toxic-corn-and-cotton-pollute-our-streams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/toxic-corn-and-cotton-pollute-our-streams.html","title":{"rendered":"Toxic corn and cotton pollute our streams"},"content":{"rendered":"Steve Connor writes in The Independent 28 Sep 2010 that\n\nGM maize ‘has polluted rivers across the United States’<\/a>:\n
\n\n<\/a>\nAn insecticide used in genetically modified (GM) crops grown extensively\nin the United States and other parts of the world has leached into the\nwater of the surrounding environment.\n

\nThe insecticide is the product of a bacterial gene inserted into GM\nmaize and other cereal crops to protect them against insects such as\nthe European corn borer beetle. Scientists have detected the insecticide\nin a significant number of streams draining the great corn belt of the\nAmerican mid-West.\n

\nThe researchers detected the bacterial protein in the plant detritus that\nwas washed off the corn fields into streams up to 500 metres away. They\nare not yet able to determine how significant this is in terms of the\nrisk to either human health or the wider environment.\n<\/blockquote>\nThis is the same “gene from the bacterium Bacillus thuriengensis (Bt)”\nused in Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready cotton<\/a> and peanuts and soybeans.\nSince\n\n\n\n<\/a>\n\n99+% of cotton in Georgia was planted from Monsanto seeds by 2009<\/a> (with similar percentages for the other crops),\nthis is the insecticide leaching into all our streams and rivers.\n

\nOne of the authors,\n\nEmma J. Rosi-Marshall<\/a>, who got her Ph.D. at the University of Georgia,\nremarks:\n

\n“Our research adds to the growing body of evidence that corn crop\nbyproducts can be dispersed throughout a stream network, and that the\ncompounds associated with genetically modified crops, such as insecticidal\nproteins, can enter nearby water bodies.”\n<\/blockquote>\nIn this article, the authors don’t say what the effects might be,\nbut\n\non her own web page<\/a>\nRosi-Marshall notes:\n
\nIn laboratory feeding trials, when caddisflies were fed on\ngenetically-modified corn material, they had decreased growth rates\n(Rosi-Marshall et al. 2007).\n<\/blockquote>\nSo it seems likely there are also effects in the wild.\n

\nAnd all this is unnecessary, since\nnon-GM corn (without the bT insecticide) is more profitable.<\/a>\n

\nHere’s the actual study:\n\nOccurrence of maize detritus and a transgenic insecticidal protein (Cry1Ab) within the stream network of an agricultural landscape<\/a>,\nby\nJennifer L. Tanka,\nJ. Rosi-Marshallb,\nTodd V. Royer,\nMatt R. Whiles,\nNatalie A. Griffiths,\nTherese C. Frauendorf, and\nDavid J. Treering,\nPNAS September 27, 2010,\nPublished online before print September 27, 2010, doi: 10.1073\/pnas.1006925107.\n

\n-jsq\n

\nPS: This post owed to John Pate.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Connor writes in The Independent 28 Sep 2010 that GM maize ‘has polluted rivers across the United States’: An insecticide used in genetically modified (GM) crops grown extensively in the United States and other parts of the world has leached into the water of the surrounding environment. The insecticide is the product of a […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,8,42,174,69],"tags":[1058,243,93,515,3,1061,642,218,15,516,250,1059,2767,1060,2791],"class_list":["post-347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","category-agrochemicals","category-food-and-drink","category-glyphosate","category-insects","tag-bacillus-thuriengensis","tag-bt","tag-corn-2","tag-cotton","tag-georgia","tag-growth","tag-insecticide","tag-maize","tag-monsanto","tag-peanuts","tag-pollution","tag-roundup-ready","tag-soybeans","tag-streams","tag-water"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Gj0O-5B","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}