Well that certainly didn’t take very long. According to a study published Monday, the Western Corn Rootworm (actually a beetle larvae) has already developed a resistance to not one but two strains of generically modified corn thanks to the over-reliance and improper implementation of the crops by farmers in Iowa.
The advent of genetically modified crops has promised heartier food and higher yields that could potentially reduce poverty and malnutrition rates the world over. Two decades later, they’re also broadly maligned and mistrusted. But is it finally time to put down the pitchforks?
In an age that encourages everything organic, fairly traded, and USA-made, it’s easy to overlook the less-celebrated (and often significantly more common) goods we use on a daily basis. Take the shirt on your back, for example—because NPR certainly did.
I am 99.9% sure that there will never be commercial production of genetically engineered wine grapes ("GMO" to use the common misnomer). Even so, I’d like to indulge in imagining what could be if we lived in some parallel universe where rational scientific thinking prevailed.
A supposed vegetable born of something called "Flavr Savr" seeds does not sound like anything that could possibly be good to put in your body. But back in 1994, a longer-lasting, better-tasting, and all around more aesthetically appealing tomato hit grocery shelves as the Flavr Savr food of tomorrow: the very first genetically engineered vegetable.