Benefits of Glyphosate-Resistant Crops

Glyphosate has become a buzz word in agriculture nowadays. The herbicide was first manufactured by Monsanto and was claimed to be the world’s biggest-selling herbicide by the manufacturer. Glyphosate-resistant crops have also been developed following the success of glyphosate in the market, but many governments remain cautious about allowing the use of herbicide-resistant crops for fear that genes that confer herbicide resistance could spread far beyond agricultural fields.

Despite such concerns, many agricultural researchers now say glyphosate-resistant (GR) crops have had widespread environmental benefits, at least compared with the previously used alternatives. "Glyphosate-resistant crop weed management systems are generally safer to the environment than what they replace, and in many cases much safer," says Stephen Duke, a plant physiologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service.

Perhaps one of the biggest benefits of GR crops is their indirect impact on topsoil. GR crops require no-till agriculture, which saves the topsoil, and ultimately saves farmers time and money. Additional impacts could come as farmers switch to herbicides that are more toxic to mammals. Researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign found that switching from GR crops to conventional seeds with other herbicides would require farmers to increase the pesticide doses applied to the average U.S. farm by about 10% per hectare in soybeans and 25% per hectare in cotton, which would be harmful to insects and other mammals.

Read the news article at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/sci;316/5828/1116.