Washington State University's Pesticide Management Center has published a series of very informative articles in its monthly newsletter entitled  Agriculture and Environmental News.  I recommend these articles highly.

Now for something completely different:  my thoughts
 
 

I have heard:	But consider this:
Inserting genetic material into foods will create "frankenfoods" which will eventually prove detrimental to human health and the environment.	Mankind has been inserting genetic material into its foods for thousands of years.  We just used an older technique which was much more labor intensive and took longer to achieve results.  We call it "cross-breeding".
Manipulating genes in the lab is no different from creating new strains of plants through cross-breeding.	As you may recall in the discussion of vanilla, flavor may not from a single active ingredient, but from a suite of compounds.  If we transplant a gene for a specific trait, are there collateral genes, as yet undiscovered, that need to go with the original gene for proper function?
The major genetic modification currently used is to make crops resistent to the world's leading herbicide, glyphosphate.	In most areas of pest management in agriculture, the move is away from broad spectrum kill-alls, which have tendency to kill beneficial species.  Is this particular genetic modification, which encourages the use of glyphosphate, inhibiting the development of more specific, safer herbicides?
GMOs are better financially for farmers because of the benefits of the traits associated with the implanted genes.	Seed of genetically modified plants is patentable, and current restrictions require a grower to purchase fresh seed each year and pay a licensing fee.  Do the benefits of the genes outweigh these additional costs, especially when the price is entirely at the discretion of one or two large corporations? Do we want our food supply under the control of few large corporations?
Pollen from genetically-modified corn has been shown to be toxic to monarch butterflies.	Toxicity for monarch butterflies is not completely unexpected since they are in the same family of many common agricultural pests.  GMOs have shown that they generally require less pesticide use than conventional crops.  Which is worse:  toxic pollen or the current level of use of chemical pesticides?