New push for nationwide ban on GMO crops in Costa Rica

These GMO crops are engineered to tolerate high doses of herbicides that are coincidentally made by the company at the center of most of these GMO crops. The crops end up with higher measurable levels of the toxic chemicals, that we end up ingesting, and high levels of these toxins are going into the waterways in areas where these crops are grown. These toxins are especially harmful to small children. Most corn, soybeans, and cotton grown in the US are GMOs, so most of the junk food and many other products from the US are sold here. The teachers’ union here is asking for these products to be kept out of the schools for good reason. There is also question as to whether the engineering of crops to include insecticides is responsible for bee colony collapse and the reductions in numbers of other pollinators, a phenomenon especially problematic in the US. While livestock (other than “frankenfish”, a mutant Salmon) has yet to include GMOs, livestock feed does include modified corn and soybeans, so these chemicals end up in the meat. Ironically, recent studies have shown that, contrary to claims made by the chemical companies, modified crops have no higher yields than the unmodified crops. An added bonus for the chemical companies is the fact that GMO seed is the purchase that keeps costing farmers. Even if they save seed from one year for subsequent years, they must pay the chemical companies for the right to use the seed, since the seed is patented – farmers have lost their land over lawsuits made by the chemical companies. Bottom line – these products benefit nobody but the big chemical companies and are toxic to everyone else. They should be kept out of Costa Rica at all cost, and any products containing GMOs (even the meat from animals fed GMOs) should be labeled so that people know what they are consuming.