Many in the green community now consider Monsanto [1] a four-letter word. But a decade ago when the company first debuted genetically modified crops, the innovation was embraced as a possible environmental panacea—one that could dramatically reduce the amount of chemicals needed to grow healthy crops and provide nutrition for poor and drought-ridden populations. On the tenth anniversary of this fast-growing biotech sector, the battle over its environmental impacts [2] rages on.

“Genetic engineering has not delivered on any of its promises for human health benefits,” Margaret Mellon, director of the Agriculture and Biotechnology Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Reuters [2]. “There are a lot of failures scattered at the side of the road.” Problem number one: GM crops have failed to reduce chemical use because many of them have developed unexpected weed resistances that have to be chemically treated. Problem number two: Many poor countries have refused to adopt genetically altered seeds because of unproven health effects.

All the same, the amount of farmland planted with biotech crops around the world is skyrocketing. In the United States alone, more than half of all corn crops and nearly 90 percent of soybeans planted in the last decade were genetically modified, and those numbers are rising.

Photo credit: MSNBC.com [3]. Carey Gillam, Reuters