Comments on: Increased Pesticide Use and Resistant Weeds -The Troubling Legacy of GE Crops News on pesticide science, policy and activism Wed, 11 Nov 2015 00:53:05 +0000 hourly 1 By: SB Tue, 23 Oct 2012 06:54:40 +0000 Dear Editorial team,
I read with great interest your article. Actually the Benbrook’s study is not the first published in a peer-reviewed journal that estimates the impacts of GE herbicide-tolerant crops on pesticide use. Some others do. For example, I have published a scientific paper on this topic in a peer-reviewed journal. It is mainly focused on the most important herbicide-tolerant crop (soybean), and is more devoted to the agro-economic aspects and economic issues. It deals with GM crops, herbicide use, glyphosate-tolerant crops and weed resistance to glyphosate in the USA, but not with insect-resistant crops.
Let me give you the references of this paper that may be of interest to some readers:
Bonny S. Herbicide-tolerant Transgenic Soybean over 15 Years of Cultivation: Pesticide Use, Weed Resistance, and Some Economic Issues. The Case of the USA.
Sustainability, 3(9), 2011, pp. 1302-1322. DOI:10.3390/su3091302
Freely available at:

ABSTRACT: Genetically modified (GM) herbicide-tolerant (HT) crops have been largely adopted where they have been authorized. Nevertheless, they are sometimes criticized, notably because of the herbicide use associated with them. The commercialization of the first GM crops indeed surprised a number of people because they were herbicide-tolerant: in fact it was often expected that biotechnology would lead to innovations avoiding chemicals (such as pesticides) through a better use of biological capacities and a valorization of life processes. Nowadays, after 15 years of cultivation, a better assessment of their impacts could be carried out, as it can take into account the trends over time, and not only the first few years of cultivation, if sufficient data are available. This period of time is necessary to reveal changes and analyze some phenomena that occur only after a certain number of years of use, such as weed resistance.
A peer-reviewed paper published in Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050; CODEN: SUSTDE) deals with some impacts of glyphosate-tolerant soybean, particularly as regards herbicide use and weed resistance to glyphosate. The paper presents some factors explaining the predominance of GMHT crops in the first and current GM crops. Then, trends in the use of herbicide for GMHT crops are studied in the case of the most widespread herbicide-tolerant crop: HT soybean in the USA. The evolution in the toxicity of herbicides applied to HT soybean is also addressed, as well as the appearance of glyphosate-resistant weeds.
Lastly, the paper examines the spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds and its impact. How are farmers, weed scientists, and the industry coping with this development, and what are the prospects of glyphosate-tolerant crops given weed resistance? In conclusion, some issues of sustainability and innovation governance raised by genetically modified herbicide-tolerant crops are discussed.