why do genetically modified crops have so much chemicals in them?

Asking a question like that would make it appear that the person asking you to investigate it is somewhat biased and inflammatory in regard to crop genetics ? much in the way asking someone ?why do rednecks beat their wives so much? or ?why are people who go to college such snobby pricks??

Most plants, regardless of their origin or nature, are the net product of the soil they are grown in. Think of it along the lines of ?you are what you eat.?

If a soil is contaminated with radioactive elements, or heavy metals, then it is very likely some of those things will be found in the plants growing in that soil. (hang in there, I do have a point with all of this).

Many farms are under pressure to get the most out of the land that they can and this often means using chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Some of it is out of choice, and some of it is out of ignorance, some of it is by random chance. What is applied to the plants and soil often ends up in the plants and plant byproducts.

Even an organic farmer isn't immune to the practices of someone else. I could take cow manure and spread it on my fields as a more natural way to fertilize my fields ? but if the person or farm that I was getting manure from used a lot of antibiotics in their herd (like dairy farmers are often forced to do to maintain high milk production) then those antibiotics will find their way into the animal's waste and eventually into my field ? where some of it will invariably be taken up by the plants I am growing.

Even if I did everything right I might still be bordering or downwind of an ag operation that incorporated a lot of questionable practices and still end up with my soil being impacted. Things like the use of aerial spraying (using a plane to spray crops) by a farm that isn't even next door can impact a pretty wide swath of area around that field sometimes drift miles before completely settling out of the air.

If I was growing organic in that area then someone might test my crop and say ?why do organic crops have so many antibiotics and pesticides in them? ? and if I was growing genetically modified crops someone could ask the same sort of question.

It is not necessarily the crop or its origins that is the problem. Sometimes the problem is local and has to do with the techniques, materials, and land management style(s) used to grow that particular crop. Sometimes the problem isn't local to that farm but someone nearby. Sometimes comes from either further away. MANY antibiotics find their way into the local water supply because waste treatment plants don't remove those things before dumping the treated water into a nearby river or stream. Anybody downstream using that water (in a personal or agricultural sense)is going to be impacted by the use of antibiotics of the people upstream.

So the question of antibiotics and pesticides in genetically modified crops is not the question that you should be asking because GMCs is not the real issue in that regard and is a misleading question. The real issue is how those two contaminates are finding their way into a lot of what we eat and drink.

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why do genetically modified crops have so much chemicals in them?

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