Record year for GE crops!

Nearly a dozen years after commercial release of genetically engineered, "a record number of biotech crops were planted worldwide last year."

Some 10.3 million farmers in 22 countries grew engineered crops on 252 million acres last year, a 13 percent increase over 2005, according to the report. About 9.3 million of those people were considered subsistence farmers...In 1996, the first year genetically modified crops were commercially available, about 4.3 million acres were under cultivation. Now genetically engineered crops are grown throughout the Americas, China and India. Last year, Slovakia became the sixth European Union country to plant genetically engineered crops

In all this time it's still the case that "no illness has been attributed to biotechnology crops." The same cannot be said however of organic crops.

Despite this however, the critics are still not happy: "Critics complained the gains were more of the same: aimed at making corn, soy and cotton crops resistant to weed killers and bugs." Nothing to do with critics and regulators in the US and Europe doing all they can to keep GE crops off the market. These are people who would complain if there house was on fire, and then complain again if someone came along and put it out.  

LINK: Record biotech plantings in 2006 - Associated Press
The hidden dangers in organic foods - Center for Global Food Issues
The costly fraud that is organic food - Dick Taverne, Sense About Science, The Guardian
FDA warned farmers about E. coli last year - USA Today 
 
RELATED: GE, Environment, Health, Science, Politics-US