Larry Powell Powell is a veteran, award-winning journalist based in Shoal Lake, Manitoba, Canada. He specialize in stories about agriculture and the environment. For decades, he worked for broadcast outlets in all four provinces in western Canada. This included a 5 years stint as Senior Editor for CBC Radio News in Saskatchewan. He is authorized to receive embargoed news releases on important, global stories, through the Science Media Centre of Canada, the Royal Society, Nature Research and the World Weather Attribution Network. He's a member of the Science Writers and Communicators of Canada, the Canadian Association of Journalists and a past member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2020, Powell joined an international team of writers providing articles for the Swiss-based online journal, Focusing on Wildlife - celebrating the biodiversity of Planet Earth. In June, 2014, he was a panelist at a world conference in Winnipeg entitled Holding
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In this context, GM stands for "Genetically-Modified." That's when multinational corporations including Monsanto manipulate their seed by inserting a gene from another species (in this case, a plant bacteria). This makes the resulting crop resistant to herbicides like Monsanto's flagship product "Roundup," which kills the weeds but spares the crop itself. There are several problems with this, however. Notwithstanding Monsanto's long-standing assurances that Roundup is safe, a mounting body of scientific research has and is showing otherwise. It is actually a major factor in an important disease of cereal crops - such as fusarium - when those crops are planted in subsequent years to ones where Roundup was applied. Research shows Roundup may be a factor in the decline of amphibians, worldwide. Earlier Canadian research indicates Roundup (or its active ingredient) lead to miscarriages in farm women who've been exposed to it. A study done less than a year ago in the UK confirms what regulators had known much earlier - that it causes birth defects in lab animals. If you wanted to pursue this further, you could read my in-depth article on the topic, called "Field of Nightmares - Ottawa continues to embrace the widespread use of Roundup on Canadian farms by letting corporate seduction trump scientific evidence." http://www.pathslesstravelled.com/2012/09/field-of-nightmares.html It was published in the Canadian peer-reviewed journal, Alternatives last year. Happy reading, Lindy! Take care!