Our pesticide and insecticide use is not only hurting our bodies, but it is negatively impacting our food supply by killing our pollinators. In a recent report, the United Nations warned that 40% of the world’s pollinators are at risk of extinction.
The transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural-based living was gradual, but posed revolutionary ecological and cultural transformations as centuries have passed. In the United States particularly, increased commercialized farming has simplified ecosystems, embraced monocropping and become dependent on chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
At this point in history, the agricultural world is no stranger to genetic modification. With this technology, researchers have created seedless watermelon, gluten-free wheat and apples that don’t turn brown with age. This is done through breeding out unwanted traits of an organism (i.e seeds or spots).