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GM crops to reduce pesticide use and “reverse the Silent Spring scenario”

GM crops have long been promoted as a way to slash reliance on pesticides – but they have increased herbicide use and failed to sustainably reduce insecticide use

Summary

Despite promises that GM crops would reduce pesticide use and make farming more sustainable, evidence shows that they have increased herbicide use and failed to sustainably reduce insecticide use. In the case of herbicides, the increase is due to the evolutionary selection pressure caused by over-use of herbicides on GM herbicide-tolerant crops, which favours the spread of herbicide-resistant weeds. In the case of insecticides, targeted pests have in the space of a few years become resistant to the insecticidal Bt toxins expressed in GM Bt crops, meaning that farmers still spray insecticides. When Bt crops initially succeeded in reducing populations of the targeted pest, secondary pests moved into the ecological niche. Claims that Bt insecticidal crops have reduced insecticide use focus on early years of deployment, before pest resistance became a serious issue. They also ignore insecticidal seed treatments, which increased in tandem with the introduction of GM Bt crops. Claims that a new generation of GM crops developed through gene editing will succeed in reducing pesticide use, where first-generation GM crops have failed, remain unproven.

Facts at-a-glance

Claims

  • In 1998 Monsanto spokesman Dan Verakis claimed GM crops could reduce pesticides in farming and “reverse the Silent Spring scenario”.1

Results

  • Adoption of GM glyphosate-tolerant crops has led to large increases in the use of Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides.2 Global glyphosate use has risen 15-fold since GM glyphosate-tolerant crops were introduced in 1996,3 driven by the spread of resistant weeds.4
  • In response, GMO seed companies have developed GM crops tolerant to multiple herbicides, such as 2,4-D and dicamba, as well as glyphosate,5 sharply increasing the use of these herbicides in addition.6
  • Claims that GM Bt crops have reduced insecticide use7 mostly rely on data from early years of deployment, before pests developed resistance.8 Resistance has driven farmers to return to chemical insecticides.9
  • GM Bt toxin is itself an insecticide and the amount in GM Bt plants far exceeds the amount of sprayed insecticide it is meant to displace.10 GM Bt insecticidal toxins are not benign. They can harm wildlife11 and mammals that eat crops containing them.12
  • Toxic neonicotinoid insecticide seed treatments are used on Bt and non-Bt seeds alike. This is ignored in studies claiming that Bt crops reduce pesticide use.13
  • Regarding GM Bt cotton in India, an analysis of 20 years of data concluded, “By 2009, the near ubiquity of Bt plants promoted the rapid spread of resistant PBW [pink bollworm pest]. By 2015, the PBW ‘nightmare’ was the stuff of headlines, and bollworm spraying was climbing quickly again… Bt seeds’ positive effects on spraying were fleeting. Countrywide yields have not improved in 13 years, and Indian cotton farmers today are spending more per hectare on insecticide than they did before Bt began to spread.” 9
  • Claims that new gene-edited GM crops will succeed in reducing pesticide use,14 where first-generation GM crops have failed, remain unproven.

Companies

  • GM herbicide-tolerance traits and crops have been developed by Monsanto (now Bayer), Pioneer Hi Bred and Dow (both now Corteva), Syngenta, and BASF. GM Bt traits and crops have been developed by Syngenta, Bayer, Pioneer Hi Bred, Monsanto, BASF, and Dow and DuPont (both now Corteva).

Patents

  • GM herbicide-tolerant trait and crop patents are dominated by Monsanto, Pioneer Hi Bred, Syngenta, BASF, and Dow.15 GM Bt trait and crop patents are dominated by Syngenta, Bayer, Pioneer Hi Bred, Monsanto, BASF, Dow, and DuPont.16

Claims

Note: “Pesticides” include insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides

Monsanto (now Bayer) employee Edward E. Debus said in a mid-1990s conference presentation in which he seems to speak for the company: “We predict that growers who planted Roundup Ready soybeans in 1996 will reduce herbicide use by up to one-third and experience improved weed control.” 17 

In 1998 Monsanto spokesman Dan Verakis claimed that GM crops could reduce the volume of herbicides and other pesticides used in farming and thereby “reverse the Silent Spring scenario”.1 

In 1999 the then-Monsanto CEO Robert Shapiro boasted that GM Bt insecticidal crops had triggered an “80 percent reduction in insecticide use in cotton crops alone in the United States”.18

In 2000 Matt Ridley, journalist and former chairman of the subsequently-collapsed Northern Rock bank, argued that of 12 US regions surveyed by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), seven were using less pesticide due to deploying GM Bt crops. He concluded: “GM reduces pesticide use: If you are against GM, you are in favour of more pesticides.” 19

Results

Herbicide use increases with introduction of herbicide-tolerant GM crops

An analysis by the GMO industry group ISAAA found that by 2014, over 99% percent of cultivated GM crops globally were engineered to tolerate one or more herbicides, or to express an insecticide, or both.20

The widespread adoption of GM glyphosate-tolerant crops in North and South America has led to large increases in the use of Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides (see Figure 2). In the USA, GM herbicide-tolerant (mostly to glyphosate herbicides such as Roundup) crops led to an estimated 239 million kg increase in herbicide use between 1996 and 2011, compared with what would have been used if the same acres had been planted to non-GM crops.2 Nearly 67% of agricultural glyphosate herbicide use since 1974 occurred between 2005 and 2014, as GM glyphosate-tolerant crops became widespread. Global glyphosate use is reported to have risen almost 15-fold since GM glyphosate-tolerant crops were introduced in 1996.3

Data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and Health Canada show that herbicide sales in Canada increased by 234% between 1994 and 2020 (see Figure 1).21 GM herbicide-tolerant crops were first commercially grown in Canada in 1995.22

Figure 1. Herbicide sales in Canada 1990–2020

In Brazil, GM herbicide-tolerant soy was authorised in 2003. Overall pesticide use increased 1.6-fold between 2000 and 2012. Use on soybeans increased 3-fold, prompting scientists to state, “The adoption of GM crops in Brazil has led to an increase in pesticide use with possible increases in environmental and human exposure and associated negative impacts.” 23

In Argentina, GM herbicide-tolerant soy was authorised in 1996. Estimated glyphosate use rates per hectare (ha) per crop year rose from 2.83 kg/ha in 2000 to 4.45 kg/ha in 2014.24 Glyphosate spraying on GM soy has been linked with increased rates of cancers and birth defects in people.25 Glyphosate has been classified as a probable human carcinogen.26

In the US, the small initial reduction in chemical insecticide sprays due to GM Bt insecticidal crops was dwarfed by the large increase in herbicide use due to GM herbicide-tolerant crops. This increase has been driven by the spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds.4 These have evolved in response to over-use of the herbicide on glyphosate-tolerant crops – only weeds that have developed resistance to the herbicide survive and pass on their genes. Farmers spray ever-increasing amounts of glyphosate until no amount of the chemical will kill these “superweeds”. A weed expert estimated in 2015 that due to the adoption of GM glyphosate-tolerant crops, one-third of all US field cropland was infested with glyphosate-resistant weeds.27

A 2013 study analysed FAO data on agricultural productivity in the US and Western Europe over the last 50 years, focusing on maize, canola, and wheat. The study found that North American farming systems used in staple crop production – based on GM seeds in the case of maize and canola – showed a trend of lowering yields and increasing pesticide use, compared to Western Europe’s almost entirely non-GM farming systems. Also, both herbicide and insecticide use were increasing in the US relative to Western Europe.28

An updated analysis of FAO data conducted for the New York Times in a 2016 article titled, “Doubts about the promised bounty of genetically modified crops”, confirmed that these trends were continuing.29

“Solution” to glyphosate resistant weeds: Multiple herbicide tolerance

GMO developer companies’ solution to glyphosate-resistant superweeds has been to develop “stacked-trait” GM crop varieties, resistant to multiple herbicides. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved a new combination herbicide, Dow’s (now Corteva) Enlist Duo, in 2014.30 Enlist Duo is composed of glyphosate plus 2,4-D, an ingredient of the defoliant Agent Orange. It is marketed in tandem with Dow’s maize and soybean seeds that are genetically engineered to tolerate glyphosate, 2,4-D, dicamba, and multiple other herbicides.31

In 2014 the US Department of Agriculture approved Dow’s multi-herbicide-tolerant GM soybean, engineered to tolerate being sprayed with glyphosate, glufosinate, and 2,4-D,32  as well as 2,4-D-tolerant soybeans and maize.33

In 2015 the US Department of Agriculture approved Monsanto’s Xtend GM soybeans and cotton, engineered to tolerate dicamba and glyphosate.34 The USDA predicted that dicamba use would increase 88-fold and 14.5-fold for soybeans and cotton respectively, compared to the then current levels.35

US government data confirms a steep increase in the use of dicamba36 and 2,4-D37 in the years since GM crops tolerant to these herbicides were approved. However, weeds have already developed resistance to these herbicides,38 overtaking US farms.39 Dicamba is the focus of lawsuits brought by farmers whose crops have been destroyed by the herbicide drifting off-target.40

Keeping farmers tied to a pesticide treadmill benefits the big GMO developer companies – Bayer (owner of Monsanto), Corteva (formerly DowDuPont), Syngenta, and BASF – which are also pesticide companies.41

Herbicide use increased after introduction of the relevant GM herbicide-tolerant seeds

US Geological Survey (USGS) data on national pesticide use show that the use of many herbicides sharply increased after the introduction of the relevant GM herbicide-tolerant seeds, as shown in the figures below.6

Figure 2. Glyphosate use in the US after GM glyphosate-tolerant soybean, maize, and cotton varieties were introduced in 199642

Figure 3. 2,4-D use in the US after GM 2,4-D tolerant crops were approved in 2014, introduced into fields in 201543

Figure 4. Glufosinate use in the US after the introduction of GM glufosinate-tolerant cotton (2004) and soybeans (2009)44

Figure 5. Dicamba use in the US after the introduction of GM dicamba-tolerant crops (soy, cotton, and maize) in 201645

Bt crops and insecticides: Early promise, later failure

The introduction of GM Bt crops in North America in 1996 initially led to a small reduction in the use of sprayed-on insecticides. This was swamped, however, by much larger increases in herbicide use due to GM herbicide-tolerant crops. By around 2010, the increase in herbicide use exceeded the reduction in insecticide use by about 7%, compared with what would have been the case if the same area had been planted to non-GM crops.2

The over-reliance on GM Bt and GM herbicide-tolerant crops triggered the emergence and spread of resistant insects and weeds, which by around 2010 had locked farmers onto a pesticide treadmill that continues to run faster and faster.2

Claims that GM Bt crops have reduced insecticide use – for example, in a much-cited paper published in 2014 by Klümper and Qaim46 – held true only for the first few years of cultivation, for the following reasons:

  • The data are mostly from the early years of Bt crops, before pests developed resistance.47 This resistance has forced farmers to return to spraying chemical insecticides.9 Indeed, some never stopped. According to one study, bollworm resistance to GM Bt cotton has not caused crop failure in the US because “insecticides have been used from the outset” to control the pest.48 In 2020 the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed phasing out many Bt maize and some Bt cotton varieties within 3–5 years due to concerns about resistant pests.49
  • Even when Bt toxins temporarily succeed in controlling the target pest, secondary pests can move into the ecological niche. In the US, the Western bean cutworm has increased in GM Bt maize fields.50 In India and China, Bt cotton was initially effective in suppressing the target pest, the bollworm. But secondary pests that are resistant to Bt toxin, especially mirids and mealy bugs, soon took its place.51 Studies from China published in 2010 show that GM Bt cotton was already failing under the onslaught of secondary pests.52
  • GM Bt toxin is itself an insecticide and the amount contained in GM Bt plants is far more than the amount of sprayed insecticide it is meant to displace.2 Also, since GM Bt crops were first introduced, there has been a trend to replace GM plants expressing only one Bt toxin with GM plants expressing multiple (2–6) Bt toxins (stacked events) simultaneously. Therefore the total amount of Bt toxins expressed in recent years versus the early years of Bt crops is multiplied by a factor of 2–6.53 This increase has proven necessary to make the insecticidal toxins work in the face of evolved resistance in targeted pests.  
  • GM Bt insecticidal toxins are not benign. They can harm wildlife, including insects helpful to farmers,54 and can have toxic effects on mammals that eat them.55 The Bt toxin they contain is different, structurally and in its biological effects, from the natural Bt sprayed by organic and conventional farmers – having been engineered by Monsanto to be a “super toxin”.56
  • Since the early 2000s, highly toxic chemical neonicotinoid insecticide seed treatments have been used on Bt and non-Bt seeds alike – but this is ignored by studies claiming that Bt crops reduce pesticide use. A 2015 study by Douglas and Tooker found that neonicotinoid use on US-grown soy and maize – crops that were and are overwhelmingly GMO57 – increased rapidly between 2003 and 2011.13
  • While the volumes of neonicotinoids applied are low, their high toxicity means that the expansion in their use has had serious adverse effects on beneficial insects and other wildlife – and resistance in pests is already being documented,58 pointing to issues of environmental safety and sustainability.
  • A 2025 review confirmed that contrary to early promises, GM crops have increased agriculture’s dependence on pesticides rather than reducing it. Drawing on data from four GM crops – Bt cotton, herbicide-tolerant (HT) soybean, HT and/or Bt maize, and HT canola, the researchers traced the surge in chemical use over three decades. The researchers explain this outcome using the Jevons paradox, an economic theory that dates back to 1865. British economist William Stanley Jevons argued that efficiency in resource use often leads to more, not less, consumption. 59

“Halo effect” of Bt maize

In 2010 a media article reported research findings that planting Bt maize had a “halo effect”, shielding neighbouring non-GM maize by protecting it against the European corn borer pest and suppressing populations of the pest. The article said in the Midwest, non-Bt acres had “experienced yield savings without the cost of Bt technology fees, and thus received more than half the benefits from growing Bt corn”.60

The study was published in the journal Nature, which published an editorial headed, “GM maize offers windfall for conventional farms”.61

The study said, “Areawide suppression of the primary pest Ostrinia nubilalis (European corn borer) is associated with Bt maize use. Cumulative benefits over 14 years are an estimated $3.2 billion for maize growers in Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, with more than $2.4 billion of this total accruing to non-Bt maize growers.”62

But by 2015 Bt maize’s “halo” was fading. Under the headline, “GM crop loses effectiveness”, the News and Observer reported on new study findings that – “consistent with predictions made almost 20 years ago that had been largely ignored” – the corn earworm pest had developed resistance to the Bt toxin Cry1Ab: “In the late 1990s, Cry1Ab reduced both the number and size of corn earworm larvae and the size of the larvae, compared to non-Bt corn. But… Cry1Ab now has little or no effect on number or size of larvae compared to non-Bt corn.” 63

GM Bt cotton in India

Some studies have reported that GM Bt cotton reduced chemical insecticide spraying in India.64 However, these studies focused on early short-term impacts before pests became resistant to Bt toxins and ignored other major changes in Indian agriculture, such as irrigation and fertiliser use, according to a long-term analysis by internationally renowned experts.

The experts concluded that while initially, “Bt cotton did make a positive contribution in India” by reducing predations by the American bollworm, “the technology’s benefits have been modest and largely ephemeral… Bt seeds’ positive effects on spraying were fleeting. Countrywide yields have not improved in 13 years, and Indian cotton farmers today are spending more per hectare on insecticide than they did before Bt began to spread.” 9

Will new GM crops reduce pesticide use?

The European Commission has claimed that new GM techniques (“new genomic techniques” or NGTs) such as gene editing can reduce the use of pesticides in agriculture by enabling the development of more resilient plants. It has used this claim to justify its proposal to remove certain NGT plants from the requirements of the EU’s GMO regulations (risk assessment, full traceability, and labelling).14

However, according to a report by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), out of the new GM plants that were classified as close to commercialisation, the largest trait group – six out of 16 plants – was herbicide-tolerant.65 These GM plants will continue the trajectory of older-style GM herbicide-tolerant crops, of increasing herbicide use.66

Will new GM techniques like gene editing offer crops that are resistant to pests and diseases, thereby reducing pesticide use? A scientific analysis suggests not, at least for the foreseeable future. The analysis examined the EU’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), including pesticide reduction, linked them with relevant plant traits, and reviewed existing research and field trials with gene-edited crop plants for evidence that their intended traits were able to fulfil the sustainability goals.

One of the two traits that the researchers focused on was resistance to fungal pathogens, a trait that could reduce pesticide use. They found that no new GM plants with resistance to multiple fungal pathogens – which alone could confer resilient disease resistance and thus reduce fungicide use – are close to commercialisation. They concluded that “developing new plants with modified traits will not be sufficient to reach food security or adaption to climatic changes in a short time frame”.67

A report by the non-profit organisation Foodwatch investigated the pesticide reduction claim for new GMOs and found it baseless. The report found that:

  • Almost all pests, weeds, and diseases can be prevented by a diverse crop rotation.
  • Even if new GM disease-resistant varieties are produced, the necessary development and testing could take decades. So new GM techniques cannot provide quick solutions to these problems.
  • Almost 80% of the EU’s pesticide use comprises herbicides and fungicides, and there are no GM solutions available or in development that could substantially reduce these uses.

The report says, “When it comes to pesticide reduction in the European Union, the potential of these genetic engineering technologies seems to be currently nearly zero.” 68

Companies

GM herbicide-tolerance traits and crops have been developed by Monsanto (now Bayer), Pioneer Hi Bred and Dow (both now Corteva), Syngenta, and BASF. GM Bt traits and crops have been developed by Syngenta, Bayer, Pioneer Hi Bred, Monsanto, BASF, and Dow and DuPont (both now Corteva).

Patents

GM Bt trait and crop patents are dominated by Syngenta, Bayer, Pioneer Hi Bred, Monsanto, BASF, Dow, and DuPont.16 GM herbicide-tolerant trait and crop patents are dominated by Monsanto, Pioneer Hi Bred, Syngenta, BASF, and Dow.15

Patents on glyphosate-tolerant soybeans

From the 1990s, Monsanto had owned the patents on the GM Roundup Ready trait in GM glyphosate-tolerant soybeans, the most widely planted GM crop globally. But the last Monsanto and Bayer patents protecting glyphosate-tolerant Roundup Ready soybeans expired in 2015. The authors of an analysis commented, “This opens up a very big market for generic soybean.”69

Patents on multi-herbicide-tolerance

The emergence of glyphosate-resistant weeds means that GM plants that are only tolerant to glyphosate are no longer commercially appealing. This has led to companies patenting methods for genetically engineering crops with tolerance to other and multiple herbicides. For example, Monsanto has an active patent on dicamba and glyphosate-tolerance in GM soybeans.70 Bayer has a patent on a GM soybean engineered to tolerate isoxaflutole as well as glyphosate.71

A patent search for “Dow + herbicide + tolerance + plants” on the lens.org patents database, restricted to active and pending status, brings up several thousand patents,72 including a Dow/Corteva-owned patent on genes conferring tolerance to 2,4-D and other types of herbicide.73

The mixtures of herbicides and other chemicals that GM herbicide-tolerant plants are designed to be grown with are also patented: for example, “drift reduction adjuvants” intended to prevent Dow’s Enlist herbicides from drifting off-target;74 and pesticide mixtures designed as “tank mixes” for farmers to spray.75

New GM techniques and patents

Will gene editing and other new GM techniques open up the patent ownership landscape for GM herbicide-tolerant plants? It seems unlikely. A search for active and pending patents relating to “herbicide + tolerance + gene + editing + plants” turns up over 12,000 records, with the field being dominated by Pioneer Hi Bred (Corteva) and Bayer/Monsanto.76 However, as with patents on older-style GM plants, in many cases herbicide tolerance traits are not the primary focus of the patent but are included as optional “extras” in plants primarily engineered to express other traits.

An analysis of the value of sales of the four largest pesticide/seed companies (Bayer, Syngenta, Corteva, and BASF) by product type reveals that the sales value of pesticides outweighs that of seeds.77 These pesticide-manufacturing companies are also the main developers of seeds produced with new GM techniques. This suggests that they will not abandon their main revenue stream by producing seeds that thrive under reduced agrochemical use – even if such seeds were technically possible to develop, which remains unproven.

Author: Claire Robinson. Reviewer: Jonathan Matthews. Scientific reviewers: Anonymous PhD; Dr Ray Seidler. 

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Last updated on June 22, 2025