New Study Links GM Crops to Higher Pesticide Use, Defying Industry Claims
Updated
A new study published in the Journal of Agrarian Change finds that genetically modified (GM or GMO) seeds have led to substantial increases in the amount of pesticides used on agricultural crops. This directly contradicts the claims made by agrochemical companies like Bayer, who have funded studies showing that GM crops decrease pesticide and herbicide use.
This latest study comes amidst ongoing litigation Bayer is facing for harms allegedly caused by Roundup, which uses glyphosate as its primary ingredient. The HighWire reported recently about the company’s lobbying attempts to get liability protections at the state level. CEO Bill Anderson said the company is nearing the end of the road if these liability protections are not provided due to the billions of dollars the company has paid out in lawsuit settlements.
The latest study describes the Jevons paradox as it relates to the agricultural efficiency of using pesticides. The authors wrote, “The Jevons paradox describes how increased efficiency in the use of a resource can paradoxically increase rather than reduce its overall consumption. In agricultural systems, efficiency is confounded by market forces, farmer decisions, and evolutionary and ecological limits.”
The authors also reference a 2021 study regarding the efficiency of glyphosate and herbicide-tolerant (HT) crops. It states, “The combination of glyphosate and HT crops initially improved weed management, as farmers could stop using other herbicides and switch to cheaper broad-spectrum glyphosate. The result was a dramatic escalation in glyphosate application, particularly in soybean cultivation. Among US farmers, the biggest sowers of HT crops by far, the number of soybean acres treated with glyphosate jumped from 9.2 million to 113 million between the pre-HT year of 1994 and 2018. During this time, the number of soybean hectares rose from 24.9 million to 36.1 million, and the percentage of area treated with glyphosate rose from 15% to 87% (Benbrook and Benbrook 2021).”
Bayer’s website states that “genetically modified plants are better able to protect themselves” so “they require less pesticide.” In a 2020 Bayer-funded study published in the journal GM Crops and Food, the authors concluded that GM insect-resistant and herbicide-tolerant technology reduced pesticide applications by 8.3% and “decreased the environmental impact associated with herbicide and insecticide use on these crops by 18.5%.”
The study notes that the material in the paper is based on the independent views of the authors and is not influenced by Bayer. The study’s authors, Graham Brookes and Peter Barfoot, are also from the agriculture consulting firm PG Economics co-founders. Bayer funded the study, which was written by Bayer consultants and published in a journal that exists only to publish research related to GM crops.
The authors of the 2025 study conclude that the promise of agricultural efficiency through the use of GM crops has proved to be paradoxical. They call GM crops an “efficiency trap” that focuses on technological inputs rather than modifying land use to improve efficiency. As a result, GM crops create a dependency that requires more inputs.
The authors wrote, “Despite initial phases where GM crops reduced chemical applications on individual farms, farmers soon applied greater volumes of pesticides to these crops. As predicted, a technology that purports to reduce the consumption of a resource through efficiency actually increases it. However, these crops also intensified the use of other agrichemicals such as fertilizers and fossil fuels because they are integral to the input-intensive monocultures that are supported and protected by powerful agrochemical companies and national policies. Even as insects and weeds evolve resistance to these seed-chemical packages, repeatedly demonstrating their unsustainability, innovation remains focused on creating new kinds of GM crops rather than farming differently.”
Host Del Bigtree interviewed Ian Somerhalder, actor, environmental activist, and Executive Producer of Kiss the Ground and Common Ground. Somerhalder talked about the film and explained, “It exposes the money pipeline from the agrochemical companies into the universities in this country. And what you learn is, these agrochemical companies have been financing all of the agricultural university curriculum in this country for 40 years.”
Somerhalder’s films are streaming on Amazon Prime and break down the concepts of regenerative agriculture, a holistic system that builds soil health. Industrial agriculture, in contrast, relies heavily upon monoculture systems and it is resource intensive.
The HighWire has reported about the harms of glyphosate and other agrochemicals, including the billions that Bayer has paid out in lawsuit settlements and losses. Friends of the Earth also released a report concluding that a new formulation of Roundup without glyphosate is 45 times more toxic than the glyphosate version.
Moms Across America has started a petition to ask President Donald Trump, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to ban 84 pesticides/herbicides already banned in Europe, China, and Brazil.
The language of the petition states, “Historically, in the USA, our EPA has cherry-picked studies from the pesticide industry and ignored independent studies and epigenetic studies. It has not required long-term animal studies with blood analysis on any final formulations for approval of any agrochemicals.”
Zen Honeycutt, founder and director of Moms Across America, has appeared on The HighWire multiple times to discuss chemicals in Girl Scout Cookies, heavy metals in baby formula, and toxins found in fast food.