With all this talk about gm crops underperforming, I think people forget that the common GM crops were not modified to increase yields. This is also something the right forgets when it trumpets GM crops as some great solution for this food crisis.
Fundamentally, GM crops are easier to manage. Last week in one of my classes, some of the students from farms were talking about how they used to have the arduous job of "walking the beans": meandering out in the soybean fields in the hot summer sun, looking for weeds to spray. Now they just douse the entire field every once in awhile. They brag about how nice their fields look.
To contrast, managing an intercropped organic field requires intense labor and finely honed knowledge.
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I think it's more accurate to say GM crops were created for the sole purpose of increasing corporate profits.
Most contracts farmers enter into when growing Roundup ready crops, require they buy brand name Roundup from their seed supplier. The seeds are more expensive, the chemicals are more expensive, and the yields are only par. Only the seed companies see any benefit.
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