Ezra Leary

   This is a very good start on the first writing assignment.  
   You have done an excellent job, for the most part, on the 
   "they say" part.  

   I have made a number of suggestions for rewording
   or rewriting things directly on a printout of the 
   paper.  Ask me what I meant if the markings are not
   clear.  One general word of advice: phrases like 
   "X is a complete turnaround from Y" (page 2) would be 
   fine in everyday speech.  They seem a little bit informal 
   to me for this sort of writing, though.  See suggested
   rewording.  

   Comments:

   1.  This list of benefits of GMO crops is right on the nose
   as a description of the claimed improvements brought by 
   their adoption.  You might want to make it clear that it
   is GMO supporters that are making claims like this though.
   I would count Greenbaum and Gerstein in that group for 
   the most part, so you could attribute this to them rather
   than making what looks like a simple assertion.  The last
   one, "herbicide/pesticide runoff," makes an interesting 
   connection with the Laskawy article too, because if pests
   develop resistance to pesticides and weeds develop resistance
   to herbicides, then that problem could reappear and get even
   more severe.

   2.  Look at Laskawy's argument here again.  I think his 
   point was that people have chosen to use many of GMO crops
   to feed animals (especially beef cattle) rather than people.
   That is not an efficient or sustainable way to provide food
   for human consumption.  It also leads to rather unhealthy diets:
   we're over-reliant on meat and do not eat enough vegetables and 
   fruits.

   3.  It's not just lower prices.  Laskawy does not go into 
   this in detail, but some of Monsanto's and Syngenta's business
   practices are designed to keep tight control over the GMO
   crops they develop.  For instance, when farmers buy seed for 
   GMO varieties of a crop, they are usually in effect
   only leasing the seeds for one year by the way the companies
   have set up their business contracts.  Any new seed the plants
   produce that year remains the property of the business, and
   the farmers cannot use it to plant in following years.

   PS:  One of the main points of the Laskawy article
   is that increased resistance to pesticides and herbicides 
   is negating the benefits of GMO crops.  The interesting
   point here is that that resistance develops naturally 
   through evolution.  In effect, the genomes of the
   pests and the weeds are changing in response to 
   our genetic modification of the crops.  Some people
   compare the situation to an arms race where neither
   side can ever gain a decisive advantage.