It's not just the effects of the genetic engineering alterations themselves that are an issue, but the whole system surrounding many of these crops themselves. I am skeptical of genetic engineering technology and think it should be approached with great care (which it usually isn't), but I'm not convinced those techniques are inherently evil.
But the system they are involved in is totally messed up. The way the patent laws are structured for example. The way oversight is lax or non-existent. The way profit and high yield are prioritized over public safety, nutritional quality, and sustainability. It doesn't have to be this way with GE crops--but it is!
The worst example is Round-Up Ready crops--some of the most widely grown non-OG crops in this country. Which have resulted in more use of the herbicide (glyphosate). So the weeds became more resistent. So farmers had to use MORE glyphosate. Round Up (glyphosate) is also used to "chemically dry" seed crops in the field (spraying shortly before harvest), making them easier to harvest mechanically.
(Glyphosate also sterilizes the soil, because it also kills all bacteria as well as plants. And dead soil exacerbates all your farming problems further, forcing you to rely entirely increasingly on chemical inputs to keep plants alive rather than the complex chemistry of the living soil.)
You would think that a lot of this chemical would be ending up in our food, which it is. But rather than putting a stop to this madness, the government recently increased the allowable amounts of glyphosate in food and feed crops instead. Thanks for the regulation, guys--glad you got our backs! (that's sarcasm, in case it didn't read...
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The limits are different for different types of crops, but I believe the limits allowed now are something like 30 ppm for cereal grains, for example. What does that mean? Well, 1 ppm is more than enough to cause health issues like hormone disruptions and chronic inflamation in animals (including humans), so you tell me. And BTW, the allowable limit in animals feeds is something like 400 ppm (yes, that's four hundred, not a typo)
That's just one reason organic is not "overrated." I could certainly give more reasons, but whole books have been written on the subject and I can't go there on a simple internet thread.
IMHO I honestly DON'T understand why people use these crops! Obviously it's NOT the only way to farm, when there are thousands of organic farmers making a fine living off the land, growing nutritionally sound food that makes people healthy and doesn't threaten public health (including their own health and the health of their families and employees), and doesn't compromise long term sustainability, but enhances it. I mean seriously, to say there's no other alternative to chemical farming is just absurd. Sure, transitioning to organic is sometimes hard (because you have to rebuild dead soil, transition to new practices, invest in new infrastructure in some case) but people do it all the time.
And speaking of which, isn't it also kind of telling that you never hear about people transitioning the OTHER direction, from OG to chemical or GE? Living proof that few in their right minds considers going back to chemicals once they know better...
I'm not saying people who farm with GE patented crops, synthetic fertilizer and chemical pesticides are stupid--not at all--most of them are of course smart, good people who think they are doing the right thing. They are also stuck in an exploitative system that doesn't really care about their welfare and wants to keep them there. And lot of them learned to farm that way and don't know any better, or are afraid to think beyond it, because they are sunk so deep into that system. I get it. And I don't judge them as people. But all the more reason to repeat: saying that they don't have better alternatives isn't fair to anybody--least of all them.
(edited for typos)
