I’ve been farming for long enough that not much surprises me anymore. Last week, however, I did something previously unimaginable: I put in a big order for fertilizer a full year...
For the last three years there were repeated discussions about the influence that a new U.S. farm bill would have on the Doha Round of WTO trade policy negotiations and vice...
Longer and shorter term ideas to help feed a hungry world
Posted by Chad Binder
Sunday, 04 May 2008
A few recent news stories caught my attention on the issues of food shortages and aid and some related potential short and longer term solutions.
There was a stark difference in the coverage of President Bush’s proposal for more food aid. The Financial Times May 2 article was “Bush backs modified crops to ease crisis” while the New York Times piece also from May 2 was “Bush Seeks More Food Aid for Poor Countries.” The NYT mentioned the support for genetically modified crops only once in passing. The FT focused on it by including extensive description and quotes - [President Bush] stepped up pressure on the European Union and other governments to lift restrictions on genetically modified crops to help ease the crisis in global food supplies… [he] said modified crops offered a - partial solution to the food crisis gripping some parts of the world because of their high yields and resistance to drought and disease. “These crops are safe,” he said, “and they hold the promise of producing more food for more people.” But it’s striking how the New York Times ignored that critical aspect of his remarks. I can only guess as to why their coverage was vastly different, but it was and did a disservice to coverage of something that might be one part of a longer term solution in feeding a hungry world.
The other item catching my attention was the May 2nd Wall Street Journal opinion piece “Africa Does Not Have to Starve” written by Dr. Norman Borlaug and Andrew Natsios. Borlaug of course led the “Green Revolution” and won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize, while Natsios was a former administrator of USAID (US Agency for International Development). They point out with “negotiations over the final shape of the [US] Farm Bill at a critical stage, Congress needs to change the foreign food-aid program and help avert this calamity. The Bush administration has urged, rightly, that [USAID] be allowed to buy food locally, particularly in Africa, instead of only American-grown food.” They list several examples to support their argument, including it cuts down on time and logistical issues, and it helps provide a larger market for small-scale, primarily subsistence, farmers.
The President made a solid argument in a role for genetically enhanced crops, which helps as a longer term solution. And if anything remotely positive comes out of a new Farm Bill in Congress, you could do worse than reforming the food aid programs to help alleviate problems in the short term. Borlaug and Natsios are precisely the right messengers since they know what can really help make a difference. Dr. Borlaug in particular is said to be responsible for saving more lives around the world through his efforts to increase food production. We’d do well to listen to his wisdom.
This has to be unhelpful to small, struggling farmers and prosperous alike; but it is vital to RR crops:
+ MONSANTO DOUBLES THE PRICE OF ROUNDUP A decade after Monsanto introduced GM seed that made crops immune to Roundup, the price of the herbicide has doubled in the last year. Monsanto's profit on corn seed has also doubled. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8957
While many studies have shown that GM foods pose serious health and contamination risks, a new study carried out for three years at the University of Kansas has shown that genetically modified crops also produce less food. This dispels the great corporate myth, perpetuated by the Department of Agriculture, that GM technology is necessary to solve world hunger. Professor Barney Gordon, of the university's department of agronomy, began the study when farmers who had switched over to the GM crop had noticed that even under optimal conditions their yields were not as high as expected. The yields of GM soybean were 10 percent less than those of an almost identical conventional variety grown in the same field.
The new study confirms earlier research at the University of Nebraska, which found that another Monsanto GM soya produced 6 per cent less than its closest conventional relative, and 11 per cent less than the best non-GM soya available.
The Nebraska study suggested that two factors are at work. First, it takes time to modify a plant and, while this is being done, better conventional ones are being developed. This is acknowledged even by the fervently pro-GM US Department of Agriculture, which has admitted that the time lag could lead to a "decrease" in yields.
But the fact that GM crops did worse than their near-identical non-GM counterparts suggest that a second factor is also at work, and that the very process of modification depresses productivity. The new Kansas study both confirms this and suggests how it is happening.
The Kansas study suggested that genetic modification hindered the soya's ability to absorb manganese from the soil. However, even when additional manganese was added, the GM soya yield was only able to equal that of the conventional crop, failing to surpass it as promised.
Low yields have also been seen with other GM plants, such as cotton, where the total US crop declined as GM technology took over the industry. To counter the embarrassing results, Monsanto falsely claimed that the GM soybeans used in the study were not modified to increase yields, but said it was now developing one that would. Last week, the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development concluded that GM was not the answer to world hunger.
http://www.gmfreeireland.org/news/ scroll down to May 9 entry
Let's not forget the increased exposure of farm workers to glyphosate and the increased residue on crops. You have to wonder why you never hear the other side of the story. Find information here:
http://www.geocities.com/opaq2001/glyphosate.htm
In California, where there is a mandatory system of reporting pesticide poisoning, Glyphosate is the third most common cause of pesticide illness in farm workers. It is the most common form of reported pesticide poisoning in landscape gardeners.
Two separate studies in Sweden have linked exposure to Glyphosate to Hairy Cell Leukemia and Non Hodgkins Lymphoma. These types of cancers were extremely rare, however non-Hodgkins lymphoma is the most rapidly increasing cancer in the Western world. It has risen by 73% in the USA since 1973. Another study has found a higher incidence of Parkinson disease amongst farmers who used herbicides, including glyphosate.
Other studies show that Glyphosate and commercial herbicides containing Glyphosate cause a range of cell mutations and damage to cell DNA. These types of changes are usually regarded as precursors to cancer and birth defects.
Reproductive Effects
Studies show that exposure to Glyphosate is associated with a range of reproductive effects in humans and other species. Research from Ontario, Canada found that a father's exposure to Glyphosate was linked to an increase in miscarriages and premature births in farm families.
Glyphosate caused a decrease in the sperm count of rats and an increase in abnormal and dead sperms in rabbits. Pregnant rabbits exposed to Glyphosate had a decrease in the weight of their babies.
Citing decreased yields and increased pesticide use in gmo crops. How will they save the world? http://www.gmfreeireland.org/news/index.php
Data consistently show that GM crops reduce profit for farmers and increase pesticide use
GM crops are neither profitable for farmers nor do they result in less herbicide use. Data from the USDA and US universities have consistently shown that GM crops gave no increase in crops yields or profitability, and more often a reduction in both, while increasing rather than decreasing the use of pesticides (reviewed in The Case for A GM-Free Sustainable World [6]. Both the two major GM traits that make up nearly 100 percent of all GM crops, Bt and glyphosate tolerance, have decisively failed at least as far back as 2005 [7, 8] (Scientists Confirm Failures of Bt-Crops and Roundup Ready Sudden Death, Superweeds, Allergens..., SiS 28), and promoting them can be a recipe for ecological and agronomic disaster.
The Friends of the Earth report [9] released January 2008 confirms those findings. It highlights the more than 15-fold increase in the use of glyphosate herbicide on the major crops - soybeans, corn and cotton - from 1994 (when GM crops were first introduced) to 2005, based on data from the USDA. The increase in glyphosate is not compensated by a decrease in other herbicides. While farmers growing glyphosate tolerant Roundup Ready crops initially used lower quantities of herbicides other than glyphosate, that trend soon reversed. Increasingly, farmers have found it necessary to apply larger amounts of both glyphosate and other herbicides to kill weeds that have become resistant to glypohsate. From 2002 to 2006, the use of the second leading soya herbicide 2,3-D more than doubled from 1.39 to 3.67 million lbs, while glyphosate use on soybeans increased by 29 million lbs (a 43 percent rise). Similarly, glyphosate on corn increased 5-fold from 2002 to 2005 simultaneously with a rise of atrazine by nearly 7 million lbs (12 percent up). Atrazine, the most heavily used herbicide on corn in the US, is banned in Europe because of its links to serious health problems such as endocrine disruption, breast and prostate cancer.
Finally, a 4-year study just completed by researchers at the University of Georgia and the USDA concluded that the use of transgenic cotton does not provide increased returns to the farmer [10]. They found that no transgenic technology system produced significantly greater returns than a non-transgenic system in any year or location.
Here is more info on decreased yields and increased pesticide demand--fortunately you can buy it from your biotech seed source--I ask you: who really benefits from gm seeds? The starving in Africa or elsewhere or Biotech Multinationals?
Biotech reports spark debate over potential benefits By Laura Crowley 13-Feb-2008
"Friends of the Earth International's GMO coordinator in Nigeria, Nnimmo Bassey said: "GM crops have failed to deliver the long-promised benefits of the biotech industry. Instead, increased pesticide use caused by these crops threatens the environment and communities around the world."
The environmental campaigners also said the growing use of biotech applications has not increased yields nor will they help combat hunger. Moreover, the organization said GMOs are being rejected in Europe, and their popularity is not increasing. ...... It said that the majority of GM crops currently commercialized are destined for animal feed in industrialized nations rather than for feeding the poor. GM crops, as part of the intensive farming model, contribute to small farmers losing their land and livelihoods and do not alleviate poverty.
Moreover, it said GM crops do not yield more than other crops. It attributed the US Department of Agriculture as saying there is no GM crop on the market that has been modified to increase yields. It considers the main factors influencing crop yield to be weather, irrigation and fertilizers, soil quality and farmers' management skills. ......
However, Friends of the Earth claimed that GM crops are failing in Europe, with less than 2 percent of the total maize grown in the EU being genetically modified. Furthermore, it pointed out that five EU countries have now banned Monsanto's maize because of growing evidence of its negative environmental impact.
It added that a review of biotechnology in the European Union in 2007 suggested the GM crop sector is not performing well.
Oddly enough, the USDA and IAASTD numbers state that genetically engineered crops have up to a 10% decrease in yield over conventionally grown crops and require more pesticide applications, especially over time. Perhaps, gmo crops are partially responsible for the shortages of food crops when you look at it that way, 10% of all the gm acres is a lot of food.
info sources: By contrast, the US Department of Agriculture's review of 10 years of GM crop cultivation in the States concluded, "currently available GM crops do not increase the yield potential... In fact, yield may even decrease if the varieties used to carry the herbicide tolerant or insect-resistant genes are not the highest yielding cultivars". (Fernandez-Cornejo, J. & Caswell, Genetically Engineered Crops in the United States, USDA/ERS Economic Information Bulletin No. 11, April 2006) http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/eib11/eib11.pdf An earlier USDA report (2002) also noted that GM crops do not increase yield potential and may reduce yields (p21). That report also says, "Perhaps the biggest issue raised by these results is how to explain the rapid adoption of GE crops when farm financial impacts appear to be mixed or even negative." (p24) (Jorge Fernandez-Cornejo and William D. McBride, Adoption of Bioengineered Crops, Agricultural Economic Report No. AER810, May 2002) http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aer810
Biotechnology - The use of GM crops, where the technology is not contained, is contentious, the UN says. Data on some crops indicate highly variable yield gains in some places and declines in others.
I’ve been farming for long enough that not much surprises me anymore. Last week, however, I did something previously unimaginable: I put in a big order for fertilizer a full year...
For the last three years there were repeated discussions about the influence that a new U.S. farm bill would have on the Doha Round of WTO trade policy negotiations and vice...
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