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Written by Truth About Trade & Technology
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Friday, 17 October 2008 12:37 |
Des Moines Register
Original Publish Date: October 16, 2008
Prairie City, Ia. - About three dozen international delegates to the World Food Prize symposium came to Gordon Wassenaar's farm Wednesday to see proof of biotechnology's effectiveness.
"You've heard all about the bad floods and other troubles we had with Mother Nature this year in Iowa," Wassenaar told the gathering that retreated to his work shed to escape the rain. "But our corn and soybean yields look like they may be the second-largest in history, and biotech crops are the main reason."
Genetically engineered corn and soybeans now account for 80 percent or more of plantings in Iowa and other Midwestern states. Nationwide, biotech crops are planted on 145 million acres, more than half the land in the world under biotech cultivation, according to U.S. Agriculture Department figures. Argentina is second in biotech acreage with 47.2 million acres.
While the United States has embraced biotech crops since they first became widely marketed a decade ago, much of the rest of the world has resisted for a variety of reasons, including concerns about health and environmental impacts and fear of domination of the world's agriculture by a few companies in developed nations.
"My country allows biotech crops to be imported, but we can't grow it ourselves," said Alex Kholopov of Russia, who works for the U.S. Grains Council in his native country. "It's stupid. Our yields are only about half of what you get in the U.S., and we could do so much better."
Evelyn Correa Sanchez of Mexico's Ministry of Economy said her country still doesn't allow genetically modified crops and also has to import about 40 percent of its food supply.
"It's important for my country to learn more about biotech crops," she said.
Ahmed Bahi El-Din of Egypt's Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation said his country now allows genetically modified corn and the results have been dramatic.
"We have been working with Monsanto for about 10 years on different corn seeds," El-Din said. "We haven't done the same yet for soybeans."
The field trip from Des Moines to Prairie City was arranged by the U.S. Grains Council with an assist from the Iowa Corn Promotion Board. Several Iowa farmers showed up to talk crops with the foreign visitors.
Wassenaar told the group that agriculture has had "a very trying year. We've had the floods and a late growing season, rising input costs and now a declining market for corn and soybeans. The only solution to all problems is more production, and thanks to biotech we now produce double the yields we got 15 or 20 years ago."
Several farmers said they expected yields above 200 bushels per acre for corn and 50 bushels for soybeans.
Dean Taylor, who also farms in the Prairie City area, said 80 percent of his corn crop is genetically modified and that early results of his corn harvest show yields in excess of 200 bushels per acre. Iowa is expected to average 172 bushels per acre this year, according to the USDA, and the U.S. average corn yield is 152 bushels per acre.
He told visitors, many of whom represent countries that buy U.S. corn and soybeans: "We appreciate your business."
In the manner of farmers everywhere, they talked about crop prices and the current worldwide economic turmoil. Miguel Barandiaran of Peru's National Institute of Agricultural Innovation asked the American farmers how they would fare in the current uncertain economic atmosphere and noted the recent drops in U.S. corn and soybean prices.
Wassenaar said: "In the last two years, farmers have made very good money. But costs are going up, and now prices have been cut in half from what we saw last summer. Even six weeks ago we were on top of the world. Since then we've gone down right along with the stock market."
Farmer Julius Schaaf of Randolph said he was concerned about the world credit markets.
"The world runs on credit," Schaaf said. "Right now we have good credit here in Iowa. But we need it all over the world."
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