Exposed: The Great GM Crops Myth
By Geoffrey Lean
The Independent UK

Sunday 20 April 2008

Major new study shows that modified soya produces 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent.

Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.

The study - carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt - has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.

Professor Barney Gordon, of the university's department of agronomy, said he started the research - reported in the journal Better Crops - because many farmers who had changed over to the GM crop had "noticed that yields are not as high as expected even under optimal conditions". He added: "People were asking the question 'how come I don't get as high a yield as I used to?'"

He grew a Monsanto GM soybean and an almost identical conventional variety in the same field. The modified crop produced only 70 bushels of grain per acre, compared with 77 bushels from the non-GM one.

The GM crop - engineered to resist Monsanto's own weedkiller, Roundup - recovered only when he added extra manganese, leading to suggestions that the modification hindered the crop's take-up of the essential element from the soil. Even with the addition it brought the GM soya's yield to equal that of the conventional one, rather than surpassing it.

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.

A similar situation seems to have happened with GM cotton in the US, where the total US crop declined even as GM technology took over. (See graphic above.)

Monsanto said yesterday that it was surprised by the extent of the decline found by the Kansas study, but not by the fact that the yields had dropped. It said that the soya had not been engineered to increase yields, and that it was now developing one that would.

Critics doubt whether the company will achieve this, saying that it requires more complex modification. And Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington - and who was one of the first to predict the current food crisis - said that the physiology of plants was now reaching the limits of the productivity that could be achieved.

A former champion crop grower himself, he drew the comparison with human runners. Since Roger Bannister ran the first four-minute mile more than 50 years ago, the best time has improved only modestly . "Despite all the advances in training, no one contemplates a three-minute mile."

Last week the biggest study of its kind ever conducted - the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development - concluded that GM was not the answer to world hunger.

Professor Bob Watson, the director of the study and chief scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when asked if GM could solve world hunger, said: "The simple answer is no."

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/042408EB.shtml

It's good that the world has the forsight to protect themselves legally from these Biotech corporations...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn957-...ent-threat.html

World's food crops avoid patent threat


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/...80122203028.htm
Thousands Of Crop Varieties Depart For Arctic Seed Vault

Rather that manipulate Frankenfoods, it is wiser to explore what nature has already provided..and see what crops would benefit..suit various environments..there would also be the added health benefits of adding new foods.. variety, to the diets of the people.





A humorous but valid look at our world's situation...

I truncated your quote.

This is an excellent commentary on the evolution of the modern corporation - including the aspect that corporations can now hold "title" and "patent" to DNA and "life" itself: The Corporation at IMDb; Mininova Torrent: The Corporation

I'm a staunch laizzez faire capitalist, and the film tends a little left of center for my tastes. Nevertheless, it's an excellent essay. In general I teach my students that corporations, like any other intelligent "living thing" requires ethics and morality to add benefit. The Documentary essay shows that, in general, corporations are psychopathic...

Enjoy the film! It answers many questions and provokes a great deal of consideration.

Nudge, nudge. I just wanted to bring this back to the first page...

This should be immediately clear to everyone. The soybean was not modified to have a higher yield per plant, it was modified to be able to survive Roundup weedkiller!

I am guessing that this study (which says it used identical fields of Soybeans) didn't spray Roundup all over the Soybeans. If Roundup weedkiller would have been sprayed on them then the non GM soybeans would have had a much lower yield (due to plants dying from the weedkiller) and the GM would have a higher yield (because it would survive the weedkiller and produce more yield in a weed-free field than in the weed-choked "study").

Think of it like this - there are two sprinters. A sprinter that doesn't wear an athletic cup (the non-GM soybean) and a sprinter that wears a cup (the GM). In a race where the runners don't get kicked in the nuts by all the spectators (ie no weeds in the controlled growing field), the runner without the cup will win because he is unencumbered. But when the spectators start kicking sack, the runner with the cup will win every time.

As someone who cashed in big time on genetically engineering various plant species and now funds his own research I can assure you folks that GM crops will be the future.

Crops that are resistant to natural disasters, predators and so on will have to be developed if we are to make it out of the 21st century by avoiding food shortages. The advantages of genetically enhancing crops by far out weigh the negative aspects and breakthroughs are made all the time.

It takes time to perfect things like this it's not exactly child's play folks.

Generally, I believe that "god" accepts humans as equal. My main concern with GM is this: when we do it, it's over the course of 20 or so years (and for us that's a long time and we naively believe that we actually learned something) but when Nature does it, it's tested over the course of hundreds of thousands or millions of years. I'm sorry but I just have a bias against the concept that we are capable of outdoing Nature. Kinda like the idea that modern civilization, our chemicals, preservatives, EM generators, and way of life, etc. are breeding cancer. I'm all for Man and advancement. I just don't think we've arrived where we can say we have one up on Nature.
But kudos for your work and your brilliance. I really mean that.

I in no means believe the genetic engineering goes against nature in any way simply speeding up the process.

The whole rationale for genetic engineering is to keep up with nature which is changing to rapidly for various plant species to keep up. By using our knowledge and abilities we in turn help ensure our survival.