Exposed: the great GM crops myth (major Univ. of Kansas study, reported in UK paper)

[seafan]

Just another story blacked out by our so-called "news media" on this side of the pond...


Exposed: the great GM crops myth

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Sunday, 20 April 2008

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 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.

.....

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."

[Tumbulu]

1. Thanks for posting this.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. I would not be surprised...

If some very clever people had some very clever thoughts regarding this fact and decided that less yield=higher prices. And that is good.

[TalkingDog]

5. The real scheme is hybridization

You can't save the seeds and grow again next year.

I know a fellow with a pure strain of tobacco. Back when RJR was buying up all the seed and "giving" the farmers hybrids, this fellow's father refused. Now tobacco farmers have to buy seed or plants if they want to grow tobacco.

Also GM crops and some hybrids require fertilizers and chemical treatments that !surprise! cost money.

You control a population when you control the food.

That's it in a nutshell.

[RufusTFirefly]

3. Sure to be big news the world over

Not!

Corporations rule. Truth is inconvenient.

[OneBlueSky]

4. GM crops have little to do with increasing yields or staving off pests . . .

their true purpose is to give corporations a way to patent the one thing left on earth that they don't yet control -- life . . . by patenting seeds, they can prevent centuries-old farming techniques that rely on seed saving by requiring farmers to buy new seed each year . . . even in Iraq the U.S. has issued a directive that prohibits seed-saving by farmers . . .

GM crops are possibly the largest and most egregious wealth grab in the history of humankind -- and it all started here in the U.S. with the approval of our corporate-controlled courts . . . what a great humanitarian legacy! . . .

[AdHocSolver]

6. If we allow it, unregulated capitalism will destroy life on earth. n/t

[AdHocSolver]

7. The Bible says "Be fruitful and multiply". Monsanto says "Only with our patented seeds". nt

[SupplySideLiberal]

8. Thanks for posting.

Monsanto and ADM have too much pull for this topic to be honestly addressed by federal regulators. I don't think you'll even see it fairly discussed in the media, given the massive ad revenues from corporate ag.

Personally, I make a particular point of avoiding genetically modified foods whenever possible.

[truedelphi]

10. It is now sadly known that at least 28% of all long grain rice, even rice labelled

Organic, has rice that is GMO mixed in with it.

Pollinisation cannot be legislated. The GMO genie is out of the box and blowing in the wind.

[truedelphi]

9. RoundUp contains Formaldehyde. And Formaldehyde

Has been proven to result in tiny stems, smaller leaf material, less nutrients in plant matter, etc.

And of course this matters because GMO crops have to be sprayed with massive amounts of RoundUp.

But Monsanto basically IS the government.

So none of this matters.

[seasat]

11. Lower yields from GM make senses to me from a biological perspective

I'm not an expert on this but this would be my reasoning. GM crops produce extra proteins or other organic molecules to protect against a disease or pest. This costs the plant some energy and nutrients that would normally go into other phases of growth. Unless the condition that the extra compounds protect against are present and overwhelming the non-GM crops, the GM crop is at a disadvantage to the non-GM crop.