Biodiversity
Biotech On Trial
Published June 24, 2009 @ 11:56PM PT
So a court has once again ruled against GE/GMO alfalfa. Jill Richardson writes:
Two years ago, a district court ruled that the USDA did not do its homework before approving genetically engineered alfalfa. The USDA approved GE alfalfa without a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which the court ruled was a violation of U.S. law. Last year, the Ninth Circuit Court upheld that decision and its resulting ban on GE alfalfa (pending a full EIS).
... Following that decision, Monsanto Company and Forage Genetics (who entered into the suit as Defendant-Intervenors) requested the appellate court to rehear the case. The news today is that the court denied their request and thus reaffirmed the earlier decision in full. ...
There were the findings in that first alfalfa case, as reported by the Center for Food Safety:
* The judge found that plaintiffs' concerns that Roundup Ready alfalfa will contaminate natural and organic alfalfa are valid, stating that USDA's opposing arguments were "not convincing" and do not demonstrate the "hard look" required by federal environmental laws. The ruling went on to note that "&For those farmers who choose to grow non-genetically engineered alfalfa, the possibility that their crops will be infected with the engineered gene is tantamount to the elimination of all alfalfa; they cannot grow their chosen crop."
* USDA argued that, based on a legal technicality, the agency did not have to address the economic risks to organic and conventional growers whose alfalfa crop could be contaminated by Monsanto's GE variety. But the judge found that USDA "overstates the law." ...
Shorter version: A federal judge ruled that crop contamination by genetically engineered foods is a serious problem and the pro-Monsanto USDA argued that it shouldn't matter.
Anyone making the stupid argument that contamination doesn't happen? No. Because the discussion happened in a federal court and there, as opposed to the venue provided by the comments of this blog, you can go to jail for lying.
You may have noticed that the particular breed they were talking about was Roundup Ready, a spin off of their many popular Roundup/glyphosate-resistant crops. Glyphosate seems, according to data accepted by government regulators, to be safer for humans and animals than other pesticides.
However, as I noted not too long ago, pure glyphosate isn't sprayed on crops. It's mixed with ingredients that, because they aren't directly responsible for the desired effect of killing plants, don't have to be listed on the label because they can legally be described as inert, or in other words, as having no effect.
Glyphosate is supposed to be safer for aquatic organisms because it tends to settle out of water in its pure form, but it's commonly mixed with chemicals whose sole purpose is to make it more water soluble, in which case it appears to be a hazard to aquatic life. As for the effects of Roundup's 'inert' ingredients on humans:
Used in yards, farms and parks throughout the world, Roundup has long been a top-selling weed killer. But now researchers have found that one of Roundup's inert ingredients can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells. ...
Surprise!
Thank goodness there's at least one less Roundup Ready crop on the market to be spreading this plague farther still.
(Photo credit: daryl_mitchell on Flickr.)
World According To Monsanto, pt 7, Informed Consent
Published June 24, 2009 @ 07:24AM PT
Would it be all right with you if your parents, if you are an adult on your own recognizance, were still allowed to decide what cities or towns you could live in? Would your answer be any different if your parents were real estate agents and would probably make good decisions?
Would it be all right with you if the government made up a national menu and required you to eat only that food to conform? Would your answer be any different if the menu contained your favorite foods?
Well, I think I'd have to say no on both counts, and in case of both contingencies.
Believing in self-determination, free will and informed consent as I do, I couldn't approve of such policies. This is the level of choice that I see being removed from each of us when the government refuses to require the labeling of transgenic foods.
By way of self-reported studies and captive university research laboratories whose future grant funding depends on the favor of the biotech industry, the FDA has approved numerous transgenic crops that are processed in the regular food supply and sold to an unsuspecting marketplace.
They've been allowed to patent self-replicating, living organisms and release them into the wild without the public even having a chance to debate the implications.
'Oh,' the biotech folks will say, and have said in the comments at this blog, 'but you can buy organic food.'
First, it's as ridiculous that I should have to pay a premium to have food that wasn't sprayed with poison in the first as that I should have to pay a premium in order to know what I'm eating. Second, I can't be sure that I know what I'm eating, not even if I buy organics.
World According to Monsanto, pt. 1
Published June 17, 2009 @ 01:20PM PT
At Monsanto's Genuity (TM) site, they say of their upcoming brand of corn that ...
... The drought-tolerance gene works by mitigating the impact of low soil-moisture content on the plant's physiology—enabling the corn plant to maintain metabolism for a longer period of time during drought stress.
Drought tolerant technology has the potential to improve on-farm productivity around the world. And it's coming soon.
They've even launched a water utilization learning center to talk about how their new trait is going to revolutionize farming. Or has the potential to revolutionize farming. Maybe. By about 6-10 percent.
From Joel K. Bourne Jr. writing in National Geographic, May 2009:
... So far, genetic breakthroughs that would free green revolution crops from their heavy dependence on irrigation and fertilizer have proved elusive. Engineering plants that can fix their own nitrogen or are resistant to drought "has proven a lot harder than they thought," says Pollan. Monsanto's Fraley predicts his company will have drought-tolerant corn in the U.S. market by 2012. But the increased yields promised during drought years are only 6 to 10 percent above those of standard drought-hammered crops.
And so a shift has already begun to small, underfunded projects scattered across Africa and Asia. Some call it agroecology, others sustainable agriculture, but the underlying idea is revolutionary: that we must stop focusing on simply maximizing grain yields at any cost and consider the environmental and social impacts of food production.
... Ackim Mhone's story is typical. By incorporating legumes into his rotation, he's doubled his corn yield on his small plot of land while cutting his fertilizer use in half. "That was enough to change the life of my family," Mhone says, and to enable him to improve his house and buy livestock. ...
Doubled yields from inexpensive ecological agriculture practices vs. 6-10% increases in yield during drought years from expensive, needy seeds that come with technology fees and end-user licensing agreements attached. It's a choice between making your soil naturally fertile and stripping its fertility through monocropping, then adding fertilizer back in.
Gosh, what a tough decision.
War on Evolution
Published June 13, 2009 @ 05:05AM PT
Those folks at Monsanto, always making with the funny:
MonsantoCo @ethicurean Unfortch some are resistant. We work with academics to figure out how to effectively combat resistance. http://bit.ly/10zPHs
F*ing hilarious.
Look, resistance is an evolutionary process, not a fixed f*ing trait. You can't end the development of resistance in short-lived, ubiquitous species like herbaceous perennials and crop pest insects unless you put a complete end to every single individual/mating pair of the species that's capable of reproduction. Can't be done.
And if it could be done, if we managed to make whole inconvenient species extinct, that would probably end up being an ecological disaster. You might be thinking, 'But Natasha, humans cause species to go extinct all the time. What do you mean it can't be done.' Here goes.
Large, waddling, flightless birds: extinctable.
Predators that depend on big, tasty, easy to spot herbivores: extinctable.
Enormous, slow-growing trees: extinctable.
Chemically sensitive amphibians: extinctable.
Cute, tiny mint plants that only live at the edges of seasonal, rain-filled ponds in a small part of California: extinctable.
Mosquitoes: like the poor, they will always be with us.
Mice: when we finally have space colonies, they will have mice.
Crabgrass: at the end of the world, when the sun is about to die and burn the inner planets to a crisp, there will be crabgrass.
Cockroaches: after the end of the world, when the sun has burned the inner planets to a crisp, a last few cockroaches may still be hanging around, licking at the crabgrass cinders.
Am I getting a pattern across? Pest organisms are likely to be exactly the most change-tolerant, widespread and prolific of species. Some of them will survive, and they will adapt to the herbicide, and then you will eventually have to go and find a new one.
In the meantime, that herbicide which can kill most of the most resilient species has meant Götterdämmerung and good night for the cute little rare mint and the delicate salamander. Which means less competition for the crabgrass and cockroaches, which might not have been able to move into so many areas had more specialized species survived the human onslaught.
Yet how, how does Monsanto propose to deal with these problems? From a page on the site they linked to:
Monsanto and university weed scientists have also identified specific common factors that are often present in areas where glyphosate resistance has developed. These factors are:
- Limited or no crop rotation
- Limited or no tillage practices
- A high dependency on glyphosate alone or a limited use of other herbicides, and
- Reduced rates of glyphosate
Limited rotation, with you on that one. Insufficient tillage ... erm, isn't chemical no-till the thing your puppet in the House of Representatives, Rep. Collin Peterson, something you're lobbying to get subsidy money to producers for? And, frak me, a limited use of other herbicides? Isn't the selling point of this junk supposed to be that it reduces herbicide use?
Oh, wait, no. You have got to be f*ing kidding me. Reduced glyphosate use causes weed resistance? How bloody well convenient. And profitable.
Farmers in the Asian tropics, a very long time ago, developed methods of farming that were both highly productive and resilient to pests. If you've ever been in the tropics, you know that there's no escaping the bugs and the plants aren't less pushy, just slower. Their methods, which involved building soil organic matter and using the biodiverse cultivation patterns that can be observed in nature, eventually became what we here know as organic farming.
With the kind of coordinated breeding and cultivation technique research we can do now, as well as our ready access to such a diverse plant genome and extremely clever methods of farming that provided an abundance of pre-industrial food, it's possible to create agricultural ecosystems that work with the process of evolution. Ones that can feed the whole world now, without destroying our ability to feed the whole world in the future.
You can work with evolution, or evolution will work you. But it stops for no one.
(Photo credit: Neil T on Flickr.)
Creative Pest Control: Beehives
Published June 08, 2009 @ 07:08PM PT
From research underway in Kenya, the BBC's Matt Walker reports:
A simple fence made from wood, wire and beehives can deter elephants from raiding farmers' crops. A pilot study in Kenya has shown that such fences reduce the number of raids by elephants by almost half.
The work is the culmination of previous research which showed elephants are naturally scared of African honey bees.
A much larger trial is now under way in the hope the fences will provide an elegant solution to years of conflict between elephants and farmers. ...
This sort of thinking, though usually dealing with smaller organisms, is behind various integrated pest management solutions. When you can't just completely eradicate every single critter that wants to eat the food you're growing, what do you do?
Solutions range from natural deterrents for your crop pests, like the beehives, to providing them something else to eat, such as a row or two of a crop they prefer and will gravitate to instead of going after the farmers' main course.
It's the strategy framework plants themselves have adopted - which is to say that selection pressure has favored plants that use it. Some organisms they feed, like the insects that pollinate them or the animals that spread their fruit seeds. Some organisms they deter, with spines or toxins, etc. Some they cooperate deeply with, like the symbiotic root fungi, the mycorrhizal species that bring them water and nutrients in exchange for sugars.
That's worked for plants because it uses diversity itself as a buffer against innumerable pests that are also alive, adapting, and simply too diverse themselves to ever be completely protected from, too diverse and mutable to ever completely wipe out. Considering that it's a design principle that's been field tested for millions of years, it's probably plenty good enough for us to learn to take advantage of.
Monopoly on Suicide
Published June 08, 2009 @ 05:05PM PT
Via Ian Welsh, Vandana Shiva explains the connection between global seed monopolies and farmer suicides, which Shiva says have exceeded 200,000 in the previous decade:
... [Vandana Shiva] The first suicide that we studied took place in Warrangal in Andhra Pradesh in 1997. This region is a rain-fed dry region and used to grow dry land crops such as millets, pigeon pea etc. In 1997, the seed corporations converted the region from biodiverse agriculture to monocultures of cotton hybrid. The farmers were not told they would need irrigation. They were not told that they would need fertilizers and pesticides. They were not told they could not save the seeds. The cotton seeds were sold as “White Gold,” with a false promise that farmers would become millionaires. Instead, the farmers landed in severe unpayable debt. This is how the suicides began.
... India is a land of varied climates, from rainforests to deserts. Seventy percent of Indian farming is rain-fed (dependent on rain not irrigation). Introducing inappropriate crops and cropping patterns has aggravated the water crisis and precipitated more frequent crop failure. Ecological agriculture needs 10 times less water than chemical farming. Green Revolution varieties, hybrids and GM crops are all bred for irrigation. On the one hand, this puts pressure on farmers in low-rainfall zones to drill tube wells, which fail — on the other hand, it leads to more frequent crop failure. ...
[Ian Welsh] To summarize: first world subsidies on agriculture lead to first world prices that are artificially low, which leads to dumping, which reduces the price of the crops. Something Shiva doesn’t mention is that each time a third world country moves to cash crops, that too depresses the prices as there just aren’t that many cash crops. Having to buy seeds every year, having to buy pesticides and fertilizers and having to irrigate all increase the cost of farming significantly, and also cause drawdown of aquifers. Once those aquifers are gone (and they are being drawn down faster than the water is being replaced) the areas in question won’t be able to grow any meaningful crops at all. ...
Forces of Counter-Revolution
Published June 03, 2009 @ 09:13AM PT
The anti-Green Revolution is on:
Indian farmer Amarjit Sharma grows wheat and other crops on five acres in the heart of the region known as "the breadbasket of India," the fertile fields of Punjab.
Until four years ago, he was the kind of farmer whom government leaders and agricultural scientists hailed as a model in the developing world.
But now, he has gone organic and is part of a quiet but growing rebellion, which could affect the world's food crisis. ...
The article notes that Sharma initially profited from Green Revolution methods. Until the pesticides stopped working and the soil was stripped so badly that without ever-increasing quantities of fertilizer, he couldn't grow a good crop.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Yet though the article portrays Sharma's story in some detail, including the diversified cropping, nutrient and pest management steps he's taken, I have some quibbles. Such as uncritical inclusion of the statement by "Monsanto's India spokesman, Christopher Samuel, [who] says the company's advances will double the yields of major crops over the next 20 years, while reducing the amount of land, water, fertilizer and pesticides needed."
Because the question that needs to be asked when they make assertions like that is, 'Will they, really?' How do they know that? I'm sure they'd like to, but it isn't clear that they can. Yield gains often come at the price of other essential features of plant chemistry and physiology.
Can they actually produce nutritionally sound crops with doubled yields, from plants that need less water, less nutrients, less pest protection?
No one knows the answer to this question. It's a goal, not a certainty.
