Gene Modification
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.
Sustainability and Hunger
Published June 16, 2009 @ 01:06PM PT
There are things people need to understand about hunger, courtesy of Food First:
... Abundance, not scarcity, best describes the world's food supply. Enough wheat, rice and other grains are produced to provide every human being with 3,200 calories a day. That doesn't even count many other commonly eaten foods - vegetables, beans, nuts, root crops, fruits, grass-fed meats, and fish. Enough food is available to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person a day worldwide: two and half pounds of grain, beans and nuts, about a pound of fruits and vegetables, and nearly another pound of meat, milk and eggs - enough to make most people fat! The problem is that many people are too poor to buy readily available food. Even most "hungry countries" have enough food for all their people right now. Many are net exporters of food and other agricultural products. ...
So remember this: we have enough food in the world to make everyone fat. Everyone.
This is a distribution problem, a social justice problem, a profit-sharing problem, an employment security problem, a land access problem ... but there's an abundance of food in the world. The people flogging scarcity and crop yields as our biggest obstacles to feeding the world are at best misinformed, at worst, deliberately lying for personal or political gain.
In the case of politicians, those of them who are generally progressive, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt that they've been misled by hyper-slick lobbyists who make a convincing case that their corporations are doing good and really care about the public interest. The large food corporations have even bought out much of the anti-hunger lobby in the US, donating to their causes and sponsoring their DC publicity events, all for the sake of preventing anyone from looking too closely at how their management of food distribution channels actively promotes hunger.
It works really well.
Consider Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent call for support to 'sustainable agriculture'. She outlines seven principles, elaborated here, likely without realizing that the implications of the first, as commonly implemented, can readily undermine the third:
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. ...
"The Largest Diet Experiment In History"
Published June 05, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
That's how Dr. Don Lotter describes GMOs in two new papers on genetic food crop science, as summarized by Bonnie Powell at the Ethicurean.
The first paper, The Genetic Engineering of Food and the Failure of Science – Part 1: The Development of a Flawed Enterprise, covers the flawed research and scientific assumptions that have produced genetically modified food crops. In it, he points to research revealing that transgenic yields are no better than that of the crops they replaced, eliminating their main claim to usefulness. He explains how the very imprecise art of genetic engineering actually works, and highlights the total lack of oversight and caution in the roll out of these products, as well as their unwanted side effects.
But the main message is simple; transgenic seed companies have no idea what they're doing:
For the Record...
Published June 01, 2009 @ 09:48PM PT
While I'd heard that Monsanto sued farmers, and that one farmer had taken a case to the Canadian Supreme Court, until relatively recently I was not terribly knowledgable about the specifics. Then I heard a podcast of a speech by Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser - the farmer who got sued. And it is VERY worth knowing about, which is why I will share it with you here.
Percy Schmeiser is a canola farmer. He's been farming for over 50 years in Saskatchewan, Canada, and he does research to breed new varieties of canola. In other words: he's the very last person who would want Monsanto's GM seeds on his property because they would muck up his research. Schmeiser is also somewhat savvy in politics and the law, as he served as mayor of his town and in the legislative assembly of his province. So that set the scene for what happened with Monsanto.
Some years back, Monsanto's Roundup Ready canola appeared on Schmeiser's property. He didn't buy it and he didn't plant it. After all, because he was doing research with his own seeds for 50 years, he would save seeds and plant them the next season, removing the need to purchase seeds. But Monsanto discovered their crops on his property somehow, and they took him to court. They decided to make him an example, to show other farmers that you can't steal Monsanto's seeds without paying the price.
The case waged on for many years. If you listen to the podcast you'll hear how many lawyers Monsanto had vs. the number Percy had (I think it's 18 to 1) and the amount Monsanto spent vs. the amount Percy spent in legal fees (Schmeiser spent a few hundred thousand... a LOT of money to a farmer who should have never been sued in the first place!). Initially, the court ruled in favor of Monsanto. They ruled that anything with Monsanto's genes in it is Monsanto's property, and as such, Monsanto was the rightful owner of Percy's entire crop for that year. While that would be devastating to any farmer, for Schmeiser it was particularly harsh because his crops represented the culmination of 50 years of research.
When the case reached the Supreme Court, the bit about Monsanto getting Schmeiser's entire crop was reversed, so it was half a victory for Schmeiser. But they also ruled that Monsanto owned anything that contained its genes, as the lower court had said.
A few years later, Monsanto's Roundup Ready canola appeared in Schmeiser's field again. He hadn't planted anything in that field in a while, and he was getting it ready to plant something else, so it was odd that some canola popped up there. He called up Monsanto and said he thought their plants were on his field, could they please come and remove them. Monsanto came and tested the canola, which did turn out to be their Roundup Ready canola. But then they told Schmeiser they would only remove the canola if he would sign something promising to keep quiet about his dealings with Monsanto and that he would never sue Monsanto. He refused.
Schmeiser insisted that Monsanto must come remove THEIR property from HIS property. They refused. He said he would do it himself and send them the bill. Monsanto threatened him that the canola was their property and he was not to touch it. In the end, he removed the canola himself at a cost of $660, took Monsanto to small claims court, and won the $660.
(Photo credit: theowl84 on Flickr.com)
The Limits Of What We Know
Published June 01, 2009 @ 10:02AM PT
Genetically engineered crops, or genetically modified organisms, whatever you want to call them, are in the realm of the scientific. Though I think you could make a case for saying that they're more engineering, as practiced, more application than discovery.
With the application of any aspect of scientific knowledge, more questions come into play than usually will during the research phase. A research question is on the order of, 'Why does this happen?' or 'What happens if I do x?' or 'Is it possible to do x?'
Presuming that you get your answer and want to make use of it, should you? If so, how? These questions are harder.
Is it right to build an atomic weapon? Should we use reproductive cloning techniques on human beings? Should we allow IVF clinics to screen embryos for gender? The science of how you might do these things tells us nothing about whether it's right to make use of that knowledge in a particular way.
Reducing Safe Things
Published May 24, 2009 @ 12:35PM PT
A North Dakota State Senator and farmer speaks of his love of biotech and pesticides:
... Chemical sprays are a necessary part of food production--and they’re safe--but we all strive to reduce their use. ...
I try to reduce the use of safe and necessary things, too. That just seems like good sense.
Seriously, though ... He's writing about an industry-applauded report indicating that says biotech crops decrease pesticide use. Well, last year, an NGO-sponsored study showed the exact opposite. Consider this, at minimum:
* U.S. government data reveal a huge 15-fold increase in the use of glyphosate on soybeans, corn and cotton in the U.S. from 1994 to 2005, driven by adoption of Roundup Ready versions of these crops.
* Rising glyphosate use has spawned a growing epidemic of weeds resistant to the chemical in the U.S., Argentina and Brazil. Weed scientists have reported glyphosate-resistant weeds infesting 2.4 million acres in the U.S. alone.
* Increasing weed resistance to glyphosate has led to rising use of other toxic chemicals. In the U.S., the amount of 2,4-D applied to soybeans more than doubled from 2002 to 2006. 2,4-D was a component of the Vietnam War defoliant, Agent Orange. In Argentina, it is projected that 25 million liters of herbicides other than glyphosate will be needed to tackle glyphosate-resistant Johnsongrass. ...
This is what that data is saying: temporary drops in the total use of new pesticides will eventually get wiped out by the need to apply more, or different, pesticides when pest organisms develop resistance.
Also, pest organisms always eventually develop resistance. It's called evolution, look it up.
(Photo credit: Sentrawoods on Flickr.)
