by frog
As usual, the title says it all: GE crops are no where near to delivering on their promises:
Failure to Yield is the first report to closely evaluate the overall effect genetic engineering has had on crop yields in relation to other agricultural technologies.
For years the biotechnology industry has trumpeted that it will feed the world, promising that its genetically engineered crops will produce higher yields.
That promise has proven to be empty, according to Failure to Yield, a report by UCS expert Doug Gurian-Sherman released in March 2009. Despite 20 years of research and 13 years of commercialization, genetic engineering has failed to significantly increase U.S. crop yields.
Failure to Yield makes a critical distinction between potential—or intrinsic—yield and operational yield, concepts that are often conflated by the industry and misunderstood by others. Intrinsic yield refers to a crop’s ultimate production potential under the best possible conditions. Operational yield refers to production levels after losses due to pests, drought and other environmental factors.
Herbicide-tolerant soybeans, herbicide-tolerant corn, and Bt corn have failed to increase intrinsic yields, the report found. Herbicide-tolerant soybeans and herbicide-tolerant corn also have failed to increase operational yields, compared with conventional methods.
The report does not discount the possibility of genetic engineering eventually contributing to increase crop yields. It does, however, suggest that it makes little sense to support genetic engineering at the expense of technologies that have proven to substantially increase yields, especially in many developing countries. In addition, recent studies have shown that organic and similar farming methods that minimize the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers can more than double crop yields at little cost to poor farmers in such developing regions as Sub-Saharan Africa.
And we want to bring these genetic failures onto our shores? For what purpose? To what end? If conventional breeding technologies are far outstripping genetic technologies, are cheaper and more readily deployable, why should New Zealand go down this path at all? It’s not like we’re world leaders or anything like it. Keep it in the lab, I say!
Published in Environment & Resource Management by frog on Sat, April 18th, 2009
Tags: failure to yeild, GE, Genetic engineering, politics
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
look to your gonads..!
you meat/dairy-eating fools..!
http://whoar.co.nz/2009/would-you-like-some-sperm-destroying-xenobiotics-with-that-cheezy-bacon-sir/
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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It is the same argument. Nobody is disputing that genetic engineering “could” feed the world. After all existing technology could feed the world. The point is whether it “will” feed the world, given the way the technology is controlled by multinational corporates with little real interest in feeding the hungry.
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GE crops are just another way of turning oil into food so when or if the oil price shoots back up again GE crops will have problems producing enough food to feed the world. Anyway if you want to feed the world on an overpopulated planet wouldn’t it be better to stop having kids.
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no..just stop farming/eating animals..
it’s as simple as that..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Well if your only issue is that they don’t do the business of feeding people or providing adequate nutrition, what harm in letting people grow them? They will fail and that will be that – there is no ‘we’ to be harmed, as far as I can see in this blog post. However if you have some other issues with GE food, perhaps you should be addressing them instead?
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“Well if your only issue is that they don’t do the business of feeding people or providing adequate nutrition, what harm in letting people grow them?”
that all depends on your reasons for supporting or opposing GM. If you consider that all genetic manipulation is evil, because it mixes “Mauri” or “kinds” and therefore is “playing God”, then of course any arguments about its benefits are meaningless. Similarly if you are a Raelian who considers that technology should be encouraged because it is somehow our destiny, or a libertarian who thinks everyone should be allowed to do as they dam well please, then arguments about harm or benefit are also irrelevant.
But most people support GM because they consider its benefits (to humans, to the environment and to the economy) outweigh its harm (also to humans, the environment and the economy). If GM is beneficial they would wish to see its use encouraged and government funding poured into it. Those opposing it would do so because they consider that harms outweigh the benefits, and they would therefore like to see its use curtailed or banned.
Any evidence supporting the view that one of of the most touted benefits is ephemeral therefore has immense policy implications for both supporters and opponents.
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I have some beautiful NEW rose plants. They are patented by someone called John Wilkins, and are the most amazing green colour.
I wondered how this miracle of colour could be achieved, and looked it all up. Seems that there are virtually no roses these days that are not the result of gene-splicing. OK, it’s done by grafting in a greenhouse rather than in a lab, but to me this is Genetic Engineering for profit, no matter how you look at it.
Should we start a movement to remove all ‘patented’ or ‘copyrighted’ roses from our shores?
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I’m sure that scrutiny of the balance-sheets and annual reports of Monsanto would reveal that the ongoing use of GE-crops in the USA has done them well – due to the cost of buying fresh seed each year, the input costs of the round-up to spray on round-up ready crops, and the pesticides that Bt-engineered corn tolerates.
The goal wasn’t just ‘feed the world’ – it was ‘grow the shareholders’ profits’, as well. If the science has proven not to hold out to achieve it’s stated goals, the economics may have done what it was suppposed to do – and crippled farmers who were independantly saving seed each season along the way, making room for big agribusinesses to take over.
The outcry against GE-seeds, petro-chemical based fertisilisers, etc, in the sub-continent of India has frozen the impact of Monsanto in that market; to the extent that Indian Government adverts for Breast Cancer screening actually state that rural women should particularly be getting mammograms, due to the known carcinogenic effects of the agrichemicals used in India by landowners in the past.
A strong statement, and one that neither our Health Ministry, nor our MAFFish staff, are prepared to make, in order to save women’s lives, due to the consistent subsidies for Monsanto and IWD chemicals that the Government showered on farmers for many decades. Liability that they don’t want to take ownership of.
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