Study says farmers benefiting from higher yields, lower costs (7/12/2005) | |
The claims in the article below come from the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy (NCFAP) which the science journal Nature describes as "a pro-GM industry group". But reduced plowing or improved conservation tillage - low or no till agriculture, and the benefits that flow from it, do not require GM crops. Here's the US Dept of Agriculture's own analysis on this: "Using herbicide-tolerant seed did not significantly affect no-till adoption." "As the USDA report points out, the no-till acreage in America had already been steadily rising before the introduction of GMcrops. That prior trend has since simply continued. In fact to some degree it has subsequently stagnated according to the USDA analysis." Griffiths points out that no-till was introduced on tractor-mechanised and large farms in Paraguay in 1990, long before GM crops. By 1997 51% of Paraguay's total cultivated area was 'no-tilled' without any GM-acreage atr all. By contrast, the figure for the United States in 2000/1, ie 4 years on and after several years of GM crop cultivation, was just 16%!!! NCFAP also repeatedly use the argument that an increasing acreage of GM crops in the U.S. proves their efficacy. "Growers are really savvy businessmen," the NCFAP researcher claims. "If they try something and it doesn't work for them, they won't try it again the next year." Oh, really? This is as naive as saying that if doctors prescribe large amounts of valium for a specific condition, it must be the best way of treating that condition. Research shows something quite different - that doctors' patterns of prescribing can be influenced by very similar factors to a consumers' choice of washing-up liquid! Donald White, a University of Illinois plant pathologist, has talked of "a herd mentality" among U.S. farmers growing GM crops. "Everyone has to have a biotech program", he says, and that chimes in with a University of Iowa study on why farmers are growing GM soya. That study found that while increasing yields was cited by the majority of farmers in the study as the reason for planting the GM crop, the research showed they were actually getting lower yields. Study says farmers benefiting from higher yields, lower costs With each new product introduction, the total acreage of genetically modified, or GM, crops planted in the United States increases, said the study's author, Sujatha Sankula. Competition does not appear to be stealing market share from Creve Coeur-based Monsanto Co., the world's leading provider of biotech seeds and traits; instead, the overall market is expanding, she said. "It's not a substitution" of one product for another, Sankula said. Biotech crops "will be planted on more acreage than before, and therefore there will be more benefits to growers". Some critics say the ultimate effects of GM crops on human health and the environment are unknown and suspect, but 10 years of use and study have shown no significant harms. Farmers quickly adopted the technology that allows them to cut down on the use of pesticides and herbicides, boost yield and reduce costs. In 2004, biotech crops were planted on 118 million U.S. acres, an increase of 11 percent over the previous year, the study found. Growers using these varieties, as opposed to conventional crops, realized an additional $2.3 billion in income last year - largely due to an increase in yield of 6.6 billion pounds and a reduction in pesticide use of 62 million pounds, the study said. It looked at the use of several GM varieties: herbicide-resistant canola, corn, soybeans and cotton; insect-resistant corn and cotton; and virus-resistant papaya and squash. |