GMW: GMOs not needed so why take the risk?

[Guest guest]

GMW: GMOs not needed so why take the risk?

" GM WATCH " <info

Sat, 16 Jul 2005 17:20:37 +0100

 

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

------

Recently we reported news of research showing organic farming in the

U.S. can produce the same yields as intensive agriculture for corn and

soybeans, but without the pesticides and with lower energy consumption.

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5494

 

Here we have excerpts from 2 relevant articles, neither of them new.

The first is from a book review of Mendel in the Kitchen by the GM

evangelist Nina Fedoroff. The reviewer, David Pimentel, a professor of

ecology and agriculture in the Department of Entomology at Cornell

University, is the researcher who's newly published work on the Rodale

study has

sent pro-GM and anti-organic campaigners into overdrive

 

The second article by Jules Pretty, Director of the Centre for

Environment and Society at the University of Essex, contains a still more

unpalatable truth for GM proponents like Fedoroff - that maximising

the use

of locally-available and renewable resources through sustainable

agriculture works even betteris especially effective for resource - poor

farmers.

 

As Pretty notes, " the best evidence comes from those very countries of

Africa, Asia and Latin America that are said to need most the 'modern'

technologies produced by large companies " . The result is, " More food

output from fewer fossil-fuel derived inputs. " In resource-poor areas

this can mean an astonishing two to threefold increase in food output.

(ITEM 2)

 

The reason GM proponents are so desperate to deny such alternative ways

of 'feeding the world', of course, is that they lead on to an

inevitable question: Why accept the deep uncertainties surrounding

GMOs if they

are not actually necessary?

 

As Dr Colin Tudge recently noted, " The notion that countries such as

Angola actually need GMOs to provide sufficient yields is simply a

misunderstanding, or a straightforward lie... their introduction

suppresses

local production and increases the dependency of poor countries on those

who supply the new technologies. The argument in favour of GMOs,

supported not least by Tony Blair, rests on the assumption that they are

necessary. If they are not needed, there is no point in taking any

risk at

all. "

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5466

------

1. excerpt from Changing Genes to Feed the World,

a book review by David Pimentel

Science, Vol 306, Issue 5697, 815 , 29 October 2004

http://www.biotech.wisc.edu/seebiotech/seemail/110204.html#387

 

I found the authors' criticisms of organic agriculture surprising. They

report that yields from organic farming are significantly lower than

those for most conventionally grown crops and therefore conclude that a

shift toward organic foods would require significantly more cropland.

This is not the case. Long-term experiments (lasting 22 years) conducted

at the Rodale Institute that compared conventional corn and soybean

production with two different organic technologies found that the yields

were approximately the same. In fact, during drought years corn yields

from the organic treatments were significantly higher than those from

the recommended conventional approach. The organic farming technologies

also offered the advantage of avoiding applications of insecticides and

herbicides, whereas conventional corn production uses more insecticides

and herbicides than any other crop grown in the United States. Overall,

organic approaches would reduce the use of fossil energy in corn

production by about 30 percent and substantially increase the organic

matter

in the soil. The authors' discussion of organic farming emphasizes its

potential drawbacks while neglecting the opportunities it offers to

conserve fossil energy resources, reduce soil erosion, and reduce global

warming.

------

2.Feeding the world?

'SPLICE', August/September 1998 Volume 4 Issue 6

http://ngin.tripod.com/article2.htm

 

Jules Pretty examines the myths and realities of sustainable farming's

quiet revolution

 

....Poor farmers cannot afford expensive modern technologies that could

increase their yields. What they need are readily available and cheap

means to improve their farms.

 

And there are signs that a quiet revolution in the world food system is

beginning to occur.

 

Sustainable highlights

 

* some 223,000 farmers in southern Brazil using green manures and cover

crops of legumes and livestock integration have doubled yields of maize

and wheat to 4-5 tons/ha;

 

* some 45,000 farmers in Guatemala and Honduras have used regenerative

technologies to triple maize yields to some 2-2.5 tons/ha and diversify

their upland farms, which has led to local economic growth that has in

turn encouraged re-migration back from the cities;

 

* more than 300,000 farmers in southern and western India farming in

dryland conditions, and now using a range of water and soil management

technologies, have tripled sorghum and millet yields to some 2-2.5

tons/hectare;

 

* some 200,000 farmers across Kenya who as part of various government

and non-government soil and water conservation and sustainable

agriculture programmes have more than doubled their maize yields to

about 2.5 to

3.3 t/ha and substantially improved vegetable production through the

dry seasons;

 

* 100,000 small coffee farmers in Mexico who have adopted fully organic

production methods, and yet increased yields by half;

 

* a million wetland rice farmers in Bangladesh, China, India,

Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam who

have

shifted to sustainable agriculture, where group-based farmer-field

schools

have enabled farmers to learn alternatives to pesticides whilst still

increasing their yields by about 10%.

 

Sustainable agriculture - the quiet revolution has started

 

Quietly, slowly and very significantly, sustainable agriculture is

sweeping the farming systems of the world.

 

Put simply, sustainable agriculture is 'farming that makes the best use

of nature's goods and service whilst not damaging the environment.' It

does this by integrating natural processes such as nutrient cycling,

nitrogen fixation, soil regeneration and pest predators into food

production processes. It minimises the use of non-renewable inputs

(pesticides

and fertilisers) that damage the environment or harm the health of

farmers and consumers. And third, it makes better use of the knowledge

and

skills of farmers, so improving their self-reliance and capacities.

 

This sequence is very important. During this century, modern

agriculture has seen external inputs of pesticides, inorganic

fertiliser, animal

feedstuffs, energy, and machinery become the primary means to increase

food production. These external inputs, though, have substituted the

free, natural control processes and resources. Pesticides have replaced

biological, cultural and mechanical methods for controlling pests, weeds

and diseases; inorganic fertilisers have substituted for livestock

manures, composts. nitrogenfixing crops and fertile soils; and fossil

fuels

have substituted for locally-generated energy sources. What were once

valued local resources have all too often become waste products.

 

The basic challenge for sustainable agriculture is to maximise the use

of locally-available and renewable resources.

 

This sounds good - but does it work? Are there sufficient resources and

opportunities to turn unproductive farms into surplus-producing ones?

 

Remarkably, the best evidence comes from those very countries of

Africa, Asia and Latin America that are said to need most the 'modern'

technologies produced by large companies. Where whole communities have

been

involved in the complete redesign of farming and other local economic

activities, the sustainability dividend is very large. The regenerative

technologies and practices are hugely beneficial for both farmers and

rural environments. There is more natural capital from fewer external

inputs. More food output from fewer fossil-fuel derived inputs.

 

The improvements are of two basic types. First, sustainable farming is

taking root in the resource-poor areas, those that have remained

largely untouched by modern technologies of the past 40 years. Here

there is

a two to threefold increase in food output

 

The second is occurring in the higher-input systems where the so-called

'Green Revolution' has already had an impact on food output, but where

there are concerns that yield increases have slowed or stopped and

where high use of pesticides causes damage to human health and

environments. Here the dividend comes from a greatly reduced use of

pesticides -

they are replaced by natural predators, habitat redesign, multiple

cropping and the like - whilst increasing yields by a small amount,

typically

10%.

 

Recent evidence from 20 countries has found more than 2 million

families farming sustainably on more than 4-5 million hectares.

 

This is no longer marginal. It cannot be ignored. What is remarkable is

not so much the numbers, but that most of this has happened in the past

5-10 years. Moreover, many of the improvements are occurring in remote

and resource-poor areas that had been assumed to be incapable of

producing food surpluses.

 

The myths and beyond

 

Another cog in the myth makers' wheel is the expected response of

industrialised countries to sustainable agriculture.

 

At the beginning of the 1990s, the former US Secretary of Agriculture,

Earl Butz, said we could move to more sustainable farming, but " before

we move in that direction, someone must decide which fifty million of

our people will starve. We simply cannot feed, even at subsistence

levels, our 250 million Americans without a large production input of

chemicals, antibiotics and growth hormones " .

 

Again, this view is simply nonsense, as it once again ignores what is

happening right now. In a study for my new book The Living Land, I

looked at projects in seven industrialised countries of Europe and North

America. Farmers are finding that they can cut their inputs of costly

pesticides and fertilisers substantially, varying from 20-80%, and be

financially better off. Yields do fall to begin with (by 10-15%

typically),

but there is compelling evidence that they soon rise and go on

increasing. In the USA, for example, the top quarter sustainable

agriculture

farmers now have higher yields than conventional farmers, as well as a

much lower negative impact on the environment.

 

The challenge is still massive. Sustainable farming can greatly improve

the productivity of the land. It has already done so for more than two

million families in the past five to ten years. Yet there is still a

very long way to go. And we need to inform our citizens about what is

happening, so that they can form fair judgements on the alternatives we

may or may not seek to promote in the name of 'feeding the world'.

 

 

 

 

 

 

--------------------------