Doubts About the Promised Bounty of Genetically Modified Crops
LONDON — The controversy over genetically modified crops has long focused on largely unsubstantiated fears that they are unsafe to eat.
But an extensive examination by The New York Times indicates that the debate has missed a more basic problem — genetic modification in the United States and Canada has not accelerated increases in crop yields or led to an overall reduction in the use of chemical pesticides.
The promise of genetic modification was twofold: By making crops immune to the effects of weedkillers and inherently resistant to many pests, they would grow so robustly that they would become indispensable to feeding the world’s growing population, while also requiring fewer applications of sprayed pesticides.
Twenty years ago, Europe largely rejected genetic modification at the same time the United States and Canada were embracing it. Comparing results on the two continents, using independent data as well as academic and industry research, shows how the technology has fallen short of the promise. https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016...-master495.png OPEN Graphic
An analysis by The Times using United Nations data showed that the United States and Canada have gained no discernible advantage in yields — food per acre — when measured against Western Europe, a region with comparably modernized agricultural producers like France and Germany. Also, a recent National Academy of Sciences report found that “there was little evidence” that the introduction of genetically modified crops in the United States had led to yield gains beyond those seen in conventional crops. At the same time, herbicide use has increased in the United States, even as major crops like corn, soybeans and cotton have been converted to modified varieties. And the United States has fallen behind Europe’s biggest producer, France, in reducing the overall use of pesticides, which includes both herbicides and insecticides.
One measure, contained in data from the United States Geological Survey, shows the stark difference in the use of pesticides. Since genetically modified crops were introduced in the United States two decades ago for crops like corn, cotton and soybeans, the use of toxins that kill insects and fungi has fallen by a third, but the spraying of herbicides, which are used in much higher volumes, has risen by 21 percent.
By contrast, in France, use of insecticides and fungicides has fallen by a far greater percentage — 65 percent — and herbicide use has decreased as well, by 36 percent.
Profound differences over genetic engineering have split Americans and Europeans for decades. Although American protesters as far back as 1987 pulled up prototype potato plants, European anger at the idea of fooling with nature has been far more sustained. In the last few years, the March Against Monsanto has drawn thousands of protesters in cities like Paris and Basel, Switzerland, and opposition to G.M. foods is a foundation of the Green political movement. Still, Europeans eat those foods when they buy imports from the United States and elsewhere.
NY times just published a piece on the 'failures' of GMOs. One of the failures they put forward is herbicide use: increased in US, down in France. But how disingenuous is it to choose the one out of 3 EU countries where herbicide use has decreased, instead of any of the others where this is not true? AND when you look at the actual applied amounts per area, it turns out that the US has been, and still is, below when compared to herbicide usage in France!
Not to mention that in EU, farming area is mostly under conventional tillage, with the added drawbacks of erosion, runoff and fuel use which that entails, whereas conservational tillage and no-till are widespread in the US, much thanks to GMO crops and use of newer, more non-toxic herbicides.
What makes things even more frustrating, is that weed ecologist Andrew Kniss had corresponded with the article author, Danny Hakim, during his preparation of the piece, and Prof Kniss warned him of precisely these pitfalls (for the full conversation, please see the very informative thread over at Food and Farm Discussion Lab: https://www.facebook.com/groups/FAFD...0490030847303/ )
The lack of interest in an accurate portrayal is stunning. Andrew Kniss makes a great analysis of the claims in this NYT piece. He writes (over at the blog Weed Control Freaks):
"I have to say this comparison seems borderline disingenuous; certainly not what I’d expect from an “extensive examination” published in the New York Times. The NYT provides a few charts in the article, one of which supports the statement about France’s reduced pesticide use. But the figures used to compare pesticide use in France vs the USA are convoluted and misleading. First, the data is presented in different units (thousand metric tons for France, compared to million pounds in the US), making a direct comparison nearly impossible. Second, the pesticide amounts are not standardized per unit area, which is critically important since the USA has over 9 times the amount of farmland that France does; it would be shocking if the U.S. didn’t use far more pesticide when expressed this way. So took the data presented by Mr. Hakim and converted it into the same units, and standardized by arable land, and this is what that same data looks like..." https://weedcontrolfreaks.com/…/the-tiresome-discussion-of-…/
The tiresome discussion of initial GMO expectations
A new article in the New York Times has questioned the benefits associated with genetically engineered crops (which I’ll call GMOs for brevity). The response to the article has been pretty pr…
WEEDCONTROLFREAKS.COM
