Misleading Reporting on GM

The Courier Mail has published a piece by me today titled Let’s be smart on genetic crops. I suggested the article to the opinion editor at the newspaper after the front page story on Friday titled Genetic food plan axed.

What surprised me about Friday’s story, and general reporting on ABC radio on Friday and over the weekend, about how CSIRO had scrapped its research into a new GM pea variety because of an allergic reaction in trials on mice, was the lack of context.

There was no mention that even if the peas had passed all safety tests, they could not have been grown commercially in Australia because of the bans on GM food crops, see my piece in the courier mail.

It seems to me that reporting on GM issues generally occurs in a vacuum – or is just misleading.

For example, today, Farm Online has a story that reads:

Australia faces economic and environmental losses if it follows the United States and grows commercial genetically modified (GM) crops, a leading expert in agricultural technology has warned.

If Australia were to grow commercial genetically engineered (GE) canola, as they call GM crops in the US, it would enter the human food supply as vegetable oil and animal feed.

Dr Charles Benbrook, a former agricultural adviser to the Carter, Reagan and Clinton administrations, is touring Australia to warn government ministers and farmers about the problems with the first decade of GE crops in the US.

“Australian agriculture faces losing its international status as ‘clean and green’ if it ignores the food safety, environmental and economic costs associated with today’s GE crop technologies,” Dr Benbrook said. (end of quote)

At the very least the online journal should have made reference to the recent ABARE report that concluded quite the opposite, click here for a summary.

What exactly are Benbrook’s qualifications? The journal might at the very least have referred to him as a ‘GM skeptic’! 🙂

Does the lack of context in reporting on GM issues just reflect how little journalists understand about the issue?

In response to the various claims by Charles Benbrook that GM crops have not been successful in the US, Chris Preston, Senior Lecturer, Weed Management University of Adelaide has written in today’s AgBioView newsletter:

“GE crops a flop in the USA.” The GeneEthics Network makes this bold statement as part of their recent publicity for the upcoming visit of Dr. Charles Benbrook to Australia. Dr. Benbrook is apparently to tell us “what’s really happening with GE crops in North America, and why we should say ‘no’ to them here”.

I don’t know quite what Dr. Benbrook will tell us about how GE crops have flopped. I do know the claim that GE crops have stalled, flopped or are otherwise being given up by farmers in the US and elsewhere is not infrequently made in letters to the editor, press releases and other statements in the Australia media. However, whenever I look at the situation, I can find little support for the claims made.

We can look at how farmers perceive GM crops by looking at the levels of adoption.

If after 10 years GM crops were a flop, farmers should have already decided to stop growing them. A quick look at the area of crops grown demonstrates this is not the case. The statistics on the area sown to GM crops are easy to obtain for soybean, cotton and corn (or maize). They are available from the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/reports/nassr/field/pcp-bba/ ).

In 2002 75% of all soybean acreage in the US was sown to GM soybeans. In 2004, that had risen to 85% of soybean acreage and to 87% in 2005. This year, 63.8 million acres of GM soybeans were grown. In 2002, 34% of the corn acreage in the US was sown to GM corn. By 2004, this had climbed to 47% and to 52% in 2005. That means 42.4 million acres of GM corn were grown. In 2002, 71% of the area of upland cotton was GM. This had also increased to 76% of the cotton area by 2004 and 79% in 2005. This year, 10.9 million acres of GM cotton were grown.

Data are not as readily available for the area of other GM crops grown in the US, papaya, canola and alfalfa. The primary source for information on the area of GM papaya, the Hawaiian Agricultural Statistical Service, gives variety information only up to 2002 (www.nass.usda.gov/hi/prisetoc.htm ). In that year, between 44 and 48% of the area was sown to GM papaya. That would be just under 1000 acres. For canola, I have had to rely on a range of secondary sources (e.g.
http://www.pewbiotech.org/resources/factsheets/display.php3?FactsheetID=2 , http://www.pgeconomics.co.uk/environment_select_committee_report.htm ,
http://www.grdc.com.au/growers/gc/gc53/genescene.htm ) that normally cite “industry statistics”. These suggest GM canola was planted on 60% of the area in 2002, 75% of the area in 2003 and 84% of the area in 2004. Colleagues in the industry have given me similar estimates for 2004. In 2005, there was 1.1 million acres of canola grown, of which at least 700,000 acres would have been GM. I could obtain no statistics on the area of GM alfalfa, which is being planted commercially for the first time this year. However, I have been told by weed scientists in both Colorado and California that most, and in some places all, of the seed available for 2005 has been sold.
There are 22.1 million acres of alfalfa grown in the US, so even a small percentage of that will be a significant area.

Therefore, in total we have over 117 million acres of GM crops in the US.

For those,who like me, are more familiar with the metric system, this equates to about 47 million hectares of GM crops. In my local perspective, this is twice the area of grain cropping in all of Australia. If this is a flop, what will Dr. Benbrook count as a success?

Not only is there a large area sown to GM crops in the US, the area sown is continuing to grow each year. This is even true for crops like soybeans and cotton where large percentages of the area have been sown to GM crops for some years.” (end of quote)

…………

Update at 10am

I see David Tribe has a piece at Online Opinion today on GM food crops, click here.

Updated at 5pm

I have been informed by Dr. Christopher Preston, Senior Lecturer, Weed Management, University of Adelaide, that:

The current Benbrook tour will claim, amongst other things, that US farmers are losing billions of dollars in export sales because they have adopted GE crops.

You can access official US export statistics at http://www.fas.usda.gov/ustrade/USTExFAS.asp?QI= . You then need to search by commodity and region. In searching you will find that corn and soybean exports are reasonably variable; however, there is no evidence of a significant loss of trade. US corn exports to the EU have declined dramatically, but that has been more than made up by increased exports elsewhere. US corn exports have increased in value from $4.9 billion in 1999 to $5.9 billion in 2004. Soybean seed exports have also increased in value from $4.5 billion in 1999 to $6.7 billion in 2004. Although value is down on 2002 and 2003 because of droughts and lower prices as a result of increased competition from Argentina and Brazil.