A new report entitled ‘Quantification of the Impacts on US Agriculture of Biotechnology-
Derived Crops Planted in 2005’ by the US National Centre for Food and Agricultural Policy begins with the key findings that:
“American growers continued to choose biotechnology-derived crops in 2005, the tenth year of their commercial planting, because they realized significant benefits from planting these crops. This report evaluated the reasons behind the adoption of biotechnology-derived crops on 123 million acres in the United States in their tenth year of commercial planting (2005) and analyzed the producer and crop production impacts that resulted from this widespread adoption.
American growers planted eight biotechnology-derived crops (alfalfa, canola, corn, cotton, papaya, soybean, squash, and sweet corn) in 2005. Planted acreage was mainly concentrated in 13 different applications (herbicide-resistant alfalfa, canola, corn, cotton, and soybean; virus-resistant squash and papaya; three applications of insect-resistant corn, two applications of insect-resistant cotton, and insect-resistant sweet corn). Though
the number of planted traits remained the same at three in 2005, similar to 2004, expanded acreage of 4 percent has led to overall increase in crop yield and farm income and further reduction in pesticide use.“
To read the executive summary (12 pages) click here: http://www.ncfap.org/whatwedo/pdf/2005biotechExecSummary.pdf
To read the full report (110 pages) click here: http://www.ncfap.org/whatwedo/pdf/2005biotechimpacts-finalversion.pdf
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Yep on this issue – “the debate REALLY is over” ( where have I heard that before ) yet in Australia State Governments continue bans on GM as a consequence of ignorance/fear/prejudice/political opportunism.
Someone like Detribe would know far better than I about the potential saving in human lives if we could overcome this superstition globally but I won’t hold my breath for reason to take hold anytime soon.
Funny how the “scary scenario” side of AGW makes headlines everywhere yet the cost in human lives of ignoring the science of GM doesn’t?
I’m sure they can afford any agric technology in the US, rolling in tax funded subsidies as they are. US farmers steal from innocent tax payers and impoverish other countries. A small number of US cotton farmers impoverish a large number of African cotton growers. The high level of subsidies in the US effectively makes the agricultural sector centrally planned – just like communism. Should Australia follow the US example?
(She dons flak jacket.)
Pinxi – couldn’t agree more re the disgraceful subsidisation of agriculture in the US AND Europe ( I’m sure you meant to include them ) which keeps African and Asian farmers and economies destitute.
I’ll man ( person???) the barricades with you!!!
yes Jim, I’m not overlooking EU CAP and the hypocrisy of their share of international governance and trade rules, jsut that EU already gets regularly slagged off here and US subsidies ignored, so trying to balance the scales.
Should Australia follow the US example? No, bad business, terrible for developing nations and we can’t afford subsidies anyway.
Should Australian farmers have the option to use GMOs? Yes.
If Australian anti-GMO activists are so confident that GMOs are bad business, too expensive etc., then why do they want moratoria? I’d love to know the answer to that one. Evil Monsanto will trick the silly, gullible people on the land into acting against their own best interests? Yeah, right.
The South Australian anti-GMO moratorium just got extended to 2008. Depressing.
I’m not anti-GM, just cautious, but I’d trust Monsanto as far I could throw them. I know a few people in biotech btw, including VCs and guess what they’re in the game for? If, however, we agreed that Monsanto’s interests today were noble and selfless today, what can we expect of them tomorrow and who will control them tomorrow? What of the international structure, ownership & diversification of the entire biotech, agric & seed food industry, including distribution and storage, how secure and resilient to shocks is it? There are some bunkers, but still…
I prefer Monsanto as they are.
It’s the ‘noble and selfless’ that really scare me.
Remember CS Lewis:
Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron may sometime sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for their own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
This report is written purely from a farmer’s perspective and says little of the genuine concerns about GM. Sure, GM reduces pesticide use and improves crop yields for an increasingly hungry world, but in life there is always another side to the coin – like the law of conservation energy you don’t get something from nothing. It remains to be seen how GM plants affect ecologies and human health – something that could take many years to unfold. The US is often too quick to jump in with new technologies, as they can’t resist making a buck, only to find a bitter end, like DDT for example.
Why dont you trust Monsanto Pinxii – and should they need your trust?
I thought Monsanto was a company just like any other company, primarily concerned with providing the best return on its shareholders investment by producing goods that satisfies the needs of the masses.
Monsanto have been dealt with unfairly, subjected to a massive fear campaign based on untruths yet are perservering and despite setbacks have posted record profits.
Jen recall that scary explanation you once gave us of your important values creating leadership role at the IPA? And recall this good quote from yourself?
“The bottomline is that the IPA is a force for truth and liberty.” You also explained that you accepted lower pay to undertake work you truly believe in at the IPA. All rather noble and selfless.
Companies are not static entities. Monsanto may not always remain the benevolent and kindly giant that they are today. Or they could simply go bust. Regardless we’ll sleep soundly knowing the IPA will be there to fight for truth, free values, and liberty for all.
Several posters refer to the link between agricultural subsidies and the impoverishment of African farmers.
Here in Nigeria (which has 20% of sub-Saharan Africa’s population) the two biggest causes of most farmers impoverishment in my opinion are a lack of access to capital, and a reluctance to embrace new technologies.
These are two sides of the same coin as farmers have to be risk averse if they have no capital to risk on new approaches. The cost of a bad yield here is starvation. Much of the area farmed lies in the Guinea savannah and Sahel zones and rainfall varies in onset, duration and yield from year to year. Each year many farming communities go through a very lean period at the end of the dry season when last years stored crops run out. Off farm income is critical during this period. Examination of farming practices demonstrates a risk minimisation strategy based upon a long history of subsistence farming within an unpredictable environment.
A nice summary is given in Kathleen Bakers book
“Indigenous Land Management in West Africa”.
Here in Nigeria the Banks are typically not interested in farmers as a market for loans as they perceive them (rightly) as high risk, and so it is virtually impossible for a farmer to get credit from a bank, and would farmers want credit, with interest rates ranging from 23-28%?
A recent program instigated by the Kwara Sate governor which has invited Zimbabwean farmers to take up land in Kwara State has seen a small cohort of technologically saavy, capital rich white farmers take up the option of farming here.
Even these guys have not been able to get credit locally, but the most interesting aspect of their arrival has been the comments from local farmers over the high cropping densities and the monoculture plantings. Local farmers consider the approach to be crazy, and from their capital poor perspective it is. However, it is also clear that many of the local farming practices are so deeply inculculated in the local culture that many potential forms of innovation are frowned upon. This may actually be a worthwhile risk minimisation strategy as if a farmer fails it is the other members of the family/clan/village who will have to help.
While there are wealthy landowners here who have the means to farm intensively on a much larger scale, the opportunity from cessation of EU and other subsidies might not have an immediate, or large impact on the greater mass of subsistence farmers without access to the capital required for them to enter the cotton market for example.
In fact the immediate effect of a rise in the price of cotton in this country where the wealthy have the power and influence and the poor have access to land which is not adequately protected by the land tenure system might be to push many subsistence farmers off the land and to lower the amount of land used for local food production.
Of course the economists would say this will create new opportunities, but a look at where the wealthy and powerful Nigerians invest their mostly stolen wealth (oil) reveals it goes overseas.
Against this background, which I suggest is a common feature of subsistence farmers everywhere in the savannah zones of the developing world, I am not sure I can agree with the sentiment that it is EU and US subsidies which keep the African farmer impoverished. Similarly, while I consider that GM foods can (and should) have a useful role in an African context, I am not sure that global acceptance of GM foods would also necessarily lead to a better world for African farmers.
“I’m sure they can afford any agric technology in the US, rolling in tax funded subsidies as they are.”
Yup. Yankee farmers are so stupid that even though by not using technology they’d (accounding to Pinxi)save money, they go right ahead year after and waste their subsidies on new technologies. You’d almost think they’re better off because they keep on using it year after year, but nope, they just keep on burning money on costly expensive technology. Maybe it’s because they don’t understand economics like Pinxi does.
ah dry sarcastic humour Sir Try-A-Lot
Yes, some valid points Russell, esp for oil rich Nigeria which is not a mirror of other African nations and Nigerians are, well,infamous. Subsidisies alone do not keep farmers impoverished but they play a role by affecting the trade price for crops. that’s a no-brainer, esp when dumping occurs. The distribution of wealth is another but related issue as is property rights, representation and access to capital (go the Grameen Bank anyone?). I quoted some stats on the number of smallscale SS African cotton farmers not long ago. Subsistence farmers, while commonly believed slow to adopt technologies have been to shown to be actually quite rationally risk-adverse in their decision-making considering the degree of risk (starvation), so if they can get some institutional support (decent line of credit,some form of insurance, affordable capital eg lease not buy etc) to help manage the risks then they’ll try new technologies.
Pinxi,
Foreign agricultural subsidies are irrelevant to subsistence farmers, who are called that because they eat what they grow.
But agricultural subsidies, access to credit, the alleged bloodthirstiness of giant corporations, etc. have actually very little to do with agricultural biotechnology and its products.
It is remarkable how quickly a discussion of agricultural biotechnology devolves into irrelevant topics. The technology either works better than the alternatives, or it doesn’t.
Suppose I were to make a tie-in between the reluctance of Australian farmers to adopt modern technology and $220 million in payoffs by the Australian Wheat Board to Saddam Hussein. Australians would be justly angered at the suggestion.
Or maybe I could suggest that Nigerian farmers and Australian farmers are naturally risk-averse and therefore avoid modern technology. Now that would rankle too, I’d bet.
The fact is, reactionary governments and quasi-governmental bodies beholden to export business (such as the AWB or Nigerian legislators) are quite content to impose burdens on farmers, who control very little capital and very few votes.
The governments are reactionary because they’ve bought into the eco-reactionary rhetoric. They don’t listen to farmers.
What many people don’t know, and don’t want to acknowledge, is that farmers around the globe have defied government decrees to plant GM crops, and the “black market” has often been more successful in the introduction of these crops than the allegedly rapacious multinationals.
Farmers avidly adopt new technologies, and always will, if they’re allowed to.
Nigeria is structurally different to other African nations.
I’ve posted details on subsidies before. here’s a quickie:
“The scale of government support to America’s 25,000 cotton farmers is staggering, reflecting the political influence of corporate farm lobbies in key states. Every acre of cotton farmland in the US attracts a subsidy of $230, or around five times the transfer for cereals. In 2001/02 farmers reaped a bumper harvest of subsidies amounting to $3.9bn – double the level in 1992. This increase in subsidies is a breach of the ‘Peace Clause’ in the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, opening the door to the Brazilian complaint.
To put this figure in perspective, America’s cotton farmers receive:
* more in subsidies than the entire GDP of Burkina Faso – a country in which more than two million people depend on cotton production. Over half of these farmers live below the poverty line. Poverty levels among recipients of cotton subsidies in the US are zero.
* three times more in subsidies than the entire USAID budget for Africa’s 500 million people.
In an economic arrangement bizarrely reminiscent of Soviet state planning principles, the value of subsidies provided by American taxpayers to the cotton barons of Texas and elsewhere in 2001 exceeded the market value of output by around 30 per cent. In other words, cotton was produced at a net cost to the United States.
Domestic public-policy madness has international consequences. Using data from an International Cotton Advisory Committee model, Oxfam has attempted to capture the cost to Africa of American cotton subsidies in 2001/02. For the region as a whole, the losses amounted to $301m, equivalent to almost one-quarter of what it receives in American aid. Eight cotton-producing countries in West Africa accounted for approximately two-thirds ($191m) of overall losses.”
From Oxfam.
Schiller says its irrelevant to subsistence farmers because they eat what they grow. I don’t think Africa’s smallscale cotton farmers prefer to eat their crops but smallscale farmers sometimes barter and sometimes sell off small portions of their produce. A path for them to rise above bare subsistence is to enter markets in which they can sell their produce. How can they compete with rich country subsidies and dumping? And all that aside, why in hell would anyone without a vested interest support subsidies of a crop like cotton? It’s not key to food security.
Schiller are you suggesting that Nigeria’s govt has bought into eco-reactionary rhetoric? heh heh heh heh. thanks for that giggle.
I’m sorta with you on Monsanto Jen – hence the ” prejudice” that I was referring to in my first post.
I’m often bemused by the supposedly self-evident malignancy of private corporations presumed by so many commentators/journalists/academics etc in Australia.
At the end of the day , people who work for private corporations are no worse or venal or amoral than those who work for government or academia or media.
By and large they’re good people who want to deliver a good product/service and work for an organisation with a good name.
If Monsanto or Bayer or whomever produce something which is beneficial and make their shareholders money that should be applauded – not held up automatically as evidence of bad faith.
That’s not to say that no corporation has ever done the wrong thing or that corporations deserve to be trusted blindly but that private industry is no more likely to act destructively than an NGO OR a government.
Corporations are more heavily regulated than individuals in Australia and only enjoy the presumption of innocence before the law – good corporate citizens are the foundation of our economy.
Are there any limits to the trust you’d place in public or private corporations Jim?
“Corporations are more heavily regulated than individuals in Australia”
ummmm… how do you explain that? Ultimately, how much responsibility does a ‘corporation’ bear for the consequences of its actions? Do directors or top managers bear as much responsibility for the direct consequences of their corporate decisions v’s their private actions?
Hi Pinxi,
‘how much responsibility does a ‘corporation’ bear for the consequences of its actions’
Not much here in the UK, we are currently still waiting for the corporate manslaughter and homicide law to finally get on the statute books…. and its only 2006, maybe next year…..
yeah a friend in yr neck of the woods researched the issues around non-exec dir responsibilities and risks
it’s interesting, the history of corporations. What really floors me is the irony that all these ignorant people who cry socialist pinko as soon as you question them then yell support for unrestricted market operations which encourages oligopolies, concentrated powers, economic and democratic distortions and manipulation of the political system. Big companies are very hierarchical, centrally-planned, ruled by top-down control, and opaque. These were not the type of entities at large when the concept of the invisible hand emerged. They don’t understand the nature of the beast they think they have in a harness.
Pinxi – I expressly made the comment that corporations don’t deserve blind trust ( neither do Governments or NGO’s).
In respect of regulation I’ll use just one example – WPH&S.
Directors and Officers of companies in many jurisdictions around Australia are PERSONALLY liable for injuries incurred by employees regardless of whether the employee has followed safety directions or not.
Don’t know of anything so onerous for individuals.
Now before you get all steamed up – I SUPPORT vigorous WPH&S legislation and safe practice and prosecution of organisations who are negligent but not the unfair or unreasonable loading of responsibility onto employers only.
The reason for these laws I suspect and probably the lack of interest the public has in their unfairness is the prejudice held against business.
Hi Jim,
Wonder where the public gets that prejudice from? … I mean its not like most of the public have worked for a busine… Doh!
As individuals, colleagues also share OH&S responsibilities for and with their co-workers. However I wasn’t talking of insiders, but corporate responsibilities to people and society outside the company. Is food security an issue to be entrusted in a significant degree to a profit-chasing corporation? How and where would you draw the line?
Lamna – I suspect it comes from that mixture of narrow-mindedness and envy that infuses so much of Australian life ; if someone’s making money then they’re ripping someone else off.
An unfortunate manifestation of the tall poppy syndrome.
Pinxi – yes I’ve read that to ; not how it works unfortunately. I haven’t even got started on IR issues more generally ; rich pickings there.
As for food “security”, I think that’s one of the justifications the EU utilises to rationalise what we agree are it’s unfair agricultural practices.
If Monsanto sells a product that meets safety standards – as mandated by Government ( note ; I DO NOT suggest that anything goes ) – then I don’t see the risk to food security?
“How and where would you draw the line?
Pinxi the UN drew the line across the doorstep at AWB
In the mailbox today was a big poster from amnesty, a kid with an AK-47, 30 bucks hey
Sombody makes them what they are
Pinxii, OH&S responsibilities are not fairly distributed, directors of a company can expect jail time whilst an employee is limited to a fine for the same offence.
Whilst the common law duty of care owed by an employer to an employee may be summarised as a duty ‘to take reasonable care to avoid exposing the employee to unnecessary risk of injury’ in a recent case it was determined that it is not good enough to provide a safe system of work; the employer has an obligation to establish, maintain and enforce such a system.
Therefore it can be argued that in some situations the employee bears no responsibility for their own negligence and the entire responsibility is borne by the company and its directors.
Jim; one of the reasons for our new founded OH&S zeal is, someone eventually has to pick up the tabs for injuries which can go on an on in some cases. Insurance disputes have cost us plenty in both the recent and distant past.
The work and play environment today is littered with corporate fear but not a lot of it has much to do with employees welfare. However from experience back or knee injuries etc become a great lesson for individuals.
I met a man yesterday who only gave up lagging our heating systems with asbestos and cement compounds only fifteen or so years ago. I played with that form of lagging back in the late fifties but knew something of the danger then. What happened to other employees in-between?
BTW some of us worked around the likes of US based companies like Monsanto right here in Australia and a few learned to be wise during any event despite the corporate philosophy on the job. It’s a real case of minding who your friends are.
The risk is proportionate? Tell me about individual responsibilities under trade practices rog. But to reiterate, the question wasn’t about responsibility to insiders but outsiders.
On food security beyond standards for output Russell, what of trade secrets and concentrated ownership of knowledge of key crops? Is there sufficient spread of risk in the ownership and operation of seed banks and distribution networks, in farming methods and sufficiently distant diversity crop varieties? Is there enough resilience and resistance in the system if a couple of unexpected ‘events’ (blight, terrorism etc) occur? Is it ok for these companies to have power to influence and challenge governments?
How much freedom of choice is offered to farmers in places like Africa? Do biotech marketers admit the pros & cons and offer alternatives? I talked to smallscale 3rd world farmers (not an NGO in sight) who felt locked into a system in which they didn’t want to participate – their output had risen initially but so had their costs so they were no further ahead and dependent on purchasing the next package of seeds with chems.
Whose interests did James Hardy represent?
oops Hardie
fernetik
Try to stay on topic pinxie. You ask “How much freedom of choice is offered to farmers in places like Africa?”
That is a political question, which country are you referring to?
In South Africa strict labour laws limit freedom of choice. In Nigeria sharia law wipes out freedom of choice. Nothing to do with Monsanto whatsoever.
Seeing you brought up Monsanto rog you did realise then that it was a question on choice of farming technology as discussed earlier. Allegedly if you don’t implicity trust Monsanto then you’re categorically anti-choice, but which Monsanto supporters are arguing for full freedom of choice incl traditional methods, full information to allow farmers to make informed choices and consumer risk protection? Profit driven companies play hard ball to eradicate competitive offerings, ie remove consumer choice.
“How much freedom of choice is offered to farmers in places like Africa?”
Pinxi I was curious about Monsanto in Africa so I googled Monsanto re Nigeria and it’s worth a look through all the results
Get the picture rog
I’ve some questions for the anti-GMO types. Do you think most scientists working with agricultural GMOs in Australia are working for multinationals like Monsanto? Do you think multinationals will be the sole major providers of agricultural GMOs in Australia in the future? Would you be happier if there were more public funding for such ventures?
Nexus could ask me if I want to be gene rich or gene poor at the end of our research.
But in Africa I say it’s got to be about some education for all beyond agriculture.
Here we kid ourselves a bit with our silly gardens. Sure they are the result of many decades of toil on the breeding side across the spectrum of favoured species. Turn the water of over the christmass holidays and everything wilts. Turn the water off permanently and everything is stone dead, in both the front and back yards.
Yates, Monsanto, CSIRO all of them have a long way to in feeding us through a drought in any city. From experience I totally oppose the concept of monopolies, mono crops, and short term exploitation of our fragile fertility. Ground without insects or worms is essentially barren.
Gavin,
1. Why would I ask if you want to be gene rich or gene poor? It’s a meaningless question.
2. Not talking about Africa, talking about Australia.
3. No plant can survive without water. What’s your point?
4. I also oppose monopolies, mono-cropping and short-term exploitation of our fragile fertility. What does that have to do with GMOs?
5. Ground (rhizoshpere) without bacteria and fungi, as well as insects and worms, is essentially baron. What’s that got to do with GMOs?
No one’s had a go at the questions I posed earlier. Come on, people!
Gavin, instead of Googling nigeria and monsanto try Googling nigeria corruption government
“According to the World Bank, economic mismanagement, corruption and excessive dependence on oil have been the main reasons for poor economic performance and rising poverty.”
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5141
Hi Rog,
Odd that you forgot to suggest Googling Monsanto and corruption eh?…..
‘The US agrochemical giant Monsanto has agreed to pay a $1.5m (£799,000) fine for bribing an Indonesian official.
Monsanto admitted one of its employees paid the senior official two years ago in a bid to avoid environmental impact studies being conducted on its cotton.
In addition to the penalty, Monsanto also agreed to three years’ close monitoring of its business practices by the American authorities.
It said it accepted full responsibility for what it called improper activities.’
– BBC, 7th January 2005
When Nexus comes up with “I’ve some questions for the anti-GMO types” I immediately see a blue in the making. This smacks of superiority up front. Who are you working for on this question Nexus?
I don’t need your GMO science or Monsanto stuffed down my throat thank you.
For those interested in developing their own attitudes; Google GMO WIKI Monsanto etc till you find the I like GM FOOD campaign then read up on corporate backed internet deception etc. Discussions like ours are plugged with stooges. Real science and democracy is elsewhere folks.
I put GM food in the same basket as Coke & Macas when it comes to feeding the masses.
Rog will also have me thinking we can export our corporate ethics. Hardly
Bribing officials is the only way you can do business in Indonesia.
Gavin, what are you on about, why should only the wealthy have access to Coke and Maccas?
I won’t be going to Indonesia rog even if I had a pocket full of money.
‘what are you on about, why should only the wealthy have access to Coke and Maccas?’ – Rog
Because its crap nutrition?…….
Wow!… Google on Maccas brings up McDonalds website top of the list..
Google on Mickey D’s and it comes second…. its not just the cricket.. Doh!
‘A showcase project to develop a genetically modified crop for Africa has failed. Three years of field trials have shown that GM sweet potatoes modified to resist a virus were no less vulnerable than ordinary varieties, and sometimes their yield was lower, according to the Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute. The GM project has cost Monsanto, the World Bank and the US government an estimated $6 million over the last decade. It had been held up worldwide as an example of how GM crops will help revolutionise farming in Africa. Embarrassingly for GM business, in Uganda conventional breeding has produced a high-yielding resistant variety more quickly and more cheaply.’ – New Scientist, February 28, 2004.
Amazing what you can come across while hunting to find out if there is an organic salmon dye for Jen’s new thread isn’t it?
so maybe the proponents of smartbreeding are on to something real
For the record Kenya received aid worth US$1B in 1990–96,
“..It is unwise to deny the developing world the opportunity to use biotechnology,” says Frank Kiriswa, a former agricultural scientist and First Secretary Economic/Political Section at the U.S. Embassy of the Republic of Kenya. “The opportunity for us to try this technology should be available.”
Kiriswa is equally adamant that any efforts to develop the technology for the developing world require close interactions between the government, non-governmental organizations, scientists and farmers. Such a collaboration in Kenya has resulted in a GM sweet potato that is resistant to a devastating virus…”
“..Halling says that the green lobby has “built up this GMO issue to the point that it is illogical. [The famine in Africa] is the first issue that has the ability to destroy their credibility. In this case they overdid it. I want to know if they are going to accept responsibility for the people that will die as a result of the refusal of GM aid,” said Halling.”
http://pewagbiotech.org/buzz/display.php3?StoryID=77
‘Such a collaboration in Kenya has resulted in a GM sweet potato that is resistant to a devastating virus…” – Rog
Would the reason Rog’s link doesn’t have any date apart from 2004 be because it was premature publicity for Monsanto’s rubbish sweet potatoe product published earlier in 2004 than the New Scientist report?…….that would be very naughty…
‘A showcase project to develop a genetically modified crop for Africa has failed. Embarrassingly for GM business, in Uganda conventional breeding has produced a high-yielding resistant variety more quickly and more cheaply.’ – New Scientist, February 28, 2004.
So a project failed, and an unregulated project, not impeded by the barriers GM has to face succeded. (I doubt it succeeded quicky though).
That success is great, but the real embarrasment is the hundred or so non-corporate (ie public funded) GM projects for the developing world that are slowed down by the regulations and ant-GM hype when may a few of them could do wonders for the poor.
What I cannot understand is why so many commentators are so obstructive and cynical about trying to assist the poor in the developing world.