Surely the bans on genetically modified (GM) food crops in most Australian states will be lifted soon?
But the mainstream media keep printing these letter from people like Gill Rosier perpetuating misinformation – in particular the myth that Australia is GM free. David Tribe busted a few myths in his letter to The Age on September 13, 2007, reprinted here with permission:
Horse has already bolted on GM foods
GILL Rosier (Letters, 11/9) points out the decision to lift or extend Victoria’s moratorium on genetically manipulated crops rests with Premier John Brumby. Rosier also offers the judgement that Mr Brumby is likely to drop the ban, given his vision for Victoria to be a world leader in biotechnology. But Rosier also raises the issue of whether in making such a decision, Mr Brumby will throw away Victoria’s “GM-free status”.
The answer to this is simple. There is no way our “GM-free status” will be affected because in Victoria we already import large quantities of GM foods and stock feeds — maize, soy and canola — particularly in times of drought. For many years now we have been feeding them to farm animals in stock feed. So, without even mentioning GM vaccines, GM carnations or Australian GM cottonseed, the truthful answer to Rosier’s rhetorical question is this: in Victoria’s case, the “GM-free status” tag is just tricky double-speak for our present active use of GM feeds and foods in farming systems. The equally misleading question of whether there is any real price advantage from this dubious distinction can be left for another day.
David Tribe
Senior Lecturer, Institute of Land and Food, University of Melbourne
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Sooner than you think David … Better fed than dead I say
Drought, oil send food prices soaring
Asa Wahlquist, Rural writer | September 15, 2007
IT’S called agflation and it’s coming very soon, propelled by climate change and drought.
Grain prices have hit record levels, and those prices will ramify through the feed chain – beef, dairy, pork, eggs and chicken — and reach consumers.
The nation’s food bowl, the Murray-Darling basin, does not have enough water in the system to keep 150,000ha of citrus, apples, pears, apricots, plums, cherries, table grapes and winegrapes alive, let alone in production.
Fruit production in the basin is worth more than $1.5 billion and accounts for 60 per cent of Australian-grown fruit.
Australian Horticulture Council chief executive Kris Newton says the severe cutback in irrigation water could result in price rises, as seen with bananas after Cyclone Larry.
“But that will be across all the commodities,” Ms Newton said.
“We are facing a disaster unprecedented in Australian history. I can’t think of anything in agriculture that comes even close.”
Dairy prices are skyrocketing, too, although that is little comfort for those farmers having to pay high grain prices.
Australian Dairy Farmers policy director Robert Poole says agriculture is going through its most profound change in modern history.
“The whole oil price, climate change, food for fuel scenario — that has changed the world forever,” Mr Poole said.
“The linking of agriculture land and its use to the price of energy, in the medium to long term, will radically change the way the world works.
“We will see land use change, which will change the supply pattern of all products, including dairy products. We will see the run-down of stocks, we will see the increasing of food prices. It will bring the issue of food security back on to the table.”
Those with good wheat crops, and there are patches in most states, or dairy farmers in coastal areas where there has been good rain will have a very good year. But the dry winter over the Murray-Darling basin has withered crops and forced intensive livestock farmers into the rising grain market.
In June, ABARE forecast a 22.5 million tonne wheat crop — if there were normal conditions. There weren’t. The next forecast is out on Tuesday, and will probably be between 14 and 19 million tonnes.
Grain prices are rising due to increased demand from the biofuel sector, along with a series of weather events leading to crop failures this year, which have resulted in world grain stocks being at a 30-year low.
Australian Lotfeeders Association president Malcolm Foster has been campaigning against mandated ethanol in petrol.
“It is putting extreme pressure on the world grain prices, because of what the US has done,” Mr Fraser said.
“Our concern was Australia would do it and put pressure on Australian prices, but it is happening in the US anyway. The impact is going to be quite severe on food prices around the world.”
Along the Murray River, irrigation allocations have been slashed. On the NSW side of the Murray they are zero, on the Victorian side 5 per cent, and in South Australia 13 per cent, rising to 16 per cent next month. Only on the Murrumbidgee do growers have enough water to survive, with 60 per cent of high-security allocations.
Ms Newton said around 48 per cent of normal allocation was “required to simply keep them alive — not produce a crop, just keep them alive — and we are not going to get that, with the exception of the MIA (Murrumbidgee)”.
She said that, even with above-average spring rains, “there is not going to be enough. Basically between now and Christmas they will die”.
Blair Trewin from the National Climate Centre says 2007 has been the worst post-drought year on record.
“Not only was 2006 a severe drought year, but 2007 in many areas is unprecedentedly poor.”
Dr Trewin says climate change, particularly rising temperatures, has made climate forecasting more difficult.
“Our outlooks are based on historical relationships between sea surface temperatures and rainfall and temperatures,” he says. “We are not as confident as we once were that those relationships are still stable.”
He says there are signs a La Nina is developing, although it is late. “There is still hope for decent rainfall, particularly in the summer rainfall areas,” Dr Trewin said.
Ms Newton points out that horticulture is a huge employer in the regions, in food processing, winemaking, farm and irrigation services, transport and even wine and food tourism.
Dairy also has a big multiplier effect. Milk production since the drought began in 2002 is down by nearly 2 billion litres. Mr Poole estimates that has cost “about 15,000 jobs and approximately $3 billion to the economy”.
Australian Farm Institute executive director Mick Keogh says: “The thing that scares me this time is when you add the widespread nature of the drought to the lack of water.
“There is not a sector of agriculture, with perhaps the exception of some of the coastal fruit and vegie and the northern beef industry, that are missing out. I can’t recall that sort of widespread impact before.”
The grain industry is full of rumours about grain growers, new to hedging, being badly caught out.
Risk management consultant with regional NSW company MarketAg, Colin Lethbridge, explained that “because AWB hasn’t been there, growers have had to do their hedging themselves this year”.
Many locked in a prudent one-third of their crop at the beginning of the season at what were very good prices. Then prices soared and the crop failed.
“Now they are facing a $US120 to $US150 loss a tonne. They might have sold forwards only 1000 tonnes, but that is $US150,000 which is perhaps $200,000 on top of your input costs. There are a lot of blokes around here who are still short and who may lose a property,” Mr Lethbridge said.
Ms Newton is worried that if permanent plantings die, many farmers will not be in a position to replant. The average farmer is over 55, “and you have to wait eight to 10 years (for income), assuming you have the confidence to replant, or you can afford to”.
“People are going to throw their hands up and go, ‘well that’s it, I’m out’,” she said.
Ms Newton says many of the best operators, and the most innovative, will be the hardest hit. The most water efficient, computer-controlled method of growing fruit trees results in a dense root ball.
“The intention is to reduce the amount of water it needs, but it means it has no deep tap roots so the moment irrigation goes off and there is no rain they will die in about two weeks.
“Most of these people are extremely efficient farmers. We are not talking about the marginal or the vulnerable who may have been caught up in the drought.”
Ms Newton says the effect of the dry will be felt in the cities. “Whether it is in the hip-pocket nerve, whether it is in terms of unemployment in regional communities, it will be felt across the nation,” she said.
Mr Keogh said: “I don’t think anyone in their wildest dreams would have imagined a problem on this scale.”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22419980-643,00.html
Interestingly, The Age cut a short paragraph from the letter saying exactly whay yopuve posted, in so many words.
Ireland is seeing the same situation.
They want to be a “GM-Free Zone” but it turns out, the Irish producers of cattle, swine and poultry can only afford to stay in business if they purchase GM feed for the livestock. From overseas.
They could go “certified organic,” but even at the ridiculous markups for “organic” beef, pork and chicken, they’re facing bankruptcy. (Supermarkets get most of the ‘premium’ consumers pay.)
Too bad, so sad… people with inefficient, even Medieval production systems which have destroyed Europe’s landscape, can’t compete with modern methods.
GM crops are so efficient that you can make money shipping them from Canada to Australia! Even after paying the freight from one hemisphere to another!
Now, everyone’s pretty much used to the notion that the darkies in Africa die when food is short, what the heck, but what happens when Australians and Irish face sky-high food costs because they prefer antique agriculture? Will they die just as quietly as darkies, or will they whine and complain and cajole and point fingers?
In the mean time, they’ll pay more money for food, and less for other things. And the situation will become interesting after that.
Europe is paying a fortune for feed grains because they are not allowing the import of GM corn. They likely reverse this situation before riots hit the streets over food prices. Those silly Europeans … no resources, no future!
FYI. Food is quite cheap in Europe.
The ban is on the cultivation of GM crops, notably Canola, not consumption. This makes sense when we don’t know how these crops may affect ecological systems in the long term. Allowing the cultivation of GM won’t help at all if it doesn’t rain.
America always has a bull-at-gate approach to everything. Let them continue to show the world how not to do things. Look at the mess in Iraq, their crime ridden society and obesity epidemic to name a few. Why would their agricultural practices be any better?
Ann food WAS cheap. Up 28% in the UK since the June floods. With only 45 days of stocks of grains left in the world there is but one way for grains prices. That means meat, dairy and fibre commodities are heading one way also – significantly UP.
Google news ‘food+prices’ and then pull your foot out of your mouth …
Rob I fail to see how Iraq has anything to do with the debate on GM crop adoption – geez there are some crackpots on the anti side. Nevermind, the ignorance tax is in place – increasingly expensive food, and for farmers like me who are fortunate enough to get rain, we are collecting the fruits of ignorance ruling the democratic process … its consumers who stand to benefit most from GM and more of your wallet is moving across to the producer with food shortages.
Well Aaron, food is still quite cheap at the supermarket and at the grocery’s. Food is much cheaper now , when we are EU members….but food quality might be worse.
Hey, we eat too much btw. We don’t suffer from starvation. We suffer from obesitas here in developing countries.
And re GM. What about food quality and taste. I really don’t want to eat tasteless food if I can!
But sure GM might have some good properties, dunno…I don’t want to cut down more forests to make more croplands….
OOps! Read : ” in developed countries..”
The best way to protect the forests still standing is to make sure MORE food is produced on land that is already cleared. That means no weeds, no pests and no diseases can be allowed to detract from yield, drought proofing traits need to be adopted (ie perenniality) etc etc.
When food commodities becomes scarce, quality will decrease … welcome to the new world. Its the beginning of the end of quality based payment systems the food world over.
Its logic Jim but not as we know it…
Edmunds conveniently ignores the fact that lower food prices means less money for farmers… can’t have it both ways…
Europe has a history of food riots.
They know how to handle them, too. Shoot the rioters and the situation improves.
Looters get shot, too.
Now in Africa, where there’s nothing to loot, it’s just time for the darkies to lay down and die. Hardly dramatic enough for white people to be interested.
Lamnus you still don’t get it do you old chap. Demand outpacing supply (in 8 of the last 9 years for grains) – Economics 101. Food prices are not coming down and I can only but chuckle to myself at the occassional narky comment you throw from a country that gets it caesar salads from South Africa. All producing more will do is stabilise them at a higher base in the short term. There’s a new mouth at the dinner table called ethanol. You really need to think this out a little bit more as the UK currently endures the ravaging effects of food hyperinflation.
So yes I can have it both ways and as a farmer I will as, there are still many production zones where even trangenics cannot lift production … 😉 The consumer (read Lamnus asus) on the other hand cannot have it anyway but increasingly expensive. 1929 all over again only this time with 6.5 billion people and an extra 80 years of resource depletion under the belt. I don’t envy the plight of resourceless nations (England being one of them) moving forward into this environment. Rather ironic you think of yourself as an extinct species …
Aaron,
If you wonder about England being a “resourceless environment” unable to feed its population, consider Japan. They haven’t had enough acres to feed their people for generations.
In a way, they’re more food-insecure than even Africa. Africans could fix their mess with modern agriculture and kicking out the NGOs, but there’s no way out for Japan.
They haven’t had starvation in Japan for a while, but they know for sure that they’re hostages to food prices.
Meanwhile their banking system’s on the brink of collapse, with interest rates near zero percent (the yen carry trade). This could be bad news all around.
But there is hope! Organic producers say they can feed the world without “expensive” farming systems.
(Normal people know better.)
Aaron,
GM crops are not the be all and end all. In Australia’s case food shortages are due to persistent drought in eastern Australia, and severely depleted water reserves in the Murray Darling. The affected food crops include: rice, wheat and fruit. These crops are successfully cultivated without GM technology. Perhaps you can explain how growing a GM oilseed crop will improve our food supply, or anyone else’s for that matter?
What recent changes in our weather patterns highlight is how this country has become overpopulated. The rainfall deficiencies we are experiencing are not dissimilar to the early third of the 20th century. It wasn’t a problem then because there were many less mouths to feed. Now we don’t have enough water or food. The challenge is not how we can keep feeding the world in a totally unsustainable way, but how we will deal with the anguish from the inevitable collapse of our exponentially rising human population. This may arise from starvation, a pandemic disease, war or a combination.
All ag systems require inputs whether they be organic, conventional or GM. The future will be those food production systems that require the least amount of inputs as these costs are about to explode and even shortages will be likely (eg there is no glyphosate available in any quantity in Australia until around April 2008). Smart farmers have hoarded.
My sandalwood system is a classic future crop. No need for nitrogen fertilizer, it’s perennial so no need for expensive machinery once established (perennial), it’s native so adapted to a wide range of soil pH’s (no soil conditioning costs – lime has doubled in 1 year here) and low phosphorous levels (phosphate prices are already at record highs). There will be different crops for different niches … I see GM as a means to buy us time … while the public swallows expensive food for a while and sees the necessity to invest vast amounts of social, political and economic energy into sculpting a truly sustainable agriculture landscape. Remember unsustainable means it CANNOT BE SUSTAINED.
The only catch for truly sustainable agriculture (ie low input) is it won’t be able to feed 6.5 billion people … it would be worse for organic as the problem with today’s agriculture is not the way the crops are grown so much as the choice of crop itself. It takes energy and investment in infrastructure to grow crops not well suited to the hosting environment. So growing organic wheat is no more sustainable than growing conventional or GM wheat in the Austraalian environment.
Rob totally agree with your second paragraph. In relation to GM and drought you are correct in saying it ultimately comes down to water. But to suggest that efficiencies can’t be gained from breeding in water use and frost tolerance is short sighted. I am not suggesting GM is the answer to global food shortages and also agree population reduction should be a major consideration in the future. I am saying it has the ability to allow us to introduce productivity traits more quickly than conventional because time is something we are running short of these days …
And Rob to take that further.
Roundup Ready canola would eliminate water using weeds currently poorly controlled by trifluralin = yield gain. Any weed detracts from yield, no rocket science there.
Drought tolerance could involve thicker cell walls to prevent water loss throughout the season.
Frost tolerance could focus on lignifying oilseed flower structures when they are usually susceptible to frost.
And the mother of all transgenic alterations would be a interspecific hybrid between narrow lea lupins (L. angustifolious) and pearl lupins (L. mutabilis) working to create Australia’s first dryland leguminous oilseed.
GM allows the development of the superior genetic base or what I’d call the ‘organic infrastructure’ necessary to increase production chances into the future, growing crops not meant to be grown in our environment.
I see in my morning paper that food prices will increase because the Asian market buys all the meat and diary products, thanks to higher living standards and population growth…
Higher prices are as well due to drought in Europe…
Aaron you still don’t get it do you old chap.
Large free market, multinational supermarket corporations prefer to deal with large year round suppliers, not local farmers… – Market Forces 101
All attempting to produce more using GM biotechnology will do is stabilise prices at a higher base in the short term.. There’s a new mouth at the dinner table to add to those 6.5 billion people (and rising) called ethanol, without population control you are attempting to use a high tech sticking plaster on a ruptured artery… Demand outpacing supply – Economics 101.
Edmonds really needs to think this out a little bit more….
Thurkettle, word to the wise… calling developing nation’s citizens ‘darkies’ does not enhance your credibility as a champion of the impoverished… Outside of the southern states of the USA, ‘darkie’ is one of those terms that are held in the same regard as the ‘N’ word.. without the street cred mitigation…
Lamnus asus very few farmers signing contracts these days silly endangered man. Vegetable growers are returning to the grains complex in droves as production carries lower risk, requires fewer labour units, highly mechanised, more marketing options outside of largely constrictive supermarket contracts (no futures markets with vegetables and these market are very regional), and less sensitive to extremes of weather. And finally grain demand is far more inelastic than that vegetable demand so the bull market in agriculture will dictate grains will be the star for a long time to come.
L. asus your fear of multinational corporations is indicative of a radical breed that still thinks farmers have no say in how they grow crops, what crops they grow and who they sell them too. I’m selling my feed barley for $425/t at the moment. Nearly double its historic highs. Farming has never been better! I buy my herbicides from multinationals, I buy from fertilizer from multinationals, and I sell my grain to multinationals – very profitable, very pleasurable. What’s the big deal? Its been this way all my farming life …
How is that food inflation treating you? All good this end. Feeding nicely into farmland values here … the irony of your narky tyrades is you are actually criticising one of the few farmers who is fostering an agricultural system beyond fossil fuels, beyond effects of global warming and beyond the collapse of globalisation.
So no doubt given your readiness to criticize you have some idea/s of how the world’s agricultural systems need to adapt for the future? I’m all ears … blow me away! A few simple points for you to ponder. How do you suggest producers deal with rising diesel prices and even fuel shortages? How do you suggest fertilizer be sourced when there is no room for livestock or simply no access to even organic sources of nutrients (they rely on the same globalized model as conventional fertilizers)?
Which part of ‘population control’ went over your head Edmonds?…..
Lamna,
I suggest you go on a hunger strike to protest overpopulation.
So what are you suggesting L. asus? Help us all out here … articulate your argument for a simple man like me. You oppose the technology thats clear. So HOW do we strengthen the food production system or do we simply acknowledge it can’t be strengthened and a die-off should be facilitated sooner rather than later? If that is the case are you putting your hand up to go …
Aaron,
I find Roundup a curious weed killer. If it effectively kills weeds, why do we have to keep applying it year in year out? Isn’t there some other way you can manage your crops without using herbicides? For example, selecting crops that out-compete weeds and are well adapted to your local soils/climate?
I occassionally use Roundup in my garden, particularly on Kikuyu grass, which is a noxious weed for the vegetable gardener. I have observed that Roundup fails to eliminate Kikuyu, despite repeated applications over several years. Perhaps the Kikuyu is building up a natural resistance?The only sure way to get rid of this troublesome weed is to dig it out.
While I support farmers harnessing technological advances, caution is needed, particularly with the use of GM and chemicals that may adversely affect the local ecology. The effects may take many years to arise. In North America and Europe, for example, honey bees have been disappearing on a massive scale. Perhaps this is due to agricultural chemicals? I wonder what comments Thurkettle has on the demise of his country’s bees?
Roger,
I am interested at your concern for preserving the effectiveness of chemical herbicides. Many in the environmental movement are very anxious that Monsanto’s Roundup will continue to be effective against weeds, since it is so benign that people can even drink it without being hurt. Even Greenpeace is worried that Monsanto’s chemical herbicide will stop working some day. Alas! We will have to count on the chemical companies to develop something new if Roundup becomes obsolete, just as they have already dozens of times before.
As for your concerns about the demise of bees in the USA, Europe, etc… it appears that’s due to a virus–one originating in Australia!
Mite!
Every time I mention population control, Aaron always wants to suggest killing rather than contraception…
An unsettling insight into the Edmonds’ psyche..his religious convictions.. or just his usual straw man rhetoric?…
Well if you could possibly suggest how to increase production or production resiliance in today’s agriculture L. asus we wouldn’t have to contemplate the sorts of crises foreshadowed by some (www.dieoff.org). You are the one whose rhetoric denies food to the masses with the motto better dead than fed. Remember your own country lacks the ability to feed itself now. Lets hope the oil keeps flowing and the Russians keep rationing you natural gas.
One transgenic alteration could buy a whole bunch of time for the contraceptive based reduction you suggest to come into effect – salt tolerant rice. In the meantime 6.5 billion people is the figure we have and it ain’t going down in a hurry like the supplies of food are. The crisis is here today! So once again I am all ears and lets see if you have any substance … so far all I am getting is a bitter twisted man. Surprise me!
‘Remember your own country lacks the ability to feed itself now’ – Aaron
Don’t confuse globalised corporate preferences for cheap imports for the inability to be self-sufficient… Market Forces 101
Don’t confuse the religious, ethnic and political conflicts in many developing nations with the ability for those countries without the conflicts to feed their citizens…Politics 101
There are already non-GM crop strains available that have drought / salinity tolerance…Reality 101
Edmonds much trumpeted brilliance at farming is in fact nothing more than luck..
His farm has water..that doesn’t make Edmonds a farming guru…
When product is temporarily in short supply the price goes up..that doesn’t make Edmonds a financial wizard..
Edmonds and his staff (not too many though, mechanisation as Edmonds pointed out is less expensive than people) are not tip toeing through anti-personnel mines and dodging machine gun fire.. that doesn’t make Edmond’s views on GM accurate…Stooge101
So once again I am all ears, lets see if you have any substance … so far all I am getting is GM propaganda. Surprise me!
Lamna,
Tell me–is there something *positive* about GM crops you would *not* label as “propaganda?”
Possibly if it was used as a method of speeding up the testing of natural selection of traits within a single species in a way that is not achievable using traditional methods and conducted under lab conditions.. currently that is the only potentially ‘positive’ GM crop use I would consider not having major potential environmental risks or simply being a smokescreen for biopatenting rather than being genuinely beneficial.
Lamna,
Thank you. In other words, you’ll only approve of GM crops if they’re not GM, but GM, but beneficial, but not paying anyone to develop them.
You are a very bright little boy!
More of your straw man rhetoric Thurkettle, the outline I gave is precisely what has been going on in some avenues of human genetic study.. and been paid for..
Once again you prove you are only here for the biffo..
“There are already non-GM crop strains available that have drought / salinity tolerance…Reality 101”
Where L. asus? Crops and countries please. For my benefit obviously.
Robert, weeds have a seed bank in the soil. Depending on the weed species, seeds can continue to germinate from the seed bank for several years. In addition, you can get seeds blown in from outside. Lastly, not all weeds will be killed by a herbicide application. Some will be missed and others will germinate after the herbicide has been applied.
The major problem we have in cropping in Australia (not counting the current drought) is our old fragile soils. To control weeds in grain crops we essentially have two options, cultivation before the crop is sown or herbicides. Cultivation damages our fragile soils leading to compaction, problems with water infiltration and soil erosion and dust storms like the one that blanketed Melbourne in 1983.
Perennial tree crops have other options, but there is still a need for weed control of some sort. Again cultivation used to be used, but that causes many problems. This is why farmers prefer to use herbicides. In Australia, herbicides are rarely applied unnecessarily by farmers because they are expensive. We have much lower herbicide inputs than Europe, North America and even South America.
The problem with trying to control kikuyu in gardens is that kikuyu is a rhizomatous perennial grass. All of the buds along the rhizome need to be killed. Glyphosate products can be quite useful, but need to be applied more than once and need to be applied over the whole area where kikuyu is growing. If you have a kikuyu lawn nearby, re-invasion is certain.
The jury is still out on colony collapse disorder, but it has also appeared in Europe, Asia and South America. So far, evidence points to excessive movement of hives, varroa mites and Israeli acute paralysis virus.
Lamna,
You have to be on someone’s payroll. Nobody would willingly argue as ineptly as you, and suffer your humiliation, without some recompense.
P.S. You apparently didn’t understand my statement above. You accidentally declared yourself the Straw Man! Good night, Straw Man!
Schiller the anti-GM are all generally illogical and throw rocks from glass towers. Oil hit a new record last night … a very unfamiliar world around the corner where food insecurity comes to the collective consciousness in all the countries that forgot about how important it was to never allow politics to get in the way of a food production increase or resiliance gain because the crops we grow today are not resiliant to rising oil prices or water insecurity.
L. asus food insecure is when you don’t produce enough to satisfy your own needs and when there are no exportable surpluses out of food secure nations. We are not far from this point and the sooner you accept it the sooner you’ll argue more rationally. Economic theories generally don’t recognize the term finite.
India breeds salt tolerant crop cultivars, including the salt tolerant rice cultivar CSR10 (semi-dwarf, salt-tolerant variety developed from cross between Damodar and Jaya).
Myanmar has a salt tolerant local rice variety called Shwethweyin.
The International Rice Research Institute estimates 30 to 40 rice cultivars show salt tolerance.
‘Production of salt tolerant rice breeding line via doubled haploid
A haploid breeding program was initiated to develop doubled haploid salt tolerant rice breeding line via anther culture. Two sensitive breeding lines BR4608-R1-R2 and BR4909-R1-R2 were crossed with a salt tolerant line IR13146-13-3-3 to transfer its salt tolerant character to the doubled haploids.
Anther from confirmed F1s of the two crosses were cultured in defined medium for callus induction and eventual plant regeneration. Fifteen doubled haploid (DH) lines were obtained from two crosses. Test for salt tolerance were done in vitro. Five out of 15 lines were found tolerant at the level of 8–10 decisiemens/m (ds/m) while the rests were sensitive to that level of salinity.
Field experiment was conducted to evaluate the doubled haploids under saline and non saline soil. Five salt tolerant lines produced comparable yield with the resistant control (BR 23) under saline condition, whereas these lines yielded even higher in non saline soil under irrigated condition when evaluated with other 10 sensitive DH lines’
– M. A. A. Miah1, M. S. Pathan1 and H. A. Quayum. 1996
New Mexico has the homoploid hybrid species of sunflower, Helianthus paradoxus which is able to colonize salt marsh habitats.
The US Rodale institute has carried out long-term comparisons between organic and conventional crops and found that during the drought years the organic yielded better because the soil retains more water.
The Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa project is using non-GM maize strains to produce improved, drought tolerant cultivars.
‘Researchers bred this drought-tolerant Tuxpeño corn under drought conditions, selecting, at flowering, those plants where the silks appeared soon after the male flower emerged. When tassel and silk development most nearly coincided, grain production was highest. The selected plants were then bred further over an eight-year period, in order to achieve even greater drought tolerance.
Scientists found that such plants allocate more carbohydrates, or energy, to the ear, which allows the plant to produce more grain with less moisture. This selective breeding led to the “Tuxpeño Sequia” variety and others like it, which can be grown under a wider range of tropical conditions.
The research has already produced new varieties that, in times of severe mid-season droughts, produce 2.8 tons per hectare, a 40 percent increase over regular maize yields under similar drought conditions.’
-Press Release from The Second World Water Forum, date : 21-03-2000
Why Do Genetically Engineered Crop Varieties Need More Water?
‘When the most important pest of cotton, the American bollworm is controlled in Bt varieties, there is more biomass, which naturally requires more water. Similarly, when we remove the weeds from a crop field, either manually or through herbicides, a severe competition for water and other resources is removed and the resultant increase in biomass needs more water.’
– C Kameswara Rao, Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education, Bangalore, India
..further to my remarks about possible biotech benefits –
‘Use of new technologies such as molecular markers to identify desired traits has accelerated traditional breeding efforts ‘
– New Agriculturalist
Pro-GMers are all generally illogical and throw rocks from glass towers.. banjo playing although popular, is optional…
And where are the commercial plantings L. asus? Countries please … These advances you report on are from 1996 for the rice and 2000 for the corn. Salt tolerance is a loose term. Conventional breeding could not give you tolerance to seawater salinities in a timely fashion. GM could possibly. Surely if breeding revolutions such as these were real they would be commercially available by now?
Could you please provide information on how to access these non GM improved lines as a farmer? Ie the company names owning patents (yes even non GM plants are locked under patents) and contacts to broadacre growers who have commercially produced these awesome varieties. Once again obviously for my own benefit. I am indebted for this …
There are already non-GM crop strains available that have drought / salinity tolerance…Reality 101
Edmonds deliberately suggested there were no such strains.. Twice..
‘One transgenic alteration could buy a whole bunch of time for the contraceptive based reduction you suggest to come into effect – salt tolerant rice.’- Aaron
‘Where L. asus? Crops and countries please’ – Aaron
Oooooooops..eh?
Having covered himself in embarrassment, Edmonds now wants to quibble over the level of salt tolerance?.. and how many farmers are using those strains??…RAOTFLMAO!
So back to the subject of contraceptive based population control Edmonds.. or indeed to Dr Tribe’s informative thread topic regarding the GM industry’s continued attack on the non-GM market place by utilising the business model of de facto contamination and infiltration… which naturally raises the interesting issue of accurate GM product labeling.. and the GM industry’s antipathy to it…
I give up! You win … even though every time you now visit the supermarket, you lose. You give more money and get less food. I’ll keep my eyes pealed for any drought tolerant wheats … just around the corner no doubt?