|
Do GM crops fail to produce more yield ?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
The claim:
Gurian-Sherman, D. (2009)
Failure to Yield, Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops, Union ot Concerned Scientists pp (Report)
www.ucsusa.org AND http://www.botanischergarten.ch/GM-General/Gurian-Sherman-failure-to-yield-2009.pdf and Press conference text:http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/science/failure-to-yield.html http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/science/failure-to-yield.html
The short summary of the press release of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS):
“Failure to Yield is the first report to closely evaluate the overall effect genetic engineering has had on crop yields in relation to other agricultural technologies. It reviewed two dozen academic studies of corn and soybeans, the two primary genetically engineered food and feed crops grown in the United States. Based on those studies, the UCS report concluded that genetically engineering herbicide-tolerant soybeans and herbicide-tolerant corn has not increased yields. Insect-resistant corn, meanwhile, has improved yields only marginally. The increase in yields for both crops over the last 13 years, the report found, was largely due to traditional breeding or improvements in agricultural practices.”
Comments by Prof. Klaus Ammann
The report deals only with two major crops: Maize and soybean, there is no justification for the sweeping conclusions on all GM crops. Other crops like cotton and oilseed rape show a different, more positive picture, it is misleading to restrict the review to two crops and then conclude for all GM crops.
GM crops have – at least in the beginning – not been developed to increase yield per se (the second generation of GM soybean will do this. The first GM crop generation has been conceived to efficiently reduce yield losses to weeds and insects - and thus enhance the economic situation of the farmers, and these promises have been fulfilled properly and with evident success. UCS misleads the reader by not distinguishing those two views of yield.
GM crops have also efficiently reduced herbicide use (or made it possible to shift to environmentally more benign ones) and also they have helped to reduce pesticides. It is misleading by UCS not to mention those facts.
GM crops have a proven positive influence on the ecological footprint of intensive high production agriculture (no tillage, better life for non-target insects etc.). It is misleading by the UCS report to camouflage those positive effects under “agricultural practices”.
1. In a response to the UCS report, Prof. Wayne Parrott, an experienced agricultural specialist, summarizes his critique:
“The report by the Union of Concerned Scientists rightly differentiates between intrinsic yield
(what the crop could produce) and operational yield (what the crop actually produces). The
premise of the report is that GM crops are a bad means to achieve global agricultural
sustainability simply because they have not affected intrinsic yield. Surprisingly, while the report
mentions ‘wealth of data on yield under real-world conditions’ it fails to use these data. The
report focuses on corn and soybean, omitting the extensive data available from cotton and canola.
Finally, the report focuses on the US, omitting the results from the rest of world. Collectively,
these omissions in the UCS report serve to distort the actual situation.”
Parrott, W. (2009)
Electronic Source: An analysis of to Yieldby Doug Gurian-Sherman, Union of Concerned Scientists (ed. W. Parrott), Parrottlab published by: Wayne Parrott http://mulch.cropsoil.uga.edu/~parrottlab/GMOResources.htm
2. Positive development of operational yield based on hard data
Brookes and Barfoot, ISAAA report: The real impacts 1996-2006:
Brookes, G. & Barfoot, P. (2008)
Biotech crops: the real impacts 1996-2006 - yields, summary and full report, PG Economics Ltd. pp 4 and 13 Wessex Barn Frampton Dorchester Dorset DT2 9NB UK (Report)
http://www.pgeconomics.co.uk/pdf/GM_Crop_yield_summary.pdf AND full report: http://www.botanischergarten.ch/Yield/Brookes-Yield-GM-crops-2008.pdf
These authors also respond harshly and do not hesitate to rebut the UCS report in the main arguments:
Brookes, G. & Barfoot, P. (2009)
Union of Concerned Scientists report on GM crop performance is misleading, PG Economics Ltd. Briefing note 17. April 2009 pp 6 Wessex Barn Frampton Dorchester Dorset DT2 9NB UK (Report)
http://www.pgeconomics.co.uk/pdf/UCSresponseapr2009.pdf
The full citation of the main arguments:
“PG Economics concludes that the UCS report title does not reflect the report findings. Fundamentally, the UCS report confirms that GM crop technology has improved crop yields and productivity in the US.
PG Economics has, below, identified a number of deficiencies in the UCS report and presented a summary of the key real impacts of GM technology. For those reviewing the UCS report, it:
• “Misleads by examining issues from a narrow geographical perspective: Given GM crops have been grown commercially worldwide on a large scale since 1996, any appropriate evaluation of GM trait performance should be undertaken from a global perspective, rather than the US-only perspective adopted by the UCS. It is in developing countries where GM technology has delivered the highest positive impacts on operational yield (eg, corn in the Philippines, cotton in India) and facilitated the wider use of second cropping in a season (eg, soybeans following wheat in Argentina)
• Misleads by examining issues from a narrow crop perspective. The UCS report focuses only on soybeans and corn, yet ignores the two other crops in which GM traits are widely used; cotton and canola. GM trait use in these crops has resulted in higher operational yields for most users, increased production and improved standards of living for those farmers using the technology (including US farmers). For example, the average operational yield impact of GM insect resistant (GM IR) cotton technology
• (1996-2006) has been +11.1% across all global users• Is inconsistent: the UCS document claims in the executive summary that ‘GE (genetic engineering) has done little to increase overall yields. The headline to the release also says ‘failure to yield’, yet the detailed content of the report shows the opposite and subsequently acknowledges that GM insect resistant corn has increased (operational) yields in the US. The UCS report also states that ‘now that transgenic crops have been grown in the US for more than a decade, there is a wealth of data on yield under real world conditions’. This gives the reader the impression that the paper is drawing on such research to come to its conclusions. Yet the vast majority of references cited in the report are of crop trials, not studies of real world experiences of commercial farmers using GM technology
• Makes inappropriate use of data. The UCS discusses the importance of increasing food production to feed a growing world population and especially the importance of improving agricultural productivity in developing countries. However, the vast majority of the data and studies drawn on do not examine agricultural productivity issues and the use of GM technology in developing countries but are almost all drawn from the US. The UCS also claims that public resources should be re-directed from GM technology research to low input/organic research. However, no data on the relative expenditures of public funds on each of these categories of research and no analysis of any benefits of such a change are presented.”
3. The classic report of 10 years of positive experience from Argentina
10 years of positive experience in Argentina as one of the examples, the data speake for themselves
Trigo, E. & Cap, E.J. (2006)
Ten Years of Genetically Modified Crops in Argentine Agriculture ArgenBio pp 52 Buenos Aires (Report)
http://www.botanischergarten.ch/Argentina/Trigo-10years-Argentina-2007.pdf
4. Millions of farmers cannot be wrong as shown by the steady increase of the cultivation acreage worldwide
Since the beginning of the cultivation of GM crops we have a steady increase of the acreage. And since still the farmers are the main decisionmakers on what they want to produce, this development cannot be diminished to false arguments of seed companies pressuring the farmers. See slide collection below.
James, C. (2009)
Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2008, Brief 39, Executive Summary, Vol. Brief 39, pp. 20. ISAAA
http://www.botanischergarten.ch/ISAAA/ISAAA-Briefs-39-Executive-Summary.pdf AND http://www.botanischergarten.ch/ISAAA/Brief39Slides-2008.pdf
5. Biofortification should also be taken into account when talking about yield
Worldwide, there are dozens of projects working efficiently on biofortification, so to say an inner development of crop yield, foremost the well advanced project of the Golden Rice, which will be ready at the latest in the year 2012, and this only due to exaggerated risk assessment regulations and also due to massive opposition of multinational protest corporate organizations.
Al-Babili, S. & Beyer, P. (2005)
Golden Rice - five years on the road - five years to go? Trends in Plant Science, 10, 12, pp 565-573
<Go to ISI>://000234155300005 AND http://www.botanischergarten.ch/Rice/Babili-Golden-Rice-5years-2005.pdf
Mayer, J.E., Pfeiffer, W.H., & Beyer, P. (2008)
Biofortified crops to alleviate micronutrient malnutrition. Genome studies and Molecular Genetics, edited by Juliette de Meaux and Maarten Koornneef / Plant Biotechnology, edited by Andy Greenland and Jan Leach, 11, 2, pp 166-170
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6VS4-4S0R701-1/1/e12139b40ae67abc932e4bdb46069503 AND http://www.botanischergarten.ch/Rice/Mayer-Biofortified-COPB-2008.pdf
Qaim, M., Stein, A.J., & Meenakshi, J.V. (2007)
Economics of biofortification. Agricultural Economics, 37, pp 119-133
<Go to ISI>://WOS:000251940700010 AND NEBIS 20090419
Bouis, H.E. (2007)
The potential of genetically modified food crops to improve human nutrition in developing countries. Journal of Development
Studies, 43, 1, pp 79-96 http://www.botanischergarten.ch/Developing/Bouis-Potential-GM-crops-2007.pdf
Pfeiffer, W.H. & McClafferty, B. (2007)
HarvestPlus: Breeding crops for better nutrition. Crop Science, 47, pp S88-S105
http://www.botanischergarten.ch/Biofortification/Pfeiffer-HarvestPlus-Nutrition-2007.pdf
Zimmermann, R. & Qaim, M. (2004)
Potential health benefits of Golden Rice: a Philippine case study. Food Policy, 29, 2, pp 147-168
http://www.botanischergarten.ch/Rice/Zimmermann-Benefit-Goldenrice.pdf
6. Cotton yield data have increased, the example of India
The fact of Indian farmers suicides is a sad tradition, which started way before the introduction of GM cotton, and the mounting yields and reduced highly toxic pesticide use is on the contrary very helpful and increases the quality of the livelihood of the poor farmers.
Gruere Guillaume P., Mehta-Bhatt Purvi, & Debdatta Sengupta (2008)
Bt Cotton and Farmer Suicides in India Reviewing the Evidence, IFPRI Discussion Paper 00808, Environment and Production Technology Division pp 64 IFPRI Discussion Paper 00808 Washington (Report)
http://www.botanischergarten.ch/Cotton/Gruere-IFPRIDP200810.pdf AND http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/dp/IFPRIDP00808.pdf AND http://www.botanischergarten.ch/Cotton/Gruere-Farmer-Suicides-Slides-2008.pdf AND http://www.botanischergarten.ch/Cotton/Gruere-Farmer-Suicides-Slides-2008.ppt
7. Links to a collection of useful slides related to yield and development of crops
In order to help convey this message, here below a collection of slides, partially shown in the above cited publications, they can be downloaded in pdf and ppt format, they are part of my slide collection which can also be accessed through http://www.botanischergarten.ch/Curriculum/Links/ then go to bibliographies
http://www.botanischergarten.ch/Yield/Yield-Related-1.ppt
http://www.botanischergarten.ch/Yield/Yield-Related-1.pdf
Two selected slides show the contrast between progressive United States agriculture with a decisive hike in yield of corn (a bit less for soybean), and the not so positive situation in Europe, the result of farmers and resisting persistently to new agricultural technologies:
http://www.botanischergarten.ch/Yield/Yield-Comparison-Corn-USA-Europe.pdf
http://www.botanischergarten.ch/Yield/Yield-Comparison-Corn-USA-Europe.ppt
Other helpful blogs
can be easily identified via google, under Union of Concerned Scientists, and as usual, with enthusiastic approval of the new report, but without any scientific scrutiny. There are a few critical ones, such as:
Karl Haro von Mogels new blog offers good arguments and links to other blogs
http://www.biofortified.org/2009/04/union-of-concerned-scientists-ge-crops-have-not-decreased-yields/
Klaus Ammann, Sabanci University, Istanbul,
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
|
