Organic lobby spreading ‘nonsense’ about GM, claim scientists
A UK manufacturing magazine just published the following positive article on genetically modified crops. The Soil Association recently tried to claim that genetically modified crops do not increase yield. This article quotes an agricultural economist as saying that he is frustrated with anti-gm activists picking and choosing the information they use to prove their point.
Dr. C Kameswara Rao
Organic lobby spreading ‘nonsense’ about GM, claim scientists
Food Manufacture
April 21, 2008
New claims by environmental lobbyists that genetic modification (GM) does not increase crop yields or reduce pesticide use have been dismissed by plant breeding experts as “total nonsense”.
According to the Soil Association (SA), “the yields of all major GM crop varieties in cultivation are lower than, or at best, equivalent to, yields from non-GM varieties”, while “any initial reduction in pesticide use is short-lived and often reversed as new pests arrive and old ones adapt”. Its comments came in the wake of recent moves to reignite the GM debate by scientists claiming that transgenic crops could boost agricultural productivity in the face of global food shortages and climate change.
Graham Brookes, an agricultural economist and director of consultancy PG Economics, said he was becoming “increasingly frustrated by reports that cherry-pick pieces of information out of context and use them to support a fundamentally unsound argument”.
Brookes, a joint author of a major report on the environmental and economic impact of agricultural biotechnology published last year, said: “This is just complete nonsense. Pesticide use has not increased as a result of the adoption of biotech crops – indeed, it has fallen significantly relative to levels of use that would have occurred without using biotechnology.”
Likewise, it was “deeply insulting to the intelligence of farmers” to say that there were no economic benefits to using GM technology, he said. “They criticise biotech companies for having a vested interest - along the lines of ‘you would say that wouldn’t you’, but they also have a vested interest in attacking GM crops and supporting organic agriculture, which typically delivers far lower yields.”
