GM crops aren't working

Biotech is being sold around the world on the basis of a myriad of
claims and promises, almost all unproven.

One of the most successful pieces of hype is that GE crops are producing
"bumper crops". Another assumption is that GE crops are being rapidly
taken up by American farmers because they're helping them compete
economically. Greatly reduced use of agrochemicals (and hence
environmental benefits) is a third major claim made for GE crops by the
biotech industry.

A very important new 28-page report, released 13th July, provides the
most powerful evidence to date of the full extent to which none of this
is true of Monsanto's flagship GE crop Roundup Ready soya.

The report is by Dr Charles Benbrook, author of the book "Pest
Management at the Crossroads" and former Executive Director of the Board
on Agriculture for the US National Academy of Sciences.

The report is: Evidence of the Magnitude and Consequences of the Roundup
Ready Soybean Yield Drag from University-Based Varietal Trials in 1998

It is accessible on the AgBioTech InfoNet website at
<http://www.biotech-info.net/RR_yield_drag_98.pdf>

Unlike the recent USDA report which fails to directly compare yields and
chemical use in comparable circumstances, thus leaving many important
variables uncontrolled, this report reviews the results of a very large
number of carefully controlled university-based soybean varietal trials,
together with other data.

Benbrook clearly shows that the problems with this technology are
greater than previously understood, as regards

1. the extent of the yield drag

averaging nearly 7% - even larger than emerged from the University of
Wisconsin study
(http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/wisconsinRRsoyatrials98.htm)

2. the increase in chemical use

far from RR soybeans reducing chemical use, farmers have been using 2 to
5 times more herbicide

+

a degree of tolerance to Roundup is emerging in several key weed
species, contributing to chemical usage.

3. the cost to the famer

the yield drag plus technology fee are bad news for profitability
imposing "a sizable indirect tax" (can be over 12 percent of gross
income per acre)
 

There are many other important  points in this report which needs to be
read in full. But here's a little more detail on the above:

**YIELDS**

Under most conditions extensive evidence shows that RR (GE) soybeans
produce lower yields than could be produced if farmers planted
comparable but non-GE varieties.

The report reviews the results of over 8,200 university-based soybean
varietal trials in 1998 and reaches these conclusions, among others,
regarding the magnitude of the RR soybean yield drag:

*The yield drag between top RR varieties compared to top conventional
varieties averages 4.6 bushels per acre, or 6.7 percent.

* In some areas of the Midwest, the best conventional variety on sale
produces yields on average 10 percent or more higher than comparable
Roundup Ready varieties sold by the same seed companies.

**CHEMICAL USE AND PROFITABILITY**

Regarding the often repeated claims that RR soybean systems are reducing
pesticide use and increasing grower profits, Benbrook's analysis shows
that  RR soybean systems are "largely dependent on herbicides and hence
are not likely to reduce herbicide use or reliance.  Claims otherwise
are based on incomplete information or analytically flawed comparisons
that do not tell the whole story."

Benbrook notes the following, and we quote:

* Farmers growing RR soybeans used 2 to 5 times more herbicide measured
in pounds applied per acre, compared to the other popular weed
management systems used on most soybean fields not planted to RR
varieties in 1998.  RR herbicide use exceeds the level on many farms
using multitactic Integrated Weed Management systems by a factor of 10
or more.

*  There is clear evidence that Roundup use by farmers planting RR
soybeans has risen markedly in 1999 because of the emergence of a degree
of tolerance to Roundup in several key weed species, shifts in weeds
toward those less sensitive to Roundup, price cuts and aggressive
marketing.

[Elsewhere Benbrook has noted that many weed scientists expect such
resistance and the accompanying increased chemical use to keep on
growing for some time, aided by the recent extraordinary US price
reductions in pesticides, till growing RR soybeans finally becomes
completely uneconomic]

*  Roundup use on soybeans may well double from 1998 levels within the
next few years...

*  The RR soybean yield drag and technology fee impose a sizable
indirect tax on the income of soybean producers, ranging from a few
percent where RR varieties work best to over 12 percent of gross income
per acre.

[Elsewhere Benbrook has written that GE soybeans are proving “the most
expensive soybean seed+weed management system in modern history"]

It's interesting that independent research is finally starting to catch
up with GE crops in the US

(For how these problems have been successfully hidden from US growers,
see: http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/gmlemmings.htm).

In the UK independent trials are already underway. Reports of last
year's crop trials from the UK's National Institute of Agricultural
Botany (NIAB) show yields from GM winter oilseed rape and sugar beet
were between 5-8% less than high yielding conventional varieties
(reported Farmers Weekly (UK) for the 4th December 1998)
A recent report of Institute of Arable Crop Research (IACR) trials in
the UK with GM beet, where Roundup was applied late to try and reduce
the damage to biodiversity from the use of a total herbicide, gave a
yield loss of "at least" 24%!