Friday, July 19, 2013
GM crops awareness
Public awareness about GM crops low in India, says The LEAF Initiative
The LEAF Initiative, a citizens’ initiative aimed at spreading awareness on important issues relating to livelihood, the environment, agriculture and food (LEAF), has been tracking information on genetically-modified (GM) crops, as the technology could have major implications on all the four areas. They have found that public awareness about this important subject is still very low in India – where Parliament has introduced the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill – and is often mired in claims and counter-claims unsubstantiated by facts.
The Center for Sustainable Agriculture prepared a booklet on GM crops, titled, ‘Genetically-modified foods and crops – Some facts that everyone should know’. The LEAF Initiative believes this is a useful compilation of information. A detailed publication, titled 'GMO myths and truths' – authored by three international scientists – was also released. The Coalition for a GM-Free India recently compiled the abstracts of over 400 scientific peer-reviewed studies on the adverse impact of GM crops.
Genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) have been defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as, “Organisms is which the genetic material, DNA, has been altered in such a way that it does not occur naturally.” GM technology has been called “the first irreversible technology in human history.” Adoption worldwide has been slow, as most countries probably consider it unpredictable, imprecise and hazardous to human health, environment and farm livelihoods.
National seed diversity and sovereignty is seen as being subordinated to vested corporate interests. Independent researchers find that negative impacts are now emerging. For instance, an estimated 60 million acre of land in the United States is now infested with super weeds as a result of herbicide-tolerant GM seeds and their related glyphosate-based herbicides. The use of herbicides in the United States has increased by 527 million lb since the introduction of GM seeds in 1996.
Regulatory control is failing. India has a history of such regulatory failures, which have been documented by the joint parliamentary committee on agriculture. In April 2013, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that unapproved GM wheat (roundup-resistant) was found on an Oregon farmer’s field, even though field trials were stopped many years ago, and the trial GM wheat was supposed to have been destroyed.
The resultant cancellation of import tenders by importers could cause wheat-growers to incur losses worth millions of dollars. A similar contamination in 2006 by unauthorised GM rice caused contracts of over $1 billion to be cancelled. Yield claims are also being refuted. A recent peer-reviewed study showed that farming centered around GM, as practiced in the US, lags behind non-GM based farming practiced in Europe.
The study finds GMOs are “lowering yields and increasing pesticide use” in North American farming compared to mostly non-GM farming in Western Europe. In countries that adopt GM crops at a fast rate, farmers find that their seed choices are restricted to a few GM varieties, as the best-performing non-GM seeds are withdrawn. This process has been documented in the United States (with maize and soy) and Brazil (with soy). A study published in Environmental Science Europe confirmed these observations.
Facts about GM foods and crops Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, president, the United Nations' General Assembly, said the essential purpose of food, which is to nourish people, has been subordinated to the economic aims of a handful of multi-national corporations that monopolise all aspects of food production, from seeds to major distribution chains, and added that they have been the prime beneficiaries of the world crisis.
According to the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture's 2013 booklet, titled, 'Genetically-modified foods and crops – Some facts that everyone should know', there are a number of GM crops awaiting approval in India. These include rice, wheat, sorghum (jowar), groundnut, corn, potato, tomato, cabbage, cauliflower, okra, brinjal, mustard, watermelon, papaya and sugarcane.
Field trials and commercial release of GM foods and crops
In its report – titled, “Cultivation of Genetically-modified Food Crops, Prospects and Effects” – the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture (whose members, cutting across political parties were unanimous) stated, “Considering the flaws and the shortcomings noticed by the committee in the functioning of the regulatory mechanism meant for the purpose, the lack of preparedness of various agencies who should ideally be involved in various oversight and both pre- and post-commercialisation surveillance responsibilities in the context of transgenic crops, the still unclear ramifications of transgenic crops on bio-diversity, environment, human and livestock health and sustainability, the committee desires, in consonance with their recommendation in a previous chapter, that for the time being all research and development activities on transgenic crops should be carried out only in containment, the ongoing field trials in all states should be discontinued forthwith.”
The technical expert committee appointed by the Supreme Court, in its interim report, had also recommended a ten-year moratorium on field trials of Bt food crops, a moratorium on field trials of herbicide-tolerant crops (till independent assessment of impact and suitability) and ban on field trials of GM crops for which India is the centre of origin and/or diversity.
Why did they make these recommendations? Field trials are conducted before establishing biosafety. GM contamination from field trials may be detected after years, and is irreversible. India is the centre of origin and diversity for most of the proposed GM crops. Extreme caution has rightly been recommended to avoid serious ecological, economic, health and seed sovereignty concerns.
GM in agriculture
Genetic modification (GM) is also called genetic engineering (GE), transgenic technology or recombinant DNA technology. It involves genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) or living modified organisms (LMOs), such as plants, animals, insects, etc.
It is one of many forms of biotechnology. GM is the most controversial agricultural technology in the world. WHO defines GMOs as, “Organisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally.”
This is usually done by inserting genes of related or unrelated species into an organism's DNA in an attempt to transfer, or stop expression of, a specific trait.
For instance, a gene from a bacterium has been inserted in a plant and even a fish gene was once inserted into a tomato variety. GM technology is presently crude, imprecise and unpredictable.
Currently 99 per cent of GM crops have only two GM traits – pesticide production within the plant [e.g. plants engineered with the gene from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)] and herbicide
tolerance (HT), enabling the engineered plant to withstand high doses of a particular herbicide spray. Usually the herbicide is patented by the same company which produces the HT GM seed.
Companies promoting GM technologies claim benefits like higher yields, lower pesticide use and other beneficial traits. However, many governments, independent scientists, consumer groups, farmers' unions and citizens, say that these benefits are more hype than truth and that the risks far outweigh the benefits, if any.
The National Farmers' Union of Canada said, “It would be too generous even to call GM crops a solution in search of a problem. These crops have failed to provide significant solutions, and their use is creating problems – agronomic, environmental, economic, social, and (potentially) human health problems.”
Should Indian adopt GM crops?
Seventeen years after its introduction, only 3.4 per cent of the world's agricultural land is sown with GM seed, and 62 per cent of this is in the United States and Brazil. Only four crops – soy, corn, cotton and canola – account for 99 per cent of the GM crops worldwide. Yet, in India, 17 GM crops are presently awaiting approval and many more are in the pipeline. Is this either necessary or beneficial?
Only five countries, including India, account for almost 90 per cent of the 3.4 per cent total agricultural land under GM.
As GM faces increasing resistance from consumers and farmers throughout the world, most other countries have either rejected or strictly regulated GM crops. China recently placed restrictions on GM rice in response to public concern about its health impacts. It has also sacked officials for undertaking unapproved experimentation with GM rice and has proposed a grain law to impose restrictions on GM research, field trials and commercialization of major grains.
Globally the percentage of agricultural land under GM increased by less than 0.5 per cent between 2011 and 2012. India's huge seed market is extremely attractive to GM seed companies, especially since their expansion faces opposition in other countries.
GM seed companies and their sponsored lobbying groups, assert that GM represents the most recent innovations and cutting edge technology in agriculture which India cannot afford to forego. In fact, the proposition that scientific advances in agriculture are best done by large corporations is questionable.
A peer-reviewed report, titled, “Late Lessons from Early Warnings”, was released by the European Environmental Agency. It pointed out that top down technologies like GM crops fail to address food security issues whereas bottom-up agro-ecological approaches can do so.
It also found out, as do other reports, that technology based on corporate investments leading to patent based intellectual property rights (IPR) often closes down, rather than develops, the innovation potential of farmers.
To reap the benefits of the huge amounts spent on developing GM seeds, companies try to recover their investments by 'market capture' i.e. promoting a narrow range of crops and varieties (hybrids) and eliminating competing or traditional seed varieties. In contrast, many farmers practicing ecological farming are more efficient because of their deep understanding of ecological processes, which modern agriculture neglects.
They can obtain sustainably high yields and devise valuable agricultural innovations, which they share with others. In India, it is small farmers who have obtained record yields for several crops, through sustainable agro-ecological and non-GM methods.
Another promised benefit of GM crops, insect resistance, attracts farmers greatly as it immediately reduces pesticide use, but this gain is short lived. Over time, the target pest develops resistance and secondary pests often increase. An example is that of Bt cotton, where the pink bollworm developed resistance in less than a decade and where sucking pests have increased dramatically.
At the time of release it was mandated that a certain refuge area around a GM crop should be maintained to delay resistance. This has been blatantly violated in the case of Bt cotton in India and it has been impossible for the government to take any measures to correct this.
Studies from the United States and China also show that resistance has developed in targeted insects, in spite of refuge areas being maintained.
Many other risks exist according to numerous studies. GM contamination is a very serious risk for farmers and the nation.
According to a survey by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in ASSOCHAM, the demand for organic food in India is estimated to be growing annually at 40 per cent.
Moreover, India is also ideally placed to meet the growing global demand for organic produce. Already India is the largest producer of organic cotton. GM contamination is unacceptable to many countries.
The discovery in May 2013 of GM wheat growing in US farms, years after field trials ended, has deeply worried wheat farmers. They recall the huge losses to US rice farmers and exporters when GM
contamination of US long grain rice was detected in Europe in 2006.
Protracted litigation forced Bayer CropScience to pay $ 750 million compensation. Bt contamination of Indian organic cotton has been detected in Europe.13 Indian farmers do not have the financial capacity to litigate against large corporations.
Liabilities for unwanted contamination
How will penalties be enforced and on whom? Till safety from contamination can be effectively ensured, use of GM seeds is clearly a violation of the 'Right of Choice' of farmers and consumers
who wish to remain GM-free.
According to Bill Christison, president, US National Family Farm Coalition, “The promise was that you could use less chemicals and produce a greater yield. But let me tell you none of this is true.”
GM Crops
Europe’s GM crops policy is condemned by farmers
Farmers, agricultural scientists and the Science Minister have united to condemn EU hostility towards GM crops, warning that British agriculture is at risk of becoming an international backwater. The criticism of the European crop regulations process came after Monsanto joined other biotech companies in withdrawing its GM research operations from Europe.
GMO
Monsanto virtually gives up on growing GMO crops in Europe
Monsanto has pretty much given up any hope (at least for now) of selling its genetically engineered seeds for corn, sugar beets, and other crops in Europe, where opposition to GMO food is overwhelming.
Monsanto Co. said Thursday it will largely drop its bid to grow some of its genetically modified crops in Europe.The world’s largest seed-maker has nine pending applications with the European Commission, the executive body for the European Union. A spokesman said the company plans to withdraw eight of those applications.The requests “have been going nowhere fast for several years,” said Brandon Mitchener, a spokesman for the St. Louis-based company’s European entity. “There’s no end in sight … due to political obstructionism.”
The European Union’s stubborn resistance to transgenic crops stands in stark contrast to the welcome mat rolled out by American lawmakers for agro-giants and their most controversial products. From the BBC:
The company said it would now concentrate on growing its conventional seeds business in Europe.It will also look to get EU approval to import its genetically modified crop varieties from the US and South America into Europe.In 2012, Germany’s BASF halted the development of genetically modified crops in Europe and moved its European research operations in this area to the US.
Welcome home, corporate industrial science.
Monsanto
Monsanto backs off EU genetic modifications
Monsanto Co., the world's largest seed company, plans to withdraw its applications for approval of genetically modified crops in the European Union after more than a decade of hostility from consumers and governments.
Monsanto Co., the world's largest seed company, plans to withdraw its applications for approval of genetically modified crops in the European Union after more than a decade of hostility from consumers and governments.
The company informed the European Commission Wednesday, said EU spokesman Frederic Vincent. St. Louis-based Monsanto accounted for most of the applications to grow genetically modified crops pending with the commission, Vincent said by phone Thursday from Brussels.
France, the EU's largest corn grower, last year banned growing of Monsanto's MON810 variety, citing risks to the environment, while Italy in April asked the EU to suspend approval to grow the crop.
The EU makes up about 0.1 percent of the world biotech-crop area, according to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications.
"It's clear there isn't a path to market and commercialize GM products for cultivation in Europe," said Mark Buckingham, a Monsanto spokes-man in Cambourne, England. "We need to focus our limited resources where we can get the best return. In Europe, there are significant opportunities in conventional breeding."
The company plans to withdraw applications for six corn varieties, as well as for a soybean and a sugar beet, according to Buckingham.
Monsanto will keep its bid to renew approval for MON810 corn, which was previously approved in the EU, he said.
Monsanto's MON810 is the only genetically modified crop grown commercially in the 28-nation EU. Spain, the bloc's biggest grower of the variety, ranks 17th in the world in terms of area with genetically modified crops, behind Bolivia and Burkina Faso, according to the ISAAA.
"GM crops have proven themselves to be an ineffective and unpopular technology," Herman Van Bekkem, sustainable farming campaigner at environmental lobby Greenpeace, was cited as saying in an emailed statement.
BASF last year announced it was moving its plant-science division that works on genetically modified crops to the U.S. from Germany, saying it didn't make business sense to continue investing in products rejected by the majority of consumers in many parts of Europe.
"There is no market for GM crops in Europe," Mute Schimpf, food campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe, was cited as saying in a statement.
The EU on average takes about 3.7 years to approve the import of a genetically modified product, compared to 2 years for Brazil, according to industry lobby EuropaBio, which says opposition to biotech crops is based on "scaremongering" rather than rational debate.
A review by British and Spanish researchers in the journal Trends in Plant Science last month said the EU's resistance to genetically engineered crops is "ideological rather than scientific" and is making the bloc "increasingly uncompetitive and isolated in the international markets."
France's food-security authority in October called for more research on the long-term effects of genetically-modified crops, saying there is a lack of long-duration feeding studies in animals.
Debate Over Bio-engineered crops
Debate over bioengineered crops and food ingredients continues
KANSAS CITY — The recent surprise finding of unapproved bioengineered wheat plants growing in an Oregon field caught the attention of the trade, briefly brought the Monsanto antagonists out in force, resulted in more class action lawsuits, brought a halt in soft white winter wheat exports from the Pacific Northwest to some countries and added fuel to the long-running debate on the use of bioengineered crops.
Globally, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) estimates 81% of global soybean and cotton plantings, 35% of corn and 30% of canola/rapeseed were of bioengineered varieties in 2012. Those are known as the “big four” bioengineered crops.
Bioengineered crops, the products made from them, the food items containing ingredients from them and the companies that develop and market bioengineered seeds are not without their detractors with numerous “anti-G.M.O.” web sites, a seemingly constant filing of lawsuits and ongoing attempts to pass labeling laws.
The controversy was obvious recently when the prestigious 27th World Food Prize was awarded June 19 to three scientists, Marc Van Montagu, founder and chairman of the Institute for Plant Biotechnology Outreach, Ghent, Belgium, Mary-Dell Chilton, founder and distinguished science fellow, Syngenta Biotechnology Inc., and Robert T. Fraley, executive vice-president and chief technology officer for Monsanto.
“Their research is making it possible for farmers to grow crops with: improved yields; resistance to insects and disease; and the ability to tolerate extreme variations in climate,” the organization said, noting recognition “for their independent, individual breakthrough achievements in founding, developing and applying modern agricultural biotechnology.”
The recognition of Dr. Fraley especially drew both cheers and jeers, evidenced by editorials and letters to the editor in the Des Moines Register: “Food Prize honor is long overdue; Food Prize choice is cause for dismay; Food Prize goes too far in honoring Monsanto; Excellent honorees chosen as world’s food needs grow.” (See related story at http://www.ittybittyurl.com/Ui2).
Dr. Fraley and his team at Monsanto led the development and introduction in 1996 of bioengineered soybeans resistant to the herbicide glyphosate, known as “Roundup Ready” soybeans that allowed farmers to spray entire fields with the highly-effective herbicide without harming the crop. Glyphosate tolerant crops, including cotton, sugar beets and others, are the most widely bioengineered crops grown globally.
While St. Louis-based Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, is the name most synonymous with leading the charge in developing and marketing bioengineered seeds, other major players are BASF Plant Science, Bayer CropScience, Dow AgroSciences L.L.C., DuPont Pioneer as well as Syngenta.
Some estimate as much as 70% of processed foods in U.S. supermarkets contain ingredients from bioengineered products, which lies at the heart of much of the debate and push for labeling laws.
Until the discovery of bioengineered wheat in Oregon was announced May 29, the most recent major event on the front may have been the defeat on Nov. 6, 2012, of the “Mandatory Labeling of Genetically Engineered Food Initiative” known as Proposition 37 that sought widespread labeling of bioengineered products and food items containing material from such ingredients in California.
But the labeling push is far from dead. About half of the states have or are considering labeling laws for foods containing bioengineered products, and legislation of a national scope was introduced into both the Senate and the House earlier this year. Connecticut became the first state to require special labeling of foods containing bioengineered ingredients in June, although the law requires four other northeast states, including one on its border, to pass similar labeling laws. It could then go into effect Oct. 1 in the year after the “trigger” requirements are reached.
Also on the retail front, Whole Foods said in March it would require food products sold in its stores to state on the label if they contain ingredients produced through “agricultural biotechnology.”
The issue in Oregon, meanwhile, isn’t finished. Several class action lawsuits have been filed, but how the plants came to be growing in Oregon remains a mystery, although it was confirmed to be variety MON71800 (Roundup Ready) developed by Monsanto, which discontinued its bioengineered wheat development and testing in the United States in 2005. Monsanto has cooperated with the government for testing of the wheat. Neither the company nor the government has publically ruled out the possibility of “environmental sabotage” meant to create opposition to bioengineered crops.
The U.S.D.A. has called the discovery a “single isolated incident,” assured U.S. trading partners there was no indication of bioengineered wheat in commerce and continues to investigate. Still, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have not imported soft white wheat from the Pacific Northwest since the discovery.
Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries on July 2 laid out a plan for the resumption of U.S. soft white winter wheat imports from the Pacific Northwest, according to a
report in Oregon’s Capital Press. Those plans included more investigation and information on the discovery, a visit by a MAFF team to the affected area in Oregon, testing for bioengineered wheat and establishment of an export inspection system. There was no timetable for the plan to be implemented.
While no bioengineered wheat is approved for production in the United States or globally, some in the wheat industry have sought development of such wheat because they contend declining acreage the past several years was in part the result of wheat’s disadvantage to bioengineered corn and soybeans. The issue of limited export markets for bioengineered wheat remains. A similar situation remains for rice, with no bioengineered varieties grown in the United States, and like wheat, also had a discovery of an unapproved variety a few years ago.
The fact remains that about 90% of the area planted to corn and cotton, about 93% of area planted to soybeans and about 95% of area planted to sugar beets in the United States are of bioengineered varieties. In addition to the “big four,” other bioengineered crops in the United States include alfalfa, papaya, squash and the aforementioned sugar beets.
The U.S.D.A. randomly asks farmers as part of its June Agricultural Survey “if they planted corn, soybeans or upland cotton seed that, through biotechnology, is resistant to herbicides, insects or both.” The insect resistant varieties include only those containing bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) but may contain more than one gene that may be resistant to different types of insects. Conventionally bred herbicide tolerant varieties are excluded, the U.S.D.A. said. The vast majority of bioengineered seeds planted are “stacked” gene varieties that contain both insect and herbicide resistant genes rather than just insect resistant or just herbicide tolerant genes.
In its June 28 Acreage report, the U.S.D.A. estimated the area planted to bioengineered varieties of corn in the United States in 2013 at about 87.6 million acres, or 90% of total corn planted area, up two percentage points from last year. That total included 5% of the area planted to insect resistant only varieties (down from 15% in 2012), 14% planted to herbicide tolerant only varieties (down from 21%) and 71% planted to stacked varieties (up from 52% last year).
The U.S.D.A. includes 48 states (all but Alaska and Hawaii) in its corn estimating program. In the breakout of the 13 major states that account for 85% of total U.S. corn planted acres, the percentage of bioengineered planted corn increased in 10 states, decreased in two states (North Dakota and Wisconsin) and was unchanged in one state (top-producing Iowa). The percentage in the 35 states lumped into “other states” was estimated at 88%, up 3 percentage points from 2012.
South Dakota had the highest percentage of acres planted to bioengineered corn at 96% (up from 94% in 2012), followed by North Dakota at 94% (down from 96% last year), Nebraska at 93% (up from 91%) and Missouri at 92% (up from 86%). Iowa, Kansas and Minnesota all came in at 91% and Michigan at 90%. Of the 13 major states, Wisconsin had the lowest percentage of corn area planted to bioengineered varieties at 84% (down from 86% in 2012), followed by Indiana at 85% (up 1%), Ohio at 85% (up from 76%) and Illinois and Texas at 89%.
For soybeans the focus is just on herbicide tolerant varieties about 72.3 million acres, or 93% of total soybean area, planted to bioengineered varieties in the 31 states included in the U.S.D.A.’s soybean estimating program. That total was unchanged from 2012, although the percentage declined in 8 of the 14 major states and in the 17 “other” states. Growers in Mississippi planted 98% bioengineered varieties, the highest percentage of the 14 major states, followed by Arkansas and South Dakota at 97%, Nebraska at 96% and North Dakota at 94%. The lowest percentage of bioengineered varieties was planted in Ohio and Wisconsin, both at 89%.
Like corn, upland cotton includes insect, herbicide and stacked varieties. Those three combined equaled 90% of total cotton area planted, down 4 percentage points from 2012, the U.S.D.A. said, with the largest decline in Texas at 85%, down from 91%.
The U.S.D.A. noted its biotechnology estimates were subject to sampling variability because all farming operations planting bioengineered varieties are not included in the sample. But the relative standard error is small at 0.4% for all bioengineered corn and soybean varieties.
Despite years of lawsuits attempting to block the use of bioengineered sugar beet seeds, the vast majority of sugar beet area is planted to Roundup Ready seed. Although the U.S.D.A. does not survey for bioengineered sugar beets, the trade and the Sugar Industry Biotech Council estimates about 95% of total planted area of 1,207,600 acres in 2013 is planted to Roundup Ready sugar beets. Adoption of bioengineered sugar beet seeds by U.S. growers was by far the most rapid of all major bioengineered crops grown in the United States with government approval for the seed occurring as recently as 2005. The rapid acceptance was largely the result of reduced production costs related to Roundup Ready seeds, in part because fewer trips across the field were needed for weed control.
Shortly after bioengineered sugar beet seeds were approved, several groups opposed to bioengineered crops filed lawsuits against the U.S.D.A. in an attempt to block continued use of the seed. Those attempts finally came to an end in November 2012 with dismissal of one of the key cases involved in the legal actions, although the possibility of further legal action persists.
The United States remains the leading country in terms of bioengineered crops planted with about 175 million acres and its average adoption rate of 90% across all crops in 2012, the ISAAA said in its latest annual update. Brazil was second with about 92 million acres, but led the world with the largest increase (21%) from 2011. Argentina was third with 60 million acres and Canada fourth with 30 million acres.
Despite restrictions on many bioengineered commodities, the European Union planted a record 322,678 acres of bioengineered maize (corn) in 2012, of which 90% was in Spain, the ISAAA said.
Globally, much of the world now depends on bioengineered commodities. In its latest update, the ISAAA said for the first time in 2012 developing countries grew more bioengineered crops (52%) than did industrial countries (48%). The growth rate for bioengineered crops in developing countries was 21.75 million acres, or 11%, in 2012 compared with 4 million acres, or 3%, in industrial countries, the ISAAA said. Twenty of the 28 countries growing bioengineered crops in 2012 were developing countries, including Sudan and Cuba, which planted such crops for the first time. Three countries dropped off the list in 2012 — Germany, Sweden and Poland. More than 90% of the 17.3 million farmers growing bioengineered crops in 2012 were considered small resource-poor farmers in developing countries, the organization said. The number included 7.2 million small farmers each in India and China growing bioengineered cotton.
Since first being commercialized in 1996, area planted to bioengineered crops has increased every year, the ISAAA said. The global area planted to bioengineered crops in 2012 was 425.75 million acres, up 25.75 million, or 6%, from 2012. The area was up 100 fold from 4.25 million acres in 1996. Of the 28 countries growing bioengineered crops, 17 grow corn, 15 cotton, 11 soybeans, 4 canola, 2 sugar beets, 2 papayas and a limited number plant alfalfa, squash, tomatoes, sweet peppers and poplar trees, although there are numerous other bioengineered crops, including vegetables, grown around the world.
Adoption of bioengineered crops has been slow in Africa with only four countries currently on the list — Burkina Faso, Egypt, South Africa and Sudan. Area increased 26% to 7.25 million acres in 2012, the ISAAA said. Field trials were under way in five other countries.
“The lack of appropriate, science-based and cost/time-effective regulatory systems continue to be the major constraint to adoption,” the ISAAA said.
Although only 28 countries planted bioengineered crops in 2012, another 31 countries (59 in total) have had 2,497 regulatory approvals of bioengineered crops, including 1,129 for food use, 813 for feed use and 555 for planting or release into the environment since 1996, the ISAAA said. The United States has the most approved events with 196, then Japan with 182, Canada with 131 and Mexico with 122. The E.U. has approved 67 events.
While area planted to bioengineered crops has increased significantly since 1996, most focus has been on insect resistant and herbicide tolerant traits. But the ISAAA sees drought tolerant corn as the “most important trait that will be commercialized in the second decade of commercialization, 2006 to 2015, and beyond because it is, by far, the single most important constraint to increased productivity for crops worldwide.”
Some drought tolerant corn varieties have been on the market since 2011, although considerable testing continues.
The ISAAA also sees bioengineered crops as a potential offset to global climate change and a major contributor to sustainability. While global warming remains a highly controversial and debatable topic, “green biotechnology offers a solution to decrease greenhouse gasses and therefore mitigates climate change,” the ISAAA said. The advantages largely are the result of less energy used for weed and insect control, as well as for no-till production of crops, which also reduces erosion and soil carbon loss.
“Improved crops resilient to extreme environments caused by climate change are expected in a few years to a decade,” the ISAAA said. “Hence, food production during this era should be given another boost to sustain food supply for the doubling population.”
Bryan Walsh, senior editor at Time, summed up the debate well in a May 14 article, “G.M. foods seem to act as a symbol: you’re pro-agribusiness or anti-science. While G.M. crops haven’t yet realized their initial promise and have been dominated by agribusiness, there is reason to continue to use and develop them to help meet the enormous challenge of sustainability feeding a growing planet.”
That’s an astute observation considering a recent study from the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota that concluded global crop demand may double by 2050 due to increasing population, diet shifts and biofuels consumption, but at the current rate of yield increases, production would increase only about 50% by that time.
Globally, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) estimates 81% of global soybean and cotton plantings, 35% of corn and 30% of canola/rapeseed were of bioengineered varieties in 2012. Those are known as the “big four” bioengineered crops.
Bioengineered crops, the products made from them, the food items containing ingredients from them and the companies that develop and market bioengineered seeds are not without their detractors with numerous “anti-G.M.O.” web sites, a seemingly constant filing of lawsuits and ongoing attempts to pass labeling laws.
The controversy was obvious recently when the prestigious 27th World Food Prize was awarded June 19 to three scientists, Marc Van Montagu, founder and chairman of the Institute for Plant Biotechnology Outreach, Ghent, Belgium, Mary-Dell Chilton, founder and distinguished science fellow, Syngenta Biotechnology Inc., and Robert T. Fraley, executive vice-president and chief technology officer for Monsanto.
“Their research is making it possible for farmers to grow crops with: improved yields; resistance to insects and disease; and the ability to tolerate extreme variations in climate,” the organization said, noting recognition “for their independent, individual breakthrough achievements in founding, developing and applying modern agricultural biotechnology.”
The recognition of Dr. Fraley especially drew both cheers and jeers, evidenced by editorials and letters to the editor in the Des Moines Register: “Food Prize honor is long overdue; Food Prize choice is cause for dismay; Food Prize goes too far in honoring Monsanto; Excellent honorees chosen as world’s food needs grow.” (See related story at http://www.ittybittyurl.com/Ui2).
Dr. Fraley and his team at Monsanto led the development and introduction in 1996 of bioengineered soybeans resistant to the herbicide glyphosate, known as “Roundup Ready” soybeans that allowed farmers to spray entire fields with the highly-effective herbicide without harming the crop. Glyphosate tolerant crops, including cotton, sugar beets and others, are the most widely bioengineered crops grown globally.
While St. Louis-based Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, is the name most synonymous with leading the charge in developing and marketing bioengineered seeds, other major players are BASF Plant Science, Bayer CropScience, Dow AgroSciences L.L.C., DuPont Pioneer as well as Syngenta.
Some estimate as much as 70% of processed foods in U.S. supermarkets contain ingredients from bioengineered products, which lies at the heart of much of the debate and push for labeling laws.
Until the discovery of bioengineered wheat in Oregon was announced May 29, the most recent major event on the front may have been the defeat on Nov. 6, 2012, of the “Mandatory Labeling of Genetically Engineered Food Initiative” known as Proposition 37 that sought widespread labeling of bioengineered products and food items containing material from such ingredients in California.
But the labeling push is far from dead. About half of the states have or are considering labeling laws for foods containing bioengineered products, and legislation of a national scope was introduced into both the Senate and the House earlier this year. Connecticut became the first state to require special labeling of foods containing bioengineered ingredients in June, although the law requires four other northeast states, including one on its border, to pass similar labeling laws. It could then go into effect Oct. 1 in the year after the “trigger” requirements are reached.
Also on the retail front, Whole Foods said in March it would require food products sold in its stores to state on the label if they contain ingredients produced through “agricultural biotechnology.”
The issue in Oregon, meanwhile, isn’t finished. Several class action lawsuits have been filed, but how the plants came to be growing in Oregon remains a mystery, although it was confirmed to be variety MON71800 (Roundup Ready) developed by Monsanto, which discontinued its bioengineered wheat development and testing in the United States in 2005. Monsanto has cooperated with the government for testing of the wheat. Neither the company nor the government has publically ruled out the possibility of “environmental sabotage” meant to create opposition to bioengineered crops.
The U.S.D.A. has called the discovery a “single isolated incident,” assured U.S. trading partners there was no indication of bioengineered wheat in commerce and continues to investigate. Still, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have not imported soft white wheat from the Pacific Northwest since the discovery.
Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries on July 2 laid out a plan for the resumption of U.S. soft white winter wheat imports from the Pacific Northwest, according to a
report in Oregon’s Capital Press. Those plans included more investigation and information on the discovery, a visit by a MAFF team to the affected area in Oregon, testing for bioengineered wheat and establishment of an export inspection system. There was no timetable for the plan to be implemented.
While no bioengineered wheat is approved for production in the United States or globally, some in the wheat industry have sought development of such wheat because they contend declining acreage the past several years was in part the result of wheat’s disadvantage to bioengineered corn and soybeans. The issue of limited export markets for bioengineered wheat remains. A similar situation remains for rice, with no bioengineered varieties grown in the United States, and like wheat, also had a discovery of an unapproved variety a few years ago.
The fact remains that about 90% of the area planted to corn and cotton, about 93% of area planted to soybeans and about 95% of area planted to sugar beets in the United States are of bioengineered varieties. In addition to the “big four,” other bioengineered crops in the United States include alfalfa, papaya, squash and the aforementioned sugar beets.
The U.S.D.A. randomly asks farmers as part of its June Agricultural Survey “if they planted corn, soybeans or upland cotton seed that, through biotechnology, is resistant to herbicides, insects or both.” The insect resistant varieties include only those containing bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) but may contain more than one gene that may be resistant to different types of insects. Conventionally bred herbicide tolerant varieties are excluded, the U.S.D.A. said. The vast majority of bioengineered seeds planted are “stacked” gene varieties that contain both insect and herbicide resistant genes rather than just insect resistant or just herbicide tolerant genes.
In its June 28 Acreage report, the U.S.D.A. estimated the area planted to bioengineered varieties of corn in the United States in 2013 at about 87.6 million acres, or 90% of total corn planted area, up two percentage points from last year. That total included 5% of the area planted to insect resistant only varieties (down from 15% in 2012), 14% planted to herbicide tolerant only varieties (down from 21%) and 71% planted to stacked varieties (up from 52% last year).
The U.S.D.A. includes 48 states (all but Alaska and Hawaii) in its corn estimating program. In the breakout of the 13 major states that account for 85% of total U.S. corn planted acres, the percentage of bioengineered planted corn increased in 10 states, decreased in two states (North Dakota and Wisconsin) and was unchanged in one state (top-producing Iowa). The percentage in the 35 states lumped into “other states” was estimated at 88%, up 3 percentage points from 2012.
South Dakota had the highest percentage of acres planted to bioengineered corn at 96% (up from 94% in 2012), followed by North Dakota at 94% (down from 96% last year), Nebraska at 93% (up from 91%) and Missouri at 92% (up from 86%). Iowa, Kansas and Minnesota all came in at 91% and Michigan at 90%. Of the 13 major states, Wisconsin had the lowest percentage of corn area planted to bioengineered varieties at 84% (down from 86% in 2012), followed by Indiana at 85% (up 1%), Ohio at 85% (up from 76%) and Illinois and Texas at 89%.
For soybeans the focus is just on herbicide tolerant varieties about 72.3 million acres, or 93% of total soybean area, planted to bioengineered varieties in the 31 states included in the U.S.D.A.’s soybean estimating program. That total was unchanged from 2012, although the percentage declined in 8 of the 14 major states and in the 17 “other” states. Growers in Mississippi planted 98% bioengineered varieties, the highest percentage of the 14 major states, followed by Arkansas and South Dakota at 97%, Nebraska at 96% and North Dakota at 94%. The lowest percentage of bioengineered varieties was planted in Ohio and Wisconsin, both at 89%.
Like corn, upland cotton includes insect, herbicide and stacked varieties. Those three combined equaled 90% of total cotton area planted, down 4 percentage points from 2012, the U.S.D.A. said, with the largest decline in Texas at 85%, down from 91%.
The U.S.D.A. noted its biotechnology estimates were subject to sampling variability because all farming operations planting bioengineered varieties are not included in the sample. But the relative standard error is small at 0.4% for all bioengineered corn and soybean varieties.
Despite years of lawsuits attempting to block the use of bioengineered sugar beet seeds, the vast majority of sugar beet area is planted to Roundup Ready seed. Although the U.S.D.A. does not survey for bioengineered sugar beets, the trade and the Sugar Industry Biotech Council estimates about 95% of total planted area of 1,207,600 acres in 2013 is planted to Roundup Ready sugar beets. Adoption of bioengineered sugar beet seeds by U.S. growers was by far the most rapid of all major bioengineered crops grown in the United States with government approval for the seed occurring as recently as 2005. The rapid acceptance was largely the result of reduced production costs related to Roundup Ready seeds, in part because fewer trips across the field were needed for weed control.
Shortly after bioengineered sugar beet seeds were approved, several groups opposed to bioengineered crops filed lawsuits against the U.S.D.A. in an attempt to block continued use of the seed. Those attempts finally came to an end in November 2012 with dismissal of one of the key cases involved in the legal actions, although the possibility of further legal action persists.
The United States remains the leading country in terms of bioengineered crops planted with about 175 million acres and its average adoption rate of 90% across all crops in 2012, the ISAAA said in its latest annual update. Brazil was second with about 92 million acres, but led the world with the largest increase (21%) from 2011. Argentina was third with 60 million acres and Canada fourth with 30 million acres.
Despite restrictions on many bioengineered commodities, the European Union planted a record 322,678 acres of bioengineered maize (corn) in 2012, of which 90% was in Spain, the ISAAA said.
Globally, much of the world now depends on bioengineered commodities. In its latest update, the ISAAA said for the first time in 2012 developing countries grew more bioengineered crops (52%) than did industrial countries (48%). The growth rate for bioengineered crops in developing countries was 21.75 million acres, or 11%, in 2012 compared with 4 million acres, or 3%, in industrial countries, the ISAAA said. Twenty of the 28 countries growing bioengineered crops in 2012 were developing countries, including Sudan and Cuba, which planted such crops for the first time. Three countries dropped off the list in 2012 — Germany, Sweden and Poland. More than 90% of the 17.3 million farmers growing bioengineered crops in 2012 were considered small resource-poor farmers in developing countries, the organization said. The number included 7.2 million small farmers each in India and China growing bioengineered cotton.
Since first being commercialized in 1996, area planted to bioengineered crops has increased every year, the ISAAA said. The global area planted to bioengineered crops in 2012 was 425.75 million acres, up 25.75 million, or 6%, from 2012. The area was up 100 fold from 4.25 million acres in 1996. Of the 28 countries growing bioengineered crops, 17 grow corn, 15 cotton, 11 soybeans, 4 canola, 2 sugar beets, 2 papayas and a limited number plant alfalfa, squash, tomatoes, sweet peppers and poplar trees, although there are numerous other bioengineered crops, including vegetables, grown around the world.
Adoption of bioengineered crops has been slow in Africa with only four countries currently on the list — Burkina Faso, Egypt, South Africa and Sudan. Area increased 26% to 7.25 million acres in 2012, the ISAAA said. Field trials were under way in five other countries.
“The lack of appropriate, science-based and cost/time-effective regulatory systems continue to be the major constraint to adoption,” the ISAAA said.
Although only 28 countries planted bioengineered crops in 2012, another 31 countries (59 in total) have had 2,497 regulatory approvals of bioengineered crops, including 1,129 for food use, 813 for feed use and 555 for planting or release into the environment since 1996, the ISAAA said. The United States has the most approved events with 196, then Japan with 182, Canada with 131 and Mexico with 122. The E.U. has approved 67 events.
While area planted to bioengineered crops has increased significantly since 1996, most focus has been on insect resistant and herbicide tolerant traits. But the ISAAA sees drought tolerant corn as the “most important trait that will be commercialized in the second decade of commercialization, 2006 to 2015, and beyond because it is, by far, the single most important constraint to increased productivity for crops worldwide.”
Some drought tolerant corn varieties have been on the market since 2011, although considerable testing continues.
The ISAAA also sees bioengineered crops as a potential offset to global climate change and a major contributor to sustainability. While global warming remains a highly controversial and debatable topic, “green biotechnology offers a solution to decrease greenhouse gasses and therefore mitigates climate change,” the ISAAA said. The advantages largely are the result of less energy used for weed and insect control, as well as for no-till production of crops, which also reduces erosion and soil carbon loss.
“Improved crops resilient to extreme environments caused by climate change are expected in a few years to a decade,” the ISAAA said. “Hence, food production during this era should be given another boost to sustain food supply for the doubling population.”
Bryan Walsh, senior editor at Time, summed up the debate well in a May 14 article, “G.M. foods seem to act as a symbol: you’re pro-agribusiness or anti-science. While G.M. crops haven’t yet realized their initial promise and have been dominated by agribusiness, there is reason to continue to use and develop them to help meet the enormous challenge of sustainability feeding a growing planet.”
That’s an astute observation considering a recent study from the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota that concluded global crop demand may double by 2050 due to increasing population, diet shifts and biofuels consumption, but at the current rate of yield increases, production would increase only about 50% by that time.
EU TOBACCO SUBSIDIES
Poland joined forces with Italy, Greece and Spain for EU tobacco subsidies in CAP 2014-2020
Polish Minister of Agriculture, Stanislaw Kalemba, has recently increased efforts to secure subsidies for Polish tobacco farmers. EU subsidies for tobacco were phased out in 2010, but in March this year, MEPs voted through draft legislation that could restart the process with amendments to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP 2014-2020).
“We’re striving for these subsidies, and it’s an ongoing subject of negotiation,” Minister Kalemba told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
Poland has joined forces with Italy, Greece and Spain on the matter, and Kalemba says that the Czech Republic may also back the bid for bringing back tobacco subsidies. Bulgaria is also on the same position after one week protest of tobacco farmers who bloked the borders with Turkey and Romania last week.
“We’ve taken up an initiative within a group,” he affirmed, stressing that the aim is to secure equal conditions for tobacco growers across the EU.
Kalemba noted that some 10,000 families in Poland could benefit from the subsidies. Poland is the second biggest tobacco producer in the EU, and cigarettes are the country’s largest export. © 2013 Agri.EU
EU ON NEW GMO CROPS
Monsanto to withdraw EU approval requests for new GMO crops
Monsanto Co said on Wednesday it will withdraw all pending approval requests to grow new types of genetically modified crops in the European Union, due to the lack of commercial prospects for the technology there.
"We will be withdrawing the approvals in the coming months," Monsanto's President and Managing Director for Europe, Jose Manuel Madero, told Reuters by telephone.
Monsanto said the decision covered five approval requests to grow genetically modified maize, one soybean and one sugar beet. The company said it would not withdraw its application to renew the approval for its MON810 maize - the only GMO crop currently cultivated commercially in Europe. © 2013 Agri.EU
US BEE SUMMIT: AGRO CHEMICAL COMPANIES
Syngenta, Monsanto and Bayer seek answers as bee losses sting agriculture
Scientists, consumer groups, beekeepers and others blame the devastating rate of bee deaths on the growing use of pesticides sold by agrichemical companies to boost yields of staple crops such as corn. Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer and other agrichemical companies say other factors such as mites are killing the bees.
Monsanto Co is hosting a "Bee Summit." Bayer AG is breaking ground on a "Bee Care Center." And Sygenta AG is funding grants for research into the accelerating demise of honeybees in the United States, where the insects pollinate fruits and vegetables that make up roughly a quarter of the American diet.
The agrichemical companies are taking these initiatives at a time when their best-selling pesticides are under fire from environmental and food activists who say the chemicals are killing off millions of bees. The companies say their pesticides are not the problem, but critics say science shows the opposite.
Die-offs of bee populations have accelerated over the last few years to a rate the U.S. government calls unsustainable. Honeybees pollinate plants that produce roughly 25 percent of the foods Americans consume, including apples, almonds, watermelons and beans, according to government reports.
Scientists, consumer groups, beekeepers and others blame the devastating rate of bee deaths on the growing use of pesticides sold by agrichemical companies to boost yields of staple crops such as corn. Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer and other agrichemical companies say other factors such as mites are killing the bees.
"This is a difficult, high stakes battle," said Peter Jenkins, a lawyer with the Center for Food Safety, which sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in March on behalf of a group of U.S. beekeepers and environmental and consumer groups over what they say is a lack of sound regulation of the pesticides in question.
"They may have a lot of money. But... we're going to win," Jenkins said.
The uproar worries officials at Bayer and Syngenta, who make the pesticides, as well as Monsanto, DuPont and other companies who used them as coatings for the seed they sell.
"Everybody is concerned by it," said Monsanto Chief Technology Officer Robert Fraley in an interview.
Monsanto plans to host a summit in June for experts from around the country to analyze the issue and discuss potential solutions. Bayer is breaking ground on a facility in North Carolina to study bee health.
The European Union said this month it would ban the class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, or "neonics," used for corn and other crops as well as on home lawns and gardens. Similar constraints in the United States could cost manufacturers millions of dollars in sales.
"We are concerned... that the science sometimes gets trumped by the politics," said Dave Fischer, an ecotoxicologist at Bayer CropScience who is meeting with bee keepers and studying the bee deaths. He said critics "are searching for a culprit."
The companies point to a vicious insect mite as one of many factors harming the bees.
CORN SEED TREATMENTS
But environmental scientists say evidence increasingly points to pesticides coating corn seeds as the problem, not mites. In recent years, U.S. corn seed suppliers have offered more corn seed pre-treated with types of neonic insecticides so that as the plant grows it repels harmful pests.
A study published last year by scientists at Purdue University in Indiana found evidence that planting the coated corn generates dust that contains very high levels of the neonics that can move beyond the fields where the seeds are planted. The researchers said they found the poison in the soil as well and in pollen collected by bees as food. The neonics were present on dead bees collected for study.
The study's co-author, Purdue University scientist Christian Krupke, said the issue needs more research.
Syngenta and Bayer say they are doing just that. This month both companies announced they were helping fund research grants awarded to Iowa State University and Ohio State University and a Canadian farm group to study the impact of insecticidal seed treatment dust on bee losses.
"This research will provide valuable information," Jay Overmeyer, an ecotoxicology expert at Syngenta, said in a statement.
UNSUSTAINABLE LEVELS
A May 1 report funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that nearly one in three managed honey bee colonies in the United States were lost over the winter of 2012-2013. The losses are 42 percent higher than losses seen the previous winter, the report found. Fewer bees spells higher food prices, according to the government.
U.S. officials say there is no conclusive proof that pesticides caused the bee deaths, and they cite many other factors, including the mites.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it is "working aggressively to protect bees and other pollinators from pesticide risks through regulatory, voluntary and research programs" but sees no need for a moratorium on pesticides. The EPA has said it will study the situation, but many experts say immediate action is needed.
"One third of the food supply depends on pollinators to be productive," said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "It's hard to say that these are definitively the cause of major bee declines. But there is a lot of data coming together that should be seriously examined."
US: COW ISLANDS
U.S. dairy farms are converging into “cow islands”
The nation’s dairy cows are moving closer together. Cows and milk production have shifted north and west, farther from cities, to converge in what economist Mark Stephenson calls “cow islands.”
“Cow islands are areas where we’ve seen dairy retreating to, or concentrating,” says Stephenson, Director of the UW-Madison Center for Dairy Profitability, who is preparing a report on the shifting demographics of the dairy business.
Part of that concentration results from cows moving away from an entire region of the country, Stephenson says.
“We’ve had a major exodus throughout the southeastern quadrant of the United States,” says Stephenson. “The southeast has just had a big loss of cattle and dairy farms.”
Many areas have seen a sharp decline in milk production. Most of them are near large and growing population centers.
That is because producers are establishing or expanding dairies in areas that are more suited to intensive milk production. The southeast is hot and humid, Stephenson points out, and high-producing cows do not do well in that environment. Instead, cows are moving to where climate is more temperate, where producers can get better payback from advances in cow genetics and dairy management practices.
“Several regions of the country, California and Idaho for example, have had pretty spectacular growth, but so too has Wisconsin and western New York,” Stephenson says.
Owners of large dairy processing facilities are also driving the change.
“Growth has often happened where a few very large dairy plants want to build. If you have a company that says, ‘I need more cheese,’ they might be looking at a location and ask themselves, ‘Where can I put a plant where I can get the kind of growth and milk production that I need?’” says Stephenson.
Overall, that has meant a gradual, nation-wide shift in where the majority of cows are. Each decade since 1960, the cow population has shifted west and a bit north, on average.
Even more noticeably, cows have been moving away from cities. That is especially apparent in California where cow numbers have dropped dramatically in the in the greater Los Angeles basin–but it also is discernible around El Paso, Seattle, New Orleans, Baltimore and other cities.
The growth has been in sparsely populated areas, where processing plants are “co-locating” with farms, Stephenson says. “Quite often the areas where we see big growth are not real large. There is intensive growth in a fairly small area, where maybe 30 or 40 farms have gone in where a plant has been established. That is quite often where people are not.”
Surprisingly, America’s Dairyland bucks this trend. Cow numbers are up significantly in Wisconsin, as they are in other Great Lakes dairy regions. But while western New York, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio are adding cows away from urban centers, Wisconsin is boosting production in the state’s more populated eastern half.
Stephenson thinks this comes down to attitudes about agriculture.
“The state celebrates its dairy industry,” he says, “There’s a greater tolerance for animal agriculture here.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)