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Today’s Sound Bite

Striped Marsh frog in front garden

Today’s Newspaper-Useful Information

Asa Wahlquist, “Race on for GM crops to solve shortages, says Monsanto”, http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,,26279272-36418,00.html

I respect Ms Walquist but this reprinting of a PR release gives me food for doubt. Selected quotes below:

AGRICULTURAL technology company Monsanto hopes to double crop yields by 2030 as well as reduce the amount of fertilisers, chemicals and water used by a third, by combining conventional plant breeding with genetically modified lines

Harvey Glick, Monsanto’s senior director of scientific affairs, said gains made by conventional breeding have slowed down and argues the next step will be “the gene revolution”, a combination of conventional plant breeding with biotechnology
Global shortages of grain last year led to price hikes, food riots and more hunger

Dr Glick said the gene revolution “will produce the next significant increase in yield to help us deal with the challenge of producing enough food for the planet”. He said conventional breeding would continue to develop high-yielding varieties of the major cereal plants, corn, rice and wheat and soybeans

“But then the second part of the yield equation is biotechnology, to help protect the yield that you have put in that seed using conventional breeding.”

Dr Glick said crops genetically modified to give the plants pest resistance, or herbicide resistance, had already produced increases in yields

The CSIRO reports that in the only well-established GM crop in Australia, cotton, farmers now use about 20 per cent of the insecticide they previously used on conventional cotton

GM canola is being grown in commercial quantities for the first time this year. Australian farmers were anxious to grow GM canola to compete with the world’s biggest canola grower, Canada, where GM canola has shown a yield increase of between 6 and 10 per cent and a 40 per cent reduction in herbicide

“We recognise there’s a real need to improve the lives and capabilities of the poorest of the poor, but it is very difficult to do this,” Dr Glick said. “That’s why we’re partnering with the AATF (African Agricultural Technology Foundation), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others who can help us get this technology into the hands of farmers who need it.”

On 15 October I commented on the Greenpeace stance on GM crops and opined for balance. This handout from Monsanto looks like the ramping-up of a campaign to sell more of their seed. The quote on cotton is irrelevant considering the shortage of irrigation water – less insecticide on what? And I haven’t seen any reports that “Australian farmers were anxious to grow GM canola….”.

However, listening to Lester Brown in ‘Today’s Podcast’, increasing yields of wheat and rice have slowed down.

Today’s Podcast

GlobalBiz: Down to Earth: 26 Oct 09, http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/worldbiz/

Peter Day hears from Lester Brown, a man trying to wake up the United States, and the world, to sustainability issues.