Science News Review

Biotech Propaganda Meets Scientific Reality

Apr 29 at 6:06pm by Aileen

In its mad bid to privatize and control the world’s agriculture and food supply with its patented biotech seeds and cushy revolving door within governmental regulatory agencies, Monsanto cannot be very happy with a recent Soil Association report that shows GM crops decrease yields, whether it’s cotton or soybeans or corn.

As reported in The Washington Post, the biotech industry immediately released yet another bought-and-paid-for report claiming totally opposite conclusions (some things don’t change just because the science is against you). The Soil Association report took a serious look at reality, something quite refreshing in this field. The material included among other citations:

• a 2007 study from Kansas State University that showed Roundup Ready soy has suffered “yield drag” since it was introduced, producing an average of 9-25% less per acre than conventional soy.

• a rigorous independent US study under controlled conditions demonstrating that Bt corn yields up to 12% less than conventional corn.

• an article in Nature Biotechnology reporting that Bt cotton doesn’t even express the engineered pesticide in 25% of some varieties sold under exclusive license.

The crop failures and their tragic effects on farmers in poorer nations may be a product of the technology itself according to some analysts.

US scientists have finally called for more access to biotech crop data so they can perform studies to assess environmental impacts of the technology as well. Indications are that herbicide resistance has increased herbicide usage (polluting land and water), led to pest immunity (with increased crop losses), creates “superweeds” from wild relatives that are hard to eradicate, and may even have something to do with massive die-offs of bees in recent years.

A quote from Michelle Marvier of Santa Clara University in the ag-dependent state of California pretty much sums up the situation -

“Since 1996 more than a billion acres have been planted with biotech crops in the U.S. We don’t really know what are the pros and cons of this important new agricultural technology.”

Huh. I thought these are just the sort of things USDA and the FDA were supposed to find out before the technology was deployed on such a massive scale. Who could have guessed that allowing corporate control of law, policy and regulatory oversight might lead to bad law, policy and regulatory oversight? Oops…