Prince Charles warns GM crops risk causing the biggest-ever environmental disaster

[UrbanFarmboy]

Originally Posted by screener

Most Gm seed sold in this country is sold because it offers higher production. Similar to the rBST discussion, higher production does not come from nothing. Higher fertilizer usage is necessary. Commercial fertilizers require a large fossil fuel input. Increasing use of higher levels of fossil fuels is not sustainable. That makes it short sighted.

Part of my dislike of these GMied seeds and crops does lie in the massive profits and unsustainable prices, (for purchasing farmers) that the Monsantos of the world are getting. I think that their value system is so twisted as to be hostile to the environment.

You are absolutely wrong on all counts.

For GM, first and foremost, increased yeilds using a fixed set of inputs are acheived using Gm seed. It makes the use of these limited resources much more efficient for the production of grain. If GM corn can decrease pest damage by 15-25%, then the fixed amount of fertilizer, that would have been applied to non GM corn, is better utilized. You get more grain per input.

rBST is the same way. Its a single shot that allows a cow to produce more milk given a fixed amount of inputs. The cow is eating the same amount as other cows, but its producing more milk in the process. Producing more milk with the same fixed inputs means that for a given production level, cows treated with rBST use less water, less food, less land and emit less green house gasses than cows not treated with rBST. Therefore it is more sustainable to use rBST than not.

As far as profit is concerned, that has nothing to do with the technology and everything to do with a personal dislike for corporations and profit. The Monsantos of the world are making profit because they make a product that farmers are willing to pay for. Do you think farmers would pay those prices if they did not think the product was worth it?

[screener]

I beg to differ. I am correct in pointing out that the increased yields are only attainable with increased use of fertilizer, since the example I used was the GMied seed sold in this country which is primarily purchased because of the Monsanto marketing success in convincing farmers that they will get bigger yields.

As to the suggestion that corn gmied to poison pests that feed on the corn, perhaps the genetic modification does provide more yield in relation to fertilizer inputs, but in comparison to what? Is that insecticidal corn more efficient than other methods of controlling the pests? I'd be happy to have you back that statement up with something.

[Cricket Tragic]

Originally Posted by macgardener

I've seen documentaries and articles about Prince Charles' interest in organic gardening and I think his comments and his business interests both arise from genuine interest and concern. I don't think he's simply saying things to benefit his business.

I wasn't particularly suggesting that Prince Charles' comments on GM food were made with the intention of driving up sales. I am sure Prince Charles has a genuine interest and concern in his organic enterprises. I understand Prince Charles once expressed a wish to be a tampon and I expect he had a genuine interest and concern in that too.

Screener apparently thinks that profit made by companies is bad. I was merely pointing out that Prince Charles' comments had the potential, even if unintended, to increase his own profits. Clearly there seems to be some sort of double standard here - profits made by companies regulated by company acts and other instruments are bad, but profits made by Royal Personages that are largely unregulated are good. Go figure.

[Cricket Tragic]

Originally Posted by screener

I beg to differ. I am correct in pointing out that the increased yields are only attainable with increased use of fertilizer, since the example I used was the GMied seed sold in this country which is primarily purchased because of the Monsanto marketing success in convincing farmers that they will get bigger yields.

As to the suggestion that corn gmied to poison pests that feed on the corn, perhaps the genetic modification does provide more yield in relation to fertilizer inputs, but in comparison to what? Is that insecticidal corn more efficient than other methods of controlling the pests? I'd be happy to have you back that statement up with something.

No not strictly correct. Increased yields can occur with the same amount of fertilizer by increasing the efficiency of fertilizer use. One way this can be achieved is by reducing the amount of fertilizer used by weeds through the use of a broad-spectrum herbicide like glyphosate. You cannot achieve a comparable effect through tillage, because tillage can lead to loss of nitrogen and lower nitrogen use efficiency.

A second way to achieve increased efficiency is through a reduction in product lost to insect pests. Nitrogen used to grow a plant that is then eaten by insects reduces efficiency of the final harvest. The only other way to achieve the same result is to drench the crop in insecticides, causing off-target damage to beneficial insects and leading to a rise in secondary pests.

[screener]

tragic cricket, I'm sure it will have been deemed very clever of you to have dredged up that little bit about prince charles, Never able to win one within the bounds of decency, you go beyond.
May you never have said anything ridiculous, and if you did may you be confronted with it here.

Profits made by the mega corps involved in agricultural supply are not just bad they are grotesque. Record profits, at times when farmers are going bankrupt and suicidal all over the world, are bleeding farmers and agricultural sustainability dry.

There is no double standard, I have no idea of what the profit levels on this royal personages farming operations are. If he is trying to stay away from the megacorps and their products his profits will undoubtably be better than other farmers, and I suspect more conscionable than the chemical companies.

Weed control is not a question of glyphosate or tillage, there are a variety of herbicides available to farmers, and recent studies seem to be saying that gyphosate use on GMied crops is leading to more usage of chemicals than before, or for non GM crops.

Insect control is not limited to insecticidal GMied crops or other insecticides, there are other ways of dealing with insects and their damage. For each pest farmers have to face there are natural predators.

How many legs does that dog of yours have anyway?

[Cricket Tragic]

Ah, but there is a double standard and you have stated it here. Profits made by corporations are obscene. Profits made by Royal Personages are conscionable.

No asking about how profits are obtained. No thought given to the fact that corporations make profits by supplying goods useful to farmers. If they didn’t supply useful goods, they would go out of business. And I don’t think chemical/biotech companies are responsible for farmers going bankrupt and committing suicide anywhere. You make it sound like farmers are forced to buy these products. They are not. They buy them because they make their operations more profitable or easier to run.

Perhaps we might contrast that with Royal Personages who make profits by trading on their position and who if they are not successful at play farming have their operations propped up by the British taxpayer.

There are indeed a variety of herbicides available to farmers, but no other herbicide is quite as good as glyphosate. That is why so many farmers use it. They end up with clean fields, so no loss of nutrients to weeds. The alternative herbicides are not as good. And so what if farmers are using a bit more glyphosate in order to stop using soil active herbicides like triazines that move off site into waterways and wells? Given the relative environmental footprint of the two types of herbicides, I happen to think that is a good thing don’t you?

Your natural predator that is going to manage European corn borer is what exactly?

[screener]

There is no double standard concerning profits, it is excessive profits that are unconscionable. Because I provide a useful product doesn't give me a right to charge what the market will bear. A dis-proportionate share of income from agriculture is currently going to the mega corps. Farmers are losing their land, and their families, and committing suicide so that companies that were probably at one time beneficial to society can become bloated bureaucracies interested only in self preservation.

Glyphosate, roundup, is being used two and three times a season to control weeds because the once a season that it was advertised as being needed, only works when weeds have already done more harm than would have been caused if another herbicide were used at an earlier timing. This is leading to resistance, and that coupled with plants that are naturally resistant to glyphosate, has farmers who are growing roundup ready crops, also spraying with a second herbicide.

I don't know the European corn borer from a five legged dog, but I expect that its predator is dying off because of the production of insecticidal corn.

[UrbanFarmboy]

Originally Posted by screener

There is no double standard concerning profits, it is excessive profits that are unconscionable. Because I provide a useful product doesn't give me a right to charge what the market will bear. A dis-proportionate share of income from agriculture is currently going to the mega corps. Farmers are losing their land, and their families, and committing suicide so that companies that were probably at one time beneficial to society can become bloated bureaucracies interested only in self preservation.

Glyphosate, roundup, is being used two and three times a season to control weeds because the once a season that it was advertised as being needed, only works when weeds have already done more harm than would have been caused if another herbicide were used at an earlier timing. This is leading to resistance, and that coupled with plants that are naturally resistant to glyphosate, has farmers who are growing roundup ready crops, also spraying with a second herbicide.

I don't know the European corn borer from a five legged dog, but I expect that its predator is dying off because of the production of insecticidal corn.

Screener,

BT corn uses a targeted pesticide to kill the corn bore. Its mode of action and the expression in the plant is such that natural predators (such as the lady bug) would never be affected.

I spend haly my life on a far and have been using biotech seed since the late 1990's Trust me, farmers are not stupid nor are they duped by clever marketing campaigns by Monsanto. Farmers try out seeds, and share information with other farmers and use what works best for their operations. For us that just happened to be Round-up Ready cotton. This technology saves us thousands of dollars a year in fuel and labor costs and while the seed is expensive, we pay for it because of the value we realize.

I guarantee you that should the price of seed exceed the perceived benefit, farmers will not buy it.

And these profits that you so readily demonize ensure that research is done and that future farmers have access to better technologies that I had.

And I don't know what farmers you are talking about, but here in the US, we are experiencing record farm incomes from increased commodity prices. While we are paying more for inputs, we are still making a great profit, something we have not realized in many years.

[Cricket Tragic]

Originally Posted by screener

There is no double standard concerning profits, it is excessive profits that are unconscionable. Because I provide a useful product doesn't give me a right to charge what the market will bear. A dis-proportionate share of income from agriculture is currently going to the mega corps. Farmers are losing their land, and their families, and committing suicide so that companies that were probably at one time beneficial to society can become bloated bureaucracies interested only in self preservation.

Glyphosate, roundup, is being used two and three times a season to control weeds because the once a season that it was advertised as being needed, only works when weeds have already done more harm than would have been caused if another herbicide were used at an earlier timing. This is leading to resistance, and that coupled with plants that are naturally resistant to glyphosate, has farmers who are growing roundup ready crops, also spraying with a second herbicide.

I don't know the European corn borer from a five legged dog, but I expect that its predator is dying off because of the production of insecticidal corn.

screener, if you have the most successful product on the market, you in fact have a right and a duty to charge whatever the market will bear. You of course will need to get back your return on investment and make sufficient profit in order to conduct research and development of your next product. Charging an effective market price will allow you to do this before the competition develops a similar product.

Secondly, in order for innovation to occur, there needs to be value in the market. If you have the absolutely best product and charge almost nothing for it, there is no value to innovate in. You will create a monopoly and be the only seller until the patent expires. If you make your product too expensive compared to its value (more than the market will bear) people will not buy it

Where I live, farm commodity prices are the highest they have been in decades. Costs are up because of the increased cost of fuel (increases both farm running costs and fertilizer costs). Despite this and a massive drought, farmers made more money last year than any time this millennium. You keep saying framers are losing their land and committing suicide, but have not given examples. Is it really prices of inputs doing this or is it something else? Here most farmer suicides are related to mental illness and isolation.

Lastly, if you haven’t seen corn borers at work, you can’t really appreciate the benefits of Bt corn. The predators are not killed by Bt corn, because the Bt in corn is lepidopteran specific and doesn’t harm lady birds, wasps or flies. In contrast, sprayed insecticides kill all these. Sadly, there are not enough predators around to control corn borer effectively.

[screener]

Farm boy and tragic, record breaking profits aren't justified by the research and development since the latter comes out of income before profits are counted. As does the big old marketing budgets that do and say anything to get farmers to buy with all the savy that our wonderful marketing agencies can throw into them.

I don't know anyone who says there are no financial benefits even to farmers from at least some of the gmied crops and food out there. (if you take into account inflation especially in the pricing of farm inputs, farmers are still not getting the gross reciepts that we got in the 70s.) The point of the thread is the environmental damage that may be caused by use of the gmied seed.

We have been over the situation of farm debt leading to farm family breakdown and suicides in other threads. Where the need to borrow money to buy the new seed and pesticides enters into the picture. Farmers in the heavily subsidized countries are not free of this kind of pressure but it is nowhere near as bad as it is in more agrarian societies.

So we have megacorps producing product that their own research is used as proof of its food and feed safety and environmental safety, who are making record profits without having their product tested by neutral third parties.


Sounds like a good deal to me.....