SGR - Letter re Radio Interview on GM Crops

Your radio interview on Friday, 29 November (BBC Radio 4, The World Tonight) made a number of claims that must be regarded as unsubstantiated. As a scientist, you will appreciate the difference between a hypothesis or prediction, on the one hand, and observed facts, on the other. The biotechnology industry has long been predicting the favourable characteristics of genetically modified crops that you mentioned in your interview. Over the past few years, however, when studies of actual performance have been carried out, the observed facts have often proved to be quite different. I have myself seen the farm-scale trial at Munlochy, Scotland, where the whole field of stunted GM oilseed rape plants was growing side-by-side with the large, lush non-GM control plants. This disparity in performance, however, is not likely to be made public, as the trials are concerned solely with effects on biodiversity.

In a recent major report by the Soil Association^¹, North American farmers were interviewed and various research papers have been reviewed. The result was that, “To our amazement, the feedback from farmers and industry analysts in North America is that across the whole industry there have been more problems than successes.” (page 7). Extracts from the Executive Summary state:

“The evidence we have gathered demonstrates that GM food crops are far from a success story. In complete contrast to the impression given by the biotechnology industry, it is clear that they have not realised most of the claimed benefits and have been a practical and economic disaster. Widespread GM contamination has severely disrupted GM-free production including organic farming, destroyed trade and undermined the competitiveness of North American agriculture overall. GM crops have also increased the reliance of farmers on herbicides^² and led to many legal problems.”

“The claims of increased yields have not been realised overall except for a small increase in Bt maize yields. Moreover, the main GM variety (Roundup Ready soya) yields 6-11 percent less than non-GM varieties”"^³

“Contamination has caused the loss of nearly the whole organic oilseed rape sector in the province of Saskatchewan, at a potential cost of millions of dollars.”

“All non-GM farmers are finding it very hard or impossible to grow GM-free crops. Seeds have become almost completely contaminated with GMOs ........”

No garden-centre plants have spread on the scale of oilseed rape in Canada. As one farmer in North Dakota said,^⁴ “GM is like a cancer that has no boundaries. It's like giving farmers a death sentence. Our organic producers are living a nightmare - please don't allow our nightmare to become yours.” In both Canada and the United States, many farmers are campaigning against the introduction of GM wheat, for fear of similar contamination of this important crop.^{1, ⁵}

You have suggested that the problem of development of herbicide resistance is curable by switching to a different herbicide. In America, the majority of farmers who had been growing maize with the use of the herbicide Liberty (based on glufosinate ammonium) are now having to use Liberty Atz, which contains three times as much atrazine as glufosinate ammonium. Atrazine is so toxic that it is on the EU’s Red List of Substances, and it is also a hormone disrupter.^⁶ The need to resort to additional or different herbicides raises the question, “What was the value of developing the herbicide-tolerant GM variety in the first place, if it is useful for only a few years, if at all?”

It is surely time for a prestigious scientific body like the Royal Society to accept the facts that have disproved the hypothesis and to cease proclaiming that the hypothesis remains true in spite of the indisputable contrary evidence.

1 Seeds of Doubt: North American farmers’ experiences of GM crops, September 2002, The Soil Association.

2 Also see: Dr Charles Benbrook, Ag BioTech InfoNet Technical Paper Number 1, 13 July 1999, “Evidence of the Magnitude and Consequences of the Roundup Ready Soybean Yield Drag from University-Based Varietal Trials in 1998”, p. 2; available at in PDF form.

3 Also see: ibid. , p. 1. These results were confirmed for 1999 and 2000, as well: http://www.biotech-info.net/troubledtimes.html, Report II, “New Evidence Confirms Roundup Ready Yield Drag”

4Teresa Podell, executive director of the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society, in Living Earth, the magazine of the Soil Association, winter 2002, p. 13.

5 Arnold Taylor, ibid.

6 Press Release by Friends of the Earth, 25 June 2002, “GM Crop Trials Undermined by New U.S. Evidence”.

LETTER TO PROFESSOR PATRICK BATESON
Re: Radio Interview On GM Crops

Web version issued on 2nd December 2002 by SGR

LETTER TO PROFESSOR PATRICK BATESON Re: Radio Interview On GM Crops

Web version issued on 2nd December 2002 by SGR

LETTER TO PROFESSOR PATRICK BATESON
Re: Radio Interview On GM Crops