Biotechnology

BY ROGER KALLA
….not on environment

There is less than 100 Days to go before the Commonwealth Games here in Melbourne. I can’t but wonder if we are going to see the first GM Athletes compete in the pool at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre or in the track and field events at the MCG.

At a recent conference at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm organized by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) gene doping – the unscrupulous use of genetic modification to enhance athletic ability by athletes, sportspeople and coaches was discussed as well as methods of detection of DNA cheats . The testing methodology is still under development and will not be ready for the upcoming Winter Olympics in Torino nor the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

One example of a gene that could potentially be used for gene doping is IGF-1.

US researchers has inserted IGF-1 into the muscles of mice. Humans have this gene as well, and our muscles make IGF-1 to repair themselves. But as we get older, our muscles make less and less of it. The muscles of mice given IGF-1 got on the order of 15 to 20 percent stronger without the animals doing anything. So the introduction of this gene which caused a higher production of IGF-1 caused the muscles to get stronger without any exercise. With exercise the gene altered mice muscles became 30 percent stronger.

According to Brad Kloza in ScienCentral News of the 7 December 2005 the US researchers responsible for the study has gotten hundreds of emails from athletes and coaches who want to test the technique – regardless of safety guarantees. While declining their requests, the willingness to try this untested therapy has convinced the researchers that gene doping will become a reality.

In the same article Richard Pound, president of the WADA is quoted as saying “There will be, if not countries, there will be people in some countries that are going to be prepared to try it. And unfortunately that’s human nature.”

Athletes are looking for something that gives them the edge over the competition. Some are willing to take a risk to gain a benefit.

Today’s Sydney Morning Herald has a piece by Environment Writer Wendy Frew in which she quotes Dr Chuck Benbrook as follows:

“Across the south-eastern US, where soybean and cotton farmers have relied almost exclusively on (genetic engineering) technology for several years, the system is on the brink of collapse, the volume of herbicide used is setting new records and farmers’ profit margins are shrinking”.

Benbrook is visiting Australia for two weeks at the invitation of the organics industry to talk down GM, click here for more information on the tour.

I heard him on ABC Radio National’s Bush Telegraph Program yesterday, have the transcript from a press conference he gave in Canberra last Tuesday and I attended a talk he gave in Brisbane last Friday.

He generally focuses on soybeans, claiming that herbicide usage in soybeans initially dropped with the adoption of GM soy, but that usage subsequently increased with the advent of herbicide resistance and is now several time what it was before US farmers started growing GM soy.

Benbrook has stated that he uses official data, the data in reports that come out in May each year from the United States Department of Agriculture.

It is tedious extracting the information from these reports. I have spent much of this morning going thought the reports and extract figures on pesticide useage in soybean from here: http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/reports/nassr/field/pcp-bban/ and yield in soybeans from here http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/reports/nassr/other/pcu-bb/#field .

Based on this information I have constructed the following table:

It would seem that with the advent of GM soy, the total amount of herbicide used on a per acre basis in the US has hardly changed and that the yield on a per acre basis has hardly changed.

The area planted to soybeans has increased with the 2004 USDA report stating that a total of 3.14 billion bushels of soybeans were harvested last year which is the largest soybean harvest in US crop history. This harvest also had the highest yield on record at 42.5 bushels/acre.

It is a bit hard to reconcile these figures with Benbrook’s ascertain that the industry is on the “brink of collapse” – see above quote from Sydney Morning Herald.

GM soy was first planted in 1996 and this year 87 percent of the total area planted to soybeans in the US has been planted to GM soy.

There has been no spectacular increase in yield or spectacular reduction in herbicide usage, but as Benbrook conceded in the interview on radio national yesterday, GM soy was developed to make weed control easier and facilitate use of the more environmentally-friendly herbicide glyphosate.

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I would really appreciate it if someone else when through and extracted the figures for cotton in the US – for both yield and herbicide usage.

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UPDATE 9.30pm (in Brisbane), 7TH DECEMBER 2005

Christopher Preston has extracted the cotton figures as follows. Thanks Chris!

The Courier Mail has published a piece by me today titled Let’s be smart on genetic crops. I suggested the article to the opinion editor at the newspaper after the front page story on Friday titled Genetic food plan axed.

What surprised me about Friday’s story, and general reporting on ABC radio on Friday and over the weekend, about how CSIRO had scrapped its research into a new GM pea variety because of an allergic reaction in trials on mice, was the lack of context.

There was no mention that even if the peas had passed all safety tests, they could not have been grown commercially in Australia because of the bans on GM food crops, see my piece in the courier mail.

It seems to me that reporting on GM issues generally occurs in a vacuum – or is just misleading.

For example, today, Farm Online has a story that reads:

Australia faces economic and environmental losses if it follows the United States and grows commercial genetically modified (GM) crops, a leading expert in agricultural technology has warned.

If Australia were to grow commercial genetically engineered (GE) canola, as they call GM crops in the US, it would enter the human food supply as vegetable oil and animal feed.

Dr Charles Benbrook, a former agricultural adviser to the Carter, Reagan and Clinton administrations, is touring Australia to warn government ministers and farmers about the problems with the first decade of GE crops in the US.

“Australian agriculture faces losing its international status as ‘clean and green’ if it ignores the food safety, environmental and economic costs associated with today’s GE crop technologies,” Dr Benbrook said. (end of quote)

At the very least the online journal should have made reference to the recent ABARE report that concluded quite the opposite, click here for a summary.

What exactly are Benbrook’s qualifications? The journal might at the very least have referred to him as a ‘GM skeptic’! 🙂

Does the lack of context in reporting on GM issues just reflect how little journalists understand about the issue?

In response to the various claims by Charles Benbrook that GM crops have not been successful in the US, Chris Preston, Senior Lecturer, Weed Management University of Adelaide has written in today’s AgBioView newsletter:

“GE crops a flop in the USA.” The GeneEthics Network makes this bold statement as part of their recent publicity for the upcoming visit of Dr. Charles Benbrook to Australia. Dr. Benbrook is apparently to tell us “what’s really happening with GE crops in North America, and why we should say ‘no’ to them here”.

I don’t know quite what Dr. Benbrook will tell us about how GE crops have flopped. I do know the claim that GE crops have stalled, flopped or are otherwise being given up by farmers in the US and elsewhere is not infrequently made in letters to the editor, press releases and other statements in the Australia media. However, whenever I look at the situation, I can find little support for the claims made.

We can look at how farmers perceive GM crops by looking at the levels of adoption.

If after 10 years GM crops were a flop, farmers should have already decided to stop growing them. A quick look at the area of crops grown demonstrates this is not the case. The statistics on the area sown to GM crops are easy to obtain for soybean, cotton and corn (or maize). They are available from the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/reports/nassr/field/pcp-bba/ ).

In 2002 75% of all soybean acreage in the US was sown to GM soybeans. In 2004, that had risen to 85% of soybean acreage and to 87% in 2005. This year, 63.8 million acres of GM soybeans were grown. In 2002, 34% of the corn acreage in the US was sown to GM corn. By 2004, this had climbed to 47% and to 52% in 2005. That means 42.4 million acres of GM corn were grown. In 2002, 71% of the area of upland cotton was GM. This had also increased to 76% of the cotton area by 2004 and 79% in 2005. This year, 10.9 million acres of GM cotton were grown.

Data are not as readily available for the area of other GM crops grown in the US, papaya, canola and alfalfa. The primary source for information on the area of GM papaya, the Hawaiian Agricultural Statistical Service, gives variety information only up to 2002 (www.nass.usda.gov/hi/prisetoc.htm ). In that year, between 44 and 48% of the area was sown to GM papaya. That would be just under 1000 acres. For canola, I have had to rely on a range of secondary sources (e.g.
http://www.pewbiotech.org/resources/factsheets/display.php3?FactsheetID=2 , http://www.pgeconomics.co.uk/environment_select_committee_report.htm ,
http://www.grdc.com.au/growers/gc/gc53/genescene.htm ) that normally cite “industry statistics”. These suggest GM canola was planted on 60% of the area in 2002, 75% of the area in 2003 and 84% of the area in 2004. Colleagues in the industry have given me similar estimates for 2004. In 2005, there was 1.1 million acres of canola grown, of which at least 700,000 acres would have been GM. I could obtain no statistics on the area of GM alfalfa, which is being planted commercially for the first time this year. However, I have been told by weed scientists in both Colorado and California that most, and in some places all, of the seed available for 2005 has been sold.
There are 22.1 million acres of alfalfa grown in the US, so even a small percentage of that will be a significant area.

Therefore, in total we have over 117 million acres of GM crops in the US.

For those,who like me, are more familiar with the metric system, this equates to about 47 million hectares of GM crops. In my local perspective, this is twice the area of grain cropping in all of Australia. If this is a flop, what will Dr. Benbrook count as a success?

Not only is there a large area sown to GM crops in the US, the area sown is continuing to grow each year. This is even true for crops like soybeans and cotton where large percentages of the area have been sown to GM crops for some years.” (end of quote)

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Update at 10am

I see David Tribe has a piece at Online Opinion today on GM food crops, click here.

Updated at 5pm

I have been informed by Dr. Christopher Preston, Senior Lecturer, Weed Management, University of Adelaide, that:

The current Benbrook tour will claim, amongst other things, that US farmers are losing billions of dollars in export sales because they have adopted GE crops.

You can access official US export statistics at http://www.fas.usda.gov/ustrade/USTExFAS.asp?QI= . You then need to search by commodity and region. In searching you will find that corn and soybean exports are reasonably variable; however, there is no evidence of a significant loss of trade. US corn exports to the EU have declined dramatically, but that has been more than made up by increased exports elsewhere. US corn exports have increased in value from $4.9 billion in 1999 to $5.9 billion in 2004. Soybean seed exports have also increased in value from $4.5 billion in 1999 to $6.7 billion in 2004. Although value is down on 2002 and 2003 because of droughts and lower prices as a result of increased competition from Argentina and Brazil.

I was getting bored with all the posturing about how Australian farmers would be sued for growing canola contaminated with genetically modified (GM) material, but now it seems there has been some resolution to the issue.

Melissa Marino reported in today’s The Age that canola with traces of genetically modified material will be allowed to be traded after an agreement by federal and state agriculture ministers:

The agreement, made yesterday at the Primary Industries Ministerial Council meeting in Launceston will tolerate levels of GM material of up to 0.9 per cent after a spate of contaminated canola was detected in crops this year.

Moratoriums imposing a nil tolerance, including in Victoria, would now be lifted to allow for the unintended or accidental presence of GM canola in conventional canola crops in a move applauded by farmer groups but denounced by anti-GM groups, including Greenpeace.

Victorian Agriculture Minister Bob Cameron said this year’s harvest could now go ahead without disruption. No farmers would be prosecuted for growing conventional canola with trace levels of GM material, he said.

Mr Cameron said a threshold for the presence of GM material at 0.9 per cent was consistent with the standard accepted by the European Union. Under the agreement, seed companies would be required to reduce the traces of GM material in conventional canola to 0.1 per cent over the next two planting seasons, he said.

It is a blow to Greenpeace who have until recently campaigned hard against the commercial planting of GM canola on the basis of the perception we can keep Australia GM free. Nevermind that we have been eating vegetable oil from cotton seed from locally grown GM cotton plants for nearly ten years!

The whole saga is really quite extraordinary:

1. That Australian state governments placed moratoriums banning the planting of a food crop (specifically GM canola) on the basis of fear of a technology used in many other countries including Canada, China and the US, and then,

2. That traces of GM material were found in the conventional (non-GM) canola.

As I have detailed in a previous post, the contamination is probably from a conventional Australian canola breeding program that exchanged germplasm with an overseas companies and in the exchange of germplasm the impurity/the Topas 19/2 was introduced.

Topas 19/2 includes a gene from a soil bacteria that confers herbicide resistance. The same gene, known as the pat gene has been used as a marker in a wide range of research in a variety of crops around the world. The pat gene is a Bayer creation and a product of biotechnology/genetic engineering/genetic modificiation.

In another post I suggested that with a form of GM canola now established in Australia, Greenpeace really needs a new campaign.

Maybe they are going to now focus on GM cotton? Greenpeace recently asked CSIRO for documentation on the water use, soil impact and effect on other insects of GM cotton through a freedom of information request. CSIRO have apparently responded by asking for $21,000 – the cost of getting 1,000 hours of documentation together.

This summer marks the tenth anniversary of the planting of GM cotton in Australia. The crop has been a phenomenal success with 90% of cotton growers planting the stuff and pesticide application rates down an average 88% last season. Cotton has been exempt from the bans on GM food crops on the basis it is grown primarily for fibre (not food). Nevermind that 35% of the vegetable oil we eat in Australia is from cotton seed.

While we in Australia become ever more tangled in GM politics, in other parts of the world real research is happening. A latest breakthrough includes Danish scientists showing that it is possible to produce plants which change colour in the presence of specific compounds within the soil. In particular they’ve found a gene that can turns a plant red if explosive residues are present. This is what the blushing plants look like: http://www.gizmag.com.au/go/2568/gallery/ .

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Thanks to Roger Kalla for many of the above links and some of the above information.

The following press release from the Pastoral and Graziers’ Association (PGA) of Western Australia raises some interesting issues.

FAST AND LOOSE WITH THE TRUTH, YET AGAIN

Greenpeace and the Network of Concerned Farmers (NCF) have, once again, resorted to media grandstanding in their obdurate opposition to GM crops.

The Greenpeace press release titled “First Australian farmer falls prey to GE contamination”, released on 10.10.05, does nothing to advance the public debate. It merely reinforces the fact that
the misuse of scientific data is the principle technique employed by these organisations.

The press release claims that GM contamination was found in a non-GM crop at a rate of 0.5%. It is important to note that testing was on a crop owned by Geoffrey Carracher, a NCF member and known anti-GM campaigner, and the analysis was paid for by Greenpeace.

Would Greenpeace accept a scientific analysis as to the benefits of a GM crop, where the data came from one farmer – one pro-GM farmer – and the analysis was paid for by a biotechnology company? Would the media?

Such an analysis is meaningless – certainly without significant corroborating evidence, and particularly as the supposed quantity found (0.5%) is actually well within the threshold set by the EU (0.9%) – one of the most restrictive markets in the world. Just as with the false ‘contamination’ scare in WA three weeks ago, the opponents of biotechnology will take any opportunity to run a fear campaign on this issue.

The PGA position on GMOs remains the same