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!
PG Economics comments on Benbrook speculations (in this case made to UK select committee)
http://www.pgeconomics.co.uk/environment_select_committee_report.htm
http://www.pgeconomics.co.uk/pdf/Envauditcomments9Marchforweb-site.pdf
Detribe,
what gave you the idea that Aussie newspapers and radio are unbiassed? I have family working for Fairfax in Sydney and THEY think the UK Guardian is a conservative paper.
Mind you Warwick had a vistor from the UK who averred that the Guardian was very flexible in its politial posturing.
I don't think of it is an overt act of deception, more of credulous fools possessing a smattering of science and then assuming they know it all. They actually believe this baloney - that is the problem.
Let me also make the point that with rising yields per acre, the time trend of pesticide used per produce produced (eg per bushel, per bale) is relevant too, as with water use efficiency.