How did I miss this: On 30th August there was an article in the West Australian titled 'Libs flag new GM crop trials' in which the Western Australian Opposition was reported to be calling for wide-scale commercial trials of genetically modified (GM) canola with a view to lifting the current moratorium banning GM crops in that state.
The WA Agriculture and Food Minister Kim Chance had already responded to the Libs new found enthusiasm for GM by detailing in a media release how Western Australia's canola growers are now receiving premium prices for their crops because of the State's GM-free status.
But David Tribe asks whether farmers are better off with the $1 a tonne premium if the GM canola is higher yielding.
Anyway, it is significant that a State Opposition is finally taking on the GM issue and that there is at last some sort of evidence of a price premium for non-GM canola.
'You largely ignored the data' -
Dr Tribe I find it very odd that you seem to have developed a blind spot to the very clear statement I have now made twice about yields.
GM yields are now starting to equal or exceed conventional crops in markets where GM crop take up is highest. This has nothing whatsoever to do with an intrinsic superiority of GM over conventional crops. It is based on a very simple cause.
Scientific focus for improving yields is concentrated on the strains with the highest sales. So when Monsanto et al. ensure (as they have now managed to do in certain markets) that the majority of sales are of GM seed then all scientific focus for increased yield is on GM strains not conventional strains; ipso facto GM strains then start to produce higher yields than conventional ones because little or no research is being done on the conventional strains to increase yields because 'not enough' conventional product is being sold in those markets.
If there is anything you still find confusing about this clarification, please state what it is because after making the point three times, I am starting to wonder why an academic is having so much trouble interpreting my meaning.
SHORT SUMMARY OF DATA NASUS FORGETS
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/05/25-to-50-percent-biodiesel-yield.html
"25 to 50 percent Biodiesel Yield Improvements Matter: Canola GM hybrids are way out ahead of the conventional competition"
"Click to Display table showing performance of high yielding GM hybrid canola in Canada extracted from Manitoban Dept of Agriculture canola variety information."
Seed Manitoba - Variety Selection and Grower's Guide
This guide is compliments of Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives, Manitoba Seed Growers Association and Farmer's Independent Weekly. Seed Manitoba provides a unbiased source of information on how varieties performed in trials under a variety of soil and weather conditions. The data has been collected from several sites across Manitoba. New varieties are listed along with varietal characteristics of all varieties tested. This easy-to-follow guide also features a listing of seed vendors in Manitoba.
Canola yield field trial studies:
Beckie, H. J., Harker, K. N., Hall, L. M., Warwick, S. I., Légère, A., Sikkema, P. H., Clayton, G.
W., Thomas, A. G., Leeson, J. Y., Séguin-Swartz, G. and Simard, M.-J. 2005. A decade of herbicide-resistant crops in Canada. Can. J. Plant Sci. 85: 000-000.
Graphs from above paper
Review of University of Alberta Canola Breeding Program.
BrassicaCorp Ltd. S. J. Cambell Investments Ltd. October 4 2005.
We believe that farm yields are poised for a further increase in the next few years now that canola hybrids are becomining more widely available. As can be seen from Figure 4, the yield of the best hybrid canola variety with a normal fatty acid profile was 128% of the check variety in the 2004 Prairie Canola Varity Trials. The yield of the best low linolenic hybrid was 106.4% of the check variety
'return to discussing agricultural policy, not politics.' - Detribe
Strange comment to make in view of the innordinate amount of time you and Schiller spend fulminating against the politics of European agricultural policy
Nasus: You asked a question about yields. I supplied data about yields. You largely ignored the data and went on a rant about political ideology. I do not see a switch to politics as a logical anaysis of factual information about yields. I like to keep clarity about analysis of factual situations.
But I do not see politics as unimportant or uninteresting . It happens I disaggree about politics with you on some matters and agree on others. For example I agree with Oxfam in the obscentity of subsidies.
But since we have so much trouble discussing a relatively simple matter of yields and agronomics, I think it wise to leave alone more complex issues such as trade, economics and the WTO, id would be so futile. You'd probably be surprised at how much I've thought about them though.
Why you think Schiller has something do do with my comments, I don't know. I ignore his comments, in case you havn't noticed.
Detribe's strident advocacy for a GM solution to vitamin A deficiency conveniently ignores the fact that there are conventional crop solutions to the problem:
http://www.futureharvest.org/news/sweetpotato.bckgrnd.shtml
Cynics might suspect that free distribution of a patented crop that farmers can be charged for in the future might have something to do with the 'generosity'of Syngenta's free distribution. It also has the additional benefit for the biotech industry of contaminating the food chain in new areas with patented GM product.
Lets have a closer look at the small print:
Syngenta's commercial business model -
1. 'Syngenta retains commercial rights, although it has no plans to commercialize Golden Rice.'
Translation - This of course can be changed at any time
2. 'The inventors have assigned their exclusive rights to the Golden Rice technology to Syngenta.
Syngenta added some further technologies, and arranged licences with other companies for some additional technologies to be included in the original Golden Rice.
Syngenta, in turn, has given the inventors a humanitarian licence with the right to sublicense public research institutions and low-income farmers in developing countries, to the full set of necessary technologies.'
Translation - This addition of new technologies to the product gives Syngenta total commercial control of the product just in case the inventors should try to recover their exclusive rights, as indicated by the fact that the inventors now need a 'humanitarian licence' to 'sublicence' their invention from Syngenta.
3. 'Improvements to licensed technology:
Commercial rights of improvements to the technology go to Syngenta.....technology will serve the humanitarian purpose'
Translation - Anyone improving the product, including farmers through normal hybridization will automatically cede the commercial rights of those improvements to Syngenta, though Syngenta will not penalise farmers for this as long as they remain in poverty.
4. 'No export allowed' - Syngenta will keep the African farmers in poverty or the farmers will pay for the crops.
This is a covert commercial enterprise to contaminate the food chain with GM product. Some enterprises have a short term profit cycle and some require a longer term investment before reaping dividends.
Syngenta's standard biotech legal avoidence of any and all liabilities for environmental externalities
1.'Regulatory imperative and national sovereignty, i.e. Golden Rice may not be released in a country lacking biosafety regulations, and the decision to adopt the technology is a national matter.'
2. 'No warranties are given by licensor(s)'
3. 'Liabilities and costs — each party is responsible for what it controls '
Translation - Syngenta knows these countries do not have the wherewithall to ensure biosafety regulations so this is a clear and legally binding
disclaimer that any biosafety failures are the national responsibility of the sovereign government concerned (Hello Union Carbide).
Addendum
1. 'this is a humanitarian project and not a commercial enterprise.'
Translation - we are using poverty stricken countries to conduct field trials with no liabilities and contaminating new markets with GM product but because we are giving it away free this is not a commercial enterprise....no really we mean it...its really not....honest.
NASUS: Here is my GM rebuttal, in response to Dr Tribe's increasingly shrill demands
detribe: If you think my responses to your repeated false statements about me are shrill, simply stop being shrill in repeatingly making false statements about me under the cover of anonymity.
NASUS So does non-GM selective improvement of natural hybrids to improve yields and counter local pests and growing conditions, like the Lyamunga 90 bean in Africa;
detribe:Great, I favour any system for crop improvement that shows merit in objective trials being encouraged.
NASUS: facile attempts to claim this as a unique benefit of GM crops http://www.unsystem.org/ngls/documents/publications.en/voices.africa/number6/vfa6.10.htm
detribe: I do NOT claim it is a unique benefit, just that a that good canola hybrid system has been developed by Bayer, and there is good evidence in Canada that it performs well, that there continues to be enthusiastic take up of these hybrids in Canada, and there is a wide range of evidence (including that at the Canola Council of Canada) that it boosts yields (which you fail to acknowledge Nasus) , and that GM potentially could offer hybrid systems in other crops.
NASUS Dr Tribe's first link to his blog is a discussion of the rise and fall in commodities prices responding to market demand and Dr Tribe is not an economist or a commodities trader.
detribe: Im puzzeled as to How do you infer Nasus that I not an economist and that I have not had commodities trading experience; where did you get that from - the same speculative imagination that imagined Dr Norton and I share the same campus, or that Dr Preston has less (!!!!) commercial agricultural experience than I, he being a professional agricultural scientist with a strong research record, and me only being a professional applied microbiologist and biochemist and all.
And why not some argument and analysis about facts in the blog post rather than yet another shrill ad hominem attach on my "credibility".
Nasus Dr Tribe's second link is merely to the Canola Council of Canada which promotes.....Crikey! canola. Since Dr Tribe has not indicated why this link has been included, apart presumably from Dr Tribe's deep and abiding love for GM canola, we will move on.
detribe: Nasus, take the trouble to read the data on crop performance at the site: It has a vast amount of statistical and agronomically relevant information.
eg
http://81.137.139.227/podnew/index.aspx
http://www.canola-council.org/hybridssyntheticcanola.aspx
http://www.canola-council.org/growing_research.html
http://www.canola-council.org/PDF/cpc_on_2004.pdf#zoom=100
(yield data)
and so on.
NASUS:Dr Tribes third link is to his blog again.
Hmmm........ Canola biodeisel.
detribe:
The post in question is this:
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/05/25-to-50-percent-biodiesel-yield.html
Nasus what you don't mention or discuss that there several GMO studies and reports relating to yield in this post. Readers can check this through the link, but to be sure I describe the main points below.
(Your other relevant remark comment was in reponse to my question:
detribe: 'When are you going to discuss the yioeld data I gave you?............Still looking forward though to your comments on GM crop yield data' - Detribe
Your response
Nasus: Really? Which part of this response did you forget to read - )
detribe: its your lack of reponse to the citation in the post
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/05/25-to-50-percent-biodiesel-yield.html
characterised by you as about "biodiesel" where I was unable ( I didnt forget) to read your analysis of yield data, because you say NOTHING about the yield data that are actually in it in it.
You gloss over the title of the post which shows it is relevant to yield as well as biodiesel. It happens yield is important for biodiesel and food oil economics. Wherer or not biodiesel is a good idea doesnt stop the yield data being relevant.
GMO Pundit Post title
"25 to 50 percent Biodiesel Yield Improvements Matter: Canola GM hybrids are way out ahead of the conventional competition"
Canola yield items in the post you are silent about:
Caption to data
"Click to Display table showing performance of ###high yielding GM hybrid canola### in Canada extracted from Manitoban Dept of Agriculture canola variety information."
Why not discuss this NASUS, that's mentioned too:
"Seed Manitoba - Variety Selection and Grower's Guide
This guide is compliments of Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives, Manitoba Seed Growers Association and Farmer's Independent Weekly. Seed Manitoba provides a unbiased source of information on how varieties performed in trials under a variety of soil and weather conditions. The data has been collected from several sites across Manitoba. New varieties are listed along with varietal characteristics of all varieties tested. This easy-to-follow guide also features a listing of seed vendors in Manitoba."
Why not also mention in my "biodiesel post" post I cited this key agronomic paper:
Cited Canola yield field trial studies:
Beckie, H. J., Harker, K. N., Hall, L. M., Warwick, S. I., Légère, A., Sikkema, P. H., Clayton, G.
W., Thomas, A. G., Leeson, J. Y., Séguin-Swartz, G. and Simard, M.-J. 2005. A decade of herbicide-resistant crops in Canada. Can. J. Plant Sci. 85: 000-000.
Graphs from above paper
And this comment about yields:
Review of University of Alberta Canola Breeding Program.
BrassicaCorp Ltd. S. J. Cambell Investments Ltd. October 4 2005.
"We believe that farm yields are poised for a further increase in the next few years now that canola hybrids are becomining more widely available. As can be seen from Figure 4, the yield of the best hybrid canola variety with a normal fatty acid profile was 128% of the check variety in the 2004 Prairie Canola Varity Trials. The yield of the best low linolenic hybrid was 106.4% of the check variety"
You quote:
NASUS:There are three types of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics." - Benjamin Disreali
detribe: Why, then, commit the sin of omission yourself Nasus?
Nasus: Since Dr Tribe gives no comparisons between climate, soil quality, pest susceptibility differences, etc between Manitoba, Australia and Africa his argument is disingenuous and hopelessly flawed.
detribe: The point you raised is whether there is evidence for better yields from GM canola. Untill you discuss the data I have mentioned which you so far choose to ignore (see above) or mock, why should we change the topic?
Nasus:The way GM lobbyists burble on, readers might misled into believing that conventional breeding was unable to provide equivalent benefits
detribe: No Nasus, GM trait development and conventional breeding are complementary, and new traits need good germplasm to go into. I happens (as stated already) I strongly support both conventional and marker assisted breeding
Nasus:I commented on the glaring flaws in Dr Nortons argument
detribe: given your comments in this thread Nasus, readers should be urged to read Dr Norton in the original and make up their own minds
http://www.croplifeaustralia.org.au/files/biotechnology/information/Conservation%20farming%20systems%20and%20canola%20final%20report.pdf
Does Dr Tribe have a specific argument to raise and substantiate against the Soil Association report? If so why does he not articulate it?
I do Nasus, but I'm more interested in having discussion of evidence for yield boosts in GM Canola and seeing you Nasus respond to the available evidence rather than ignore it.
Detribe,
If actually 2000 persons die every day of Vitamin A deficiency surely some kind of an acute arrangements for those people are needed!
Don't want to be rude, but it seems like it would be better if Syngenta handed out vitamin pills for poor farmers instead of giving them free or cheaper GE rice.
Yes Anne it is a good idea to distribute vitamin pills but there are problems with reaching everyone, and so a different program has the benefit of increasing coverage. Second, giving seed has the advantage over pills that a permanment source of vitamin is available season after season, as the farmer can replant the seed, without extra costs. Pills on the other hand do not grow.No one is saying that efforts shouldnt be made to distribute pills but giving seed is a better approach because it is sustainable and doesnt need ongoing funding.
Don't want to be cynic, but why on Earth is Syngenta handing out the GE rice for free? I think it is only a publicity stunt , something that will give the company profit in the future and not concern of poor farmers, hope though I'm totally wrong!!!
Anne: is the farmers are given the seen and are given the freedom to replant it, as Sybgenta Golden rice announce, this does not generate profits for Syngenta. The project is a philanthropic effert, and Im surprised that you do not support it. Have you gone to the Golden Rice Web site
http://www.goldenrice.org/index.html
The Basics of the Licensing Agreement between Syngenta and the inventors of Golden Rice
Universities are not set up to develop products. From the onset of the Golden Rice Project it was clear that in case of success during the research phase, a product should be developed, and that the product had to reach vitamin A-deficient people in developing countries. That means, it had to be a humanitarian project.
Industries are set up to develop products. Thus, an industrial partner was sought that would agree to the humanitarian purpose of the project. Such a partner was found with Syngenta, an agrichemicals and seeds company with headquarters in Switzerland. Syngenta was instrumental in converting the proof-of-concept results generated at the University of Freiburg and ETH Zurich into deliverable products. This contribution was based on the understanding that Syngenta would retain commercial exclusivity for the technology, including large agricultural setups in developing countries.
In 2005 Syngenta decided not to go commercial with Golden Rice in developed countries, a main reason being that there is practically no vitamin A deficiency in such countries. Thus, it would be probably a vitamin-enriched product with little commercial interest, even though antioxidants are very fashionable, and provitamin A is such an antioxidant. But still, Syngenta continues to support the project with advice and scientific knowhow.
The essence of the Sublicensing Agreement
* The inventors have assigned their exclusive rights to the Golden Rice technology to Syngenta.
* Syngenta added some further technologies, and arranged licences with other companies for some additional technologies to be included in the original Golden Rice.
* Syngenta, in turn, has given the inventors a humanitarian licence with the right to sublicense public research institutions and low-income farmers in developing countries, to the full set of necessary technologies.
* Syngenta retains commercial rights, although it has no plans to commercialize Golden Rice.
* ’Humanitarian Use’ means (and includes research leading to):
o Use in developing countries (low-income, food-deficit countries as defined by FAO)
o Resource-poor farmer use (earning less than US$10,000 per year from farming)
o The technology must be introduced into public germplasm ( = seed) only (see below).
o No surcharge may be charged for the technology (i.e. the seed may cost only as much as a seed without the trait)
o National sales are allowed by such farmers (in this way urban needs can also be covered)
o Reusing the harvested seed in the following planting season is allowed (the farmer is the owner of his seeds
* Regulatory imperative and national sovereignty, i.e. Golden Rice may not be released in a country lacking biosafety regulations, and the decision to adopt the technology is a national matter.
* No export allowed (except for research to other licensees): this is a humanitarian project, i.e. the seeds are meant to cover the daily requirements of the poor populations that are deficient in vitamin A.
* Improvements to licensed technology:
o Commercial rights of improvements to the technology go to Syngenta, but
o Humanitarian Use of such improvements is guaranteed under the same terms of the original agreement (in this way any improvements to the technology will serve the humanitarian purpose).
* No warranties are given by licensor(s) (this is also related the fact that every receiving country will determine what biosafety and agronomic requirements to impose before approval of a Golden Rice variety.
* Liabilities and costs — each party is responsible for what it controls (this follows also from the fact that this is a humanitarian project and not a commercial enterprise).
Selection of locally adapted varieties as receptors of the Golden trait:
While countries adopting the technology are free to introduce the trait into their preferred varieties, there are some criteria on which strategic decisions for selection should be based. For example, receptor rice varieties should preferably be widely used by farmers. Those varieties should also be expected to maintain prominence over time and be grown by most productive farmers in vitamin A deficiency-prone regions (for local and regional supply).
See also:
# Kryder D, Kowalsi SP, Krattiger AF. 2000. 'The Intellectual and Technical Property Components of pro-Vitamin A Rice (GoldenRice™): A Preliminary Freedom-To-Operate Review', ISAAA Briefs No 20. ISAAA: Ithaca, NY. 56 p.
'the mice and the GM maize' - Chris Preston
Interesting that the farming community is an unreliable source of information when critical of GM products but stalwart, rural heroes bravely defying 'evil' environmental NGOs when they are buying GM product.
Still since Dr Preston prefers biotech data, lets use biotech data...Monsanto's data in fact:
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:N58WHjYmZRsJ:eu.greenpeace.org/downloads/gmo/MON863briefing0601.pdf+rats+gm+maize&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=3
I would be happy to dispassionately discuss farming systems with Dr Preston, Dr Tribe and Dr Kallla, if they respected their own demands for zero advocacy and hadn't had to have their professional associations highlighted by a third party rather than making full and honest disclosure; which contrary to Dr Preston's disingenuous claim is an extremely important issue when we are discussing the biotechnology industry which all three of them are directly involved with and are advocates of, in the real world as well as here in cyberspace, while as I have already stated, I am not.
I fully expect them to have a titanic struggle not to use their 'expertise' as justification for their arguments being 'superior' to mine, it will be interesting to see if they can resist that temptation, in the interests of objective debate.
The unseemly and thuggish treatment of Ann, who has a genuine interest in exchanges of information and does not automatically agree with everything Greenpeace does (as I have witnessed on a number of different forums) is a consistantly unpleasant demonstration of what happens if environmentalists allow corporate and/or neoconservative blandishments about objective debate to blind them to political reality and the extremely well founded cynicism some activists have built up over the last three decades.
I am not going to facilitate your terms of engagement in what is quite clearly a political debate gentlemen, with the rules governing what constitutes advocacy changing as the debate progresses depending on who is making a statement.
While we are on that subject, perhaps Dr Kalla can explain why he origionally posted his Chinese GM Rice thread as 'Anon' before reconsidering...yes, Dr Kalla some of us did read the origional version, although admittedly it was a fairly shoddy disguise.
'ridiculuos sniping' - Chris Preston
No more ridiculous than first intimating that the Soil Association had not used biotech data then changing your mind and stating that they did just not the data you liked and without any references to support that claim, Dr Preston.
Narsus, so I have to make a full disclosure every time I write a piece in blogspace and if not I am economical with the truth - you mean lying of course. But … there are separate rules for you. You may say what you about people, make all sorts of insinuations about them while hiding behind anonymity - and that is OK because your cause is right.
Give me a break.
I don't have a commercial stake in GM crops either. Therefore, under your rules, my name and what I do should not matter. I chose to identify myself here because I was commenting on my own work. In my mind it would look a bit silly to do otherwise.
Further to my comments about the Soil Association's report I should point out in all fairness, that despite their claim to not use the biotechnologies industry's publications, they in fact did when such reports could be construed as showing a negative impact of GM crops. In addition, they ignored all research not linked to the biotechnology industry that showed any benefit to GM crops. That is the main reason why I dismiss their work. It was not a piece of scholarship or research, but a piece of advocacy. The little snippet you quoted about the mice and the GM maize was illustrative of the way they were willing to change stories and even the facts to suit their own view.
If you want to discuss farming systems and the potential impact of GM crops on that, I am happy to do so, but I am uninterested in your ridiculous sniping.
'When are you going to discuss the yioeld data I gave you?............Still looking forward though to your comments on GM crop yield data' - Detribe
Really? Which part of this response did you forget to read -
During my research into yields of conventional and GM crops, it suddenly occurred to me that since Dr Tribe was suspiciously interested in recent stats and very specific areas, perhaps I should be looking behind the statistics at the causes of yield improvements and as a result I came across a very, very interesting piece of data.
Improved yields are directly related to research into the most 'successful' stock. 'Success' for these purposes is measured purely by the largest quantities of seed sold. GM crops are doing a similar trick with yields that they are attempting to do with contamination.
Once GM products reach tipping point on commercial sales, research into improving yields automatically switches from conventional crops to GM crops, regardless of any other factor. Hi Monsanto, your business model is well and truly rumbled!
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:7KPYStUhRlcJ:www.soils.wisc.edu/extension/FAPM/2002proceedings/gaskaroundupready.pdf+gm+yield+lag&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=12
'return to discussing agricultural policy, not politics.' - Detribe
Strange comment to make in view of the innordinate amount of time you and Schiller spend fulminating against the politics of European agricultural policy and environmental global conspiracy theories. Have your cake and eat it, you cannot.
Indeed considering the importance to global politics of the deliberations and agreements of the WTO, your comment is either staggeringly uninformed or deliberately disingenuous.