Crop Improvement Methods Ridiculed?

Hawaii’s One-sided Love Affair with GMOs

Sunday, June 19, 2011

By Molokai Dispatch staff

Community Contributed

Clearly the GMO corn seed companies have cultivated a love affair with Hawaii’s legislators and governing agencies with a crop of alluring promises of tax and employment benefits. Instead, this love affair has birthed unrestricted and unregulated access to our scarce agriculture resources of water and land for Monsanto, Pioneer,  Syngenta, Dow and BASF, with no oversight, no inspections and no protections against unintended – but sure to happen - consequences.

The GMO seed companies are the ultimate self-licking ice cream cone; with no consumer demand for the non- food product, the companies created an artificial demand called “crop improvement”, then manipulated genes to create new patented life-forms, then controlled all research, production, sales, distribution and ultimately replanting.

Better to advocate FOR environmental responsibility: GMO science promises that there is absolutely NO environmental risk from their new genetic life-forms; that it will never happen. These promises have nothing to do with prudent and practical safeguards that answer the “what if” question and that legislate environmental clean up of any contamination from GMO research companies. Why does our environment need protection?? Read More

Who Do We Trust?

Who do you trust to tell you the truth about food safety?
Posted Tuesday, February 16, 2010, at 2:00 PM
By Marcia Gorrell

Is our food safe or not?

Are today's farmers feeding and taking care of their animals properly?

It seems to come down to who you trust.

Do you believe the family farmers who have spent their whole lives producing food? The farmers who have built modern farming techniques, step by step, generation by generation -- building on the lessons, failures and successes of those who farmed before them?

Do you believe the scientists or researchers who have spent their entire careers studying animals, nutrition and food safety? Do you believe the USDA or the FDA who are tasked with making our food supply safe?

I have as much suspicion as anyone when it comes to the government, but in the case of food safety, I can't argue with the results.

Of course, if you don't believe those people -- or me -- you can believe the reports like the one recently by Katie Couric of CBS News. It blamed antibiotic use in animals for the rise of antibiotic resistance in humans.

If she would have contacted farmers and veterinarians, as I did, she might have found out there are two sides to every story.

Again, if you don't believe me, you might believe Michael Pollan, the journalism professor from the University of California-Berkeley, who has become a self-appointed "food expert" but has never spent time actually raising food or feeding an animal day after day.

Recently Pollan was on Oprah, spouting his oft-repeated line that corn is not a natural food source for cows (and ruminants) and that we are force-feeding the foodstuff causing them to become sick.

According to Pollan, in order to feed cattle corn, we have to also feed them antibiotics.
For most farmers, that statement is so laughable they can't believe someone would actually believe it. In fact, most don't think it is worth a response. Read More

As we travel the country and share the experience we had with Pollan, I continually remind our audiences that they are the experts in the discussion of food production. Pollan is a journalism teacher. Unfortunately, he has discovered that he can make himself quite wealthy by trying to frighten people about our food supply and demonizing the farmers and ranchers who raise it. For some reason, people would rather be scared about our food rather than hear the truth. Nice job of sharing this story with your readers Marcia.

Corn Genome Possibilities

300-bushel averages by 2030?
Posted: Saturday, December 12, 2009 9:25 am
By LORI POTTER Hub Staff Writer 0 comments

KEARNEY — Scientists who recently completed sequencing the corn genome may have ensured success for crop breeders and farmers racing to double 2000 world corn production by 2030.
That means Nebraska farmers who are harvesting a 2009 crop averaging 200 bushels or more per acre in many fields soon could see 300-bushel yields, said Chandler Mazour, manager of Monsanto’s Water Utilization Learning Center south of Gothenburg.

“It’s big on a global scale,” he said about the importance of the genome mapping, because doubling production while using fewer inputs is vital to feeding a world population expected to grow from 6 billion to 9 billion by 2050.

Craig Wietjes of Riverdale, who has been a Pioneer seed representative for 20 years, said, “We are becoming very limited on obtaining or developing more acres for the products to be produced. We now must focus on making our products — mainly corn and soybeans — produce more per acre.”

He described the gene mapping as “a pivotal industry-changing movement.”

Smithfield farmer Dennis Gengenbach, who is vice president of the Nebraska Corn Board and serves on the National Corn Growers Association Research Committee, said, “It’s gonna take a few years to determine what changes we want to make and how. But it’s limited only by your imagination.” Read More

Several of our food crops have been sequenced now, including some of our livestock. Knowing this information will make it much easier for plant and livestock breeders to bring more favorable genes to the forefront and eliminate those that cause problems. Humans have been genetically enhancing their food crops for 10,000 years now and that continues today with new and better technology that will help us grow more food.

Chemicals Improve Sweet Corn's Nutrition

First Evidence That Weed Killers Improve Nutritional Value Of A Key Food Crop

ScienceDaily (July 9, 2009) — Scientists are reporting for the first time that the use of weed killers in farmers' fields boosts the nutritional value of an important food a crop. Application of two common herbicides to several varieties of sweet corn significantly increased the amount of key nutrients termed carotenoids in the corn kernels, according to a new study.

In the new study, Dean Kopsell and colleagues note that farmers grow about 240,000 acres of sweet corn in the United States each year, making it an important food crop. Corn is among only a few vegetable crops that are good sources of zeaxanthin carotenoids. Consuming carotenoid-rich vegetables may reduce the risk of age-related macular degeneration (a leading cause of vision loss among older people), heart disease, and cancer, the study notes.

The scientists exposed several varieties of sweet corn plants to the herbicide mesotrione or a combination of mesotrione and atrazine, another commonly used weed killer, and harvested mature corn 45 days later. Herbicide applications made the corn an even-better source of carotenoids, boosting levels in the mature kernels of some varieties by up to 15 percent. It specifically increased levels of lutein and zeaxanthin, the major carotenoids in sweet corn kernels, which studies have linked to a reduced risk of age-related macular degeneration.

Link

Journal reference:
Kopsell et al. Increase in Nutritionally Important Sweet Corn Kernel Carotenoids following Mesotrione and Atrazine Applications. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2009; 090619124509017 DOI: 10.1021/jf9013313

We are constantly told by detractors of modern agriculture that the use of chemicals is dangerous to our health and the environment. While it may be fun for some people to spread doom and gloom, the truth is a much different story. Chemicals have been an extremely safe and useful tool for producing food. Now it appears that it can also improve the nutrition of the food we are eating. Sweet corn is everyone's favorite food and now thanks to these weed killing chemicals, it's even better for you too.

Germany Bans GMO

Germany bans farming of genetically modified corn
Last Updated: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 1:29 PM ET

Genetically modified corn can no longer be grown commercially in Germany.

German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner announced Tuesday that the government is banning the cultivation of MON 810 maize. That strain of corn is the only genetically modified crop that Germany had allowed to be cultivated in the country.

Aigner said she has concluded the crop poses a danger to the environment.

The change in rules means that MON 810 may not be sown in Germany this upcoming growing season.

Germany had allowed the strain's cultivation since 2005.

MON 810, also known as YieldGuard Corn Borer, is a strain of corn extremely resistant to European and southwestern corn borers, caterpillars that eat and damage corn plants before becoming adult moths. Read More

I have mentioned several times on my blog how the European Union’s policies have negatively affected their ability to feed their citizens. In the 1970’s the countries in what is now the EU could feed their population. Now they are only able to produce about 60% of the food needed. Mostly it is due to the extreme regulations that have been enacted, which consider the need to grow food behind a laundry list of other things. Genetically modified plants are the result of a sped-up process of plant breeding which humans have been doing for thousands of years. They claim to be worried about the long term impact on human health. What is the impact on human health if there isn’t enough to eat?

Blaming Agriculture

Where the Obesity Grows
By George F. Will
Sunday, March 8, 2009

Tom Vilsack, Iowa's former governor, calls his "the most important department in government," noting that the Agriculture Department serves education through school nutrition programs and serves diplomacy by trying to wean Afghanistan from a poppy-based (meaning heroin-based) economy. But Vilsack's department matters most because of the health costs of the American diet. If Michael Pollan is right, the problem is rooted in politics and, in a sense, Iowa.

Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food," says that after World War II, the government had a huge surplus of ammonium nitrate, an ingredient of explosives -- and fertilizer. Furthermore, pesticides could be made from ingredients of poison gases. Since 1945, the food supply has increased faster than America's population -- faster even than Americans can increase their feasting.

Agricultural commodity prices generally fall. But since a rare surge in food prices gave the Nixon administration a political scare, government policy, expressed in commodity subsidies, has been, Pollan writes, to sell "large quantities of calories as cheaply as possible," especially calories coming from corn.

"All flesh is grass" says the scripture. Much of the too-ample flesh of Americans (three of five are overweight; one in five is obese) comes from corn, which is a grass. A quarter of the 45,000 items in the average supermarket contain processed corn. Fossil fuels are involved in planting, fertilizing, harvesting, transporting and processing the corn. America's food industry uses about as much petroleum as America's automobiles do. Read More

This is some extremely poor journalism for a very respected author. Basically, Will took everything that Pollan said as truth without doing any type of background research. He took Pollan’s complaints, which are based on unfounded fears, yet offers no analysis of what could be done differently. And while there are different ways to farm, there are only a few ways that will produce enough food to feed everyone.

Bio-Tech Is Working

Plenty of advancements in agricultural biotechnology worldwide in 2008
Dec 29, 2008 10:56 AM

Despite heavy spring rains and flooding that delayed the growing season in the United States, USDA is estimating increased production of corn and soybeans this year. This is due in part to the contribution of agricultural biotechnology which has helped improve farm yields since it was introduced in the U.S. in 1995.

This year’s corn crop is on target to be the second largest ever, behind only last year's record haul. The U.S. soybean crop is expected to be the fourth largest ever.

Reacting to concerns regarding crop shortages that sparked unrest in some countries and high prices for food in markets around the globe, many nations this year began to acknowledge the benefits that biotechnology offers agriculture.

In July, the United Kingdom’s former chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, stated, “There is only one technology likely to deliver the yield increases needed and that is agricultural biotechnology."

In October, Italy's Welfare and Health Minister, Maurizio Sacconi, called on the country to lift a ban on growing genetically modified crops. Read More

Technology, combined with ingenuity and work ethic of the American Farmer and Rancher, will be the key to doubling food production by the middle of this century. Technology in agriculture has been utilized for thousands of years. That is how a grass called corn looks like it does today. Why have we been able to utilize improvements in ag technology for centuries, but now it is evil? Agriculture shouldn’t be the one industry that isn’t allowed to enter the 21st century.

MSN Headline - Anti Animal Ag

What's Really in Your Fast Food?
By Rebecca Ruiz for Forbes.com
Forbes

You may want to reconsider getting that double cheeseburger with fries.

A study released today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences contains controversial claims about menu items served at McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger King.

Using a technique that identifies carbon and nitrogen isotopes in meat, co-authors A. Hope Jahren and Rebecca Kraft tried to determine the animals' diets and in what conditions they were raised. Based on the high levels of carbon and nitrogen isotopes found in the meat products, the authors claim that the cattle and poultry were predominantly fed corn, which makes them as fat as possible in as short a time as possible, and were raised in extreme confinement.

In an interview, Jahren, who is a geobiologist and professor at the University of Hawaii, even suggested that the nitrogen isotopic signatures found in meat products were so high that they were consistent with environments where animals had consumed their own waste.

Please Read More. This was a headline on MSN.com yesterday.

This is one of those stories in the media that when you come across it, all you can do is shake your head. Where should I start dissecting this article? First off, it is no mystery that most livestock on finishing rations have corn in their diets. They did not need to test for any type of isotope to find that out. Next, there are many reasons why corn yields are much higher than they were 70 years ago. It’s not just due to putting more fertilizer on the fields. If that theory was true, you could just put on more and more fertilizer and the yields would just get higher and higher. Seed corn technology has been a major factor in increased production along with weed and pest management, just to name a few reasons. Finally, the authors of the study claim the meat tested came from animals that were in “extreme confinement”. What is that? What does that mean? Have they compared meat samples from animals in different types of confinement or no confinement? They seem to insinuate that because they were fed corn, that they were in “extreme confinement”. These are just a few of the items that should have caught your eye as a producer reading this article. This is what we are up against in our efforts to promote agriculture.

Misinformation about Beef

'Power of 2': Two Simple Steps for Climate Change
Eat Less Beef, Get an Energy Audit, Help Halt Global Warming

You are staring into the face of one thing you can do to fight climate change: Leave the cow alone.

According to the United Nations, 18 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from sending beef and dairy products to your kitchen table.

Cows are fed corn and soy, which are grown using fertilizers made from fossil fuels. The production of cow feed is particularly destructive in South America, where beef production accounts for 60 to 80 percent of the deforestation of the Amazon, says Frank Merry, an economist at the Woodshole Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Cow feed then has to be transported to the cows, which requires loads of fuel. Then there's even more fossil fuel burned in the process of slaughtering those cows and getting them to the supermarket and finally get to your table. Read More

The US EPA estimates that only 3% of greenhouse gasses can be contributed to cattle production. Not only that, but there is also a rapidly growing body of evidence that global warming does not exist. Those that would like to eliminate animal agriculture will continue to use this UN data, just like they will use the Pew Commission Report for the coming years. This is why it is crucial that agriculture stay on top of these reports and make sure that the true story is told to the consumers.