US Farmers start to turn away from GM crops
12-11-98
Interest in GM crops by UK farmers (where it exists) is largely
driven by
the rapid take up of transgenic technology in the United States.
Some
farmers in the UK feel that they must adopt this technology to
compete with
US farmers, even though GM crops are becoming increasingly
difficult to sell
in European markets because of consumer resistance.
Because of the nature of farm support under the Common
Agricultural Policy
farmers in the UK in recent decades have been cost and yield
focused rather
than market orientated. Even though reform of the CAP is likely
to provide
farmers less protection from any future falls in market demand
for commodity
agricultural products, for many it is difficult to break out of
this
established mind-set. Anything which offers yield and cost
benefits is still
tempting even if a limited market for the end product means total
profit
goes down.
Not surprisingly the biotechnology companies have been promoting
their GM
products to UK farmers based on this increasingly inappropriate
psychology
(i.e the promise of higher yields and lower costs of production
to the
exclusion of market considerations).
However, in addition to some limited data from 1997 there have
been rumours
throughout 1998 that many GM crops in the US have been failing to
provide
even these basic economic benefits. Until this week the farming
press in
the UK has been largely silent on this 'emperor's clothes' aspect
of
transgenic crops. This, however, appears to be changing.
According to Farmers Weekly Illinois based US columnist Alan
Guebert (p.59
11 December 1998) many US farmers have complained that Roundup
soyabeans
cost them 270 - 470kg of yield/ha (4-7 bushels/acre) in 1998
compared with
conventional varieties.
Guebert goes on to quote one Midwestern grower on Monsanto's
decision to
reduce the price of Roundup in 1999, but at the same time to
increase the
cost of Roundup Ready soyabean seed (Farmers Weekly 11 December
1998): "The
actual cost for me is about $3 to $4/acre more than last year. If
I have to
pay more - and the beans cost me yield like they did this year -
I won't be
planting more Roundup Ready seed next year."
Another farmer from central Illinois who produced more than 700
acres of
soyabeans in 1998 adds: "I love Roundup ready soyabeans.
They come out the
ground looking great, they grow rapidly and my weed control
program is easy
with the single treatment of Roundup. But I can't afford to leave
$30 per
acre in the field. I've got certain land where I need to attack
tough weeds
with Roundup. So I'll plant Roundup beans on those fields.
Everything else,
though, I'll plant with conventional seed."
The article (headlined "GM crops' breakneck rise may slow
down in 1999")
refers to inter-company disputes over genetic intellectual
property and the
plummeting share price of Pioneer and Monsanto. Guerbert
concludes that the
actual economic realities of GM crops "has the biotech
companies
scrambling - for farmer business, for consumer acceptance and
against each
other in court. Again."
A week earlier Farmers Weekly ran an article on research results
from the
UK's National Institute of Agricultural Botany that GM crop
trials in the UK
on transgenic sugar beet and oilseed rape were also producing
lower yields
than conventional varities.
(Natural Law Party Wessex)