It pays not to cultivate GM crops, survey finds

An interesting article I stumbled over:

The first economic analysis of growing genetically modified crops on a wide scale has found that the biggest winners were the farmers who decided not to grow them. The study, which looked at maize yields in the corn belt of the United States, found that farmers who continued to grow conventional crops actually earned more money over a 14-year period than those who cultivated GM varieties.

www.independent.co.uk...

I found this interesting because the supposed efficiency is often cited as the greatest economic incentive for switching to wholesale GM production. Maybe these findings are a bit preliminary but if this should be proven to be the case than this should be considered a blow against one of the main pro-GM arguments.

Good find. I hope more people find out how bad that stuff is for your body, the planet and wildlife.
Bad
Bad
Bad
BAD!!

Basically what the article says is, the farmers NOT using GM crops ARE benefiting from GM crops grown next to them, as they have fewer pests, more yield.

So the financial benefit to the non-GM farmer mentioned in the article is that they avoid the additional cost for the GM product. They don't mention the cost to society, if there is one. This isn't exactly going to convince farmers to switch to non-GM crops in droves because it implies the yields and profits will go down if they do so.

I need to see a lot of proof to convince me that something that kills bugs is harmless to me, and I haven't seen that proof. I think Europe had the right idea in requiring GM products to be labeled differently so people could make a choice.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur


So the financial benefit to the non-GM farmer mentioned in the article is that they avoid the additional cost for the GM product. They don't mention the cost to society, if there is one. This isn't exactly going to convince farmers to switch to non-GM crops in droves because it implies the yields and profits will go down if they do so.

I have personally used the GM products. They are NOT all they are claimed to be and are TOO expensive. At several meetings, we asked to have conventional varieties of cotton and were told there wasn't much seed available. When we asked why, we were told that there was NO demand for them. We told them there WAS a demand for them because we wanted them, but we kept getting shot down. They want us to have to use the GM seed so they can make more money.

I need to see a lot of proof to convince me that something that kills bugs is harmless to me, and I haven't seen that proof. I think Europe had the right idea in requiring GM products to be labeled differently so people could make a choice.

They bacteria that kills the worms has no effect on humans and you could eat it if you could stand the taste. Some is put in a oil based carrier and the only problem that you would have eating it would be from the carrier.

Originally posted by MBF
They bacteria that kills the worms has no effect on humans and you could eat it if you could stand the taste. Some is put in a oil based carrier and the only problem that you would have eating it would be from the carrier.

I wouldn't go out of my way to eat the bacteria but at least it's natural, I'm more worried about the GM plant versus the natural bacteria:

www.scq.ubc.ca...

Human health and environmental risks

The promise of this technology has been largely overshadowed by concerns about the unintended effects of Bt corn on human health and the environment. Cry protein toxicity, allergenicity, and lateral transfer of antibiotic-resistance marker genes to the microflora of our digestive system threaten to compromise human health. Despite these alarming possibilities, the risks to human health appear small based upon what is known about the bacterial endotoxin, its specificity, and confidence in the processes of plant transformation and screening[9]. The task of determining the levels of such risks, however, are immense. Human diets are complex and variable. How can we trace the acute or chronic effects of eating GM ingredients when they are mixed in with many other foods that may also present their own health hazards? It is even more complicated to determine the indirect risk of eating meat from animals raised on transgenic crops. These tests take time, and the results of clinical trials are not always clear-cut. It will likely take decades before we can know with any certainty if Bt corn is as safe for human consumption as its non-GM alternatives[10].

So we'll have a better idea in a few decades how safe the GM corn really is. We are kind of living guinea pigs right now.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
So we'll have a better idea in a few decades how safe the GM corn really is. We are kind of living guinea pigs right now.

I can't disagree with you on this point, but I have ate it before and have no problem eating it now myself.

reply to post by MBF
I suspect I'm eating it too, but I have no idea how much of it has the BT genetic modification, and how much has the roundup resistant genetic modification, or do they sell seeds with both genetic modifications in the same seeds? I might be getting both? But yeah I don't think it's too dangerous if eaten in moderation, but I do feel like a guinea pig.

I suppose I am not eating it at the time, thanks to the country I'm currently living in. But then again, I don't think that there really is a choice anymore. As far as I know GMO's can not be stopped from interacting with their environment and therefore will find their way from the lab to nature anyway, be there large-scale farming using it or not.

That's the only thing that really bugs me about GMO's, but maybe that isn't even true. The responses in this thread did show me that I have some reading up to do on GMO's. Though, given the choice, I would probably buy non-GMO products exclusively just for the heck of it. I already try to buy my food as locally and as non-industrial scale as possible, not because I believe in the inherent goodness of "Bio" but because I see mass production of food as not only a blessing but also a possible future problem.

Whatever, thanks for the answers, thanks for showing me I'm still in need of additional reading on this topic.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
Basically what the article says is, the farmers NOT using GM crops ARE benefiting from GM crops grown next to them, as they have fewer pests, more yield.
.

pests do have mobility but it's certain that they will survive in the soil, so the effect doesn't exist. besides, the pests were formerly targetted by chemicals, so what changed, IF the GM crops are of the alledgedly immune variety rather than roundup resistant....

how come GMOs aren't ever sold on past success? because there's precious little:

On Genetically Modified Foods Propaganda and ''Conclusive Science'



this topic has been literally beaten to death on forum and i have yet to find a single credible, out of lab, success story and i don't count indirectly killing Indian farmers, mind you.