Although
genetic engineering receives disproportionate attention, traditional
crop breeders have been more successful at raising yields.
Monsanto has succeeded in subverting
virtually every mainstream news outlet and academic plant science
program in the US. Those it has not bought off, it has terrorized into
silence.
Of the handful of legitimate scientists
who have published research questioning the safety of GMOs more than one
has had their careers ruined by pressures imposed by the company and
its agents.
Add to this a choir of high profile
“useful idiots” like Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen,
Shark Tank TV star Kevin O’Leary, and celebrity physicist Neal deGrasse
Tyson who despite having zero training in plant science use their high
profiles to publicly disparage anyone who questions Montanto’s claims.
What this all add up to is this: Instead of facts about GMOs we receive an endless barrage of deliberate falsehoods.
But what about increase in productivity?
The claim Monsanto trumpets – which is
repeated endlessly by the news media and know-nothing celebrities – is
that GMOs deliver greater yields that are necessary for “feeding a
hungry plant.”
This is a pretty strong argument for Monsanto.
After all, how doctrinaire and
hardhearted would you have to be to sit well-fed and comfortable in a
modern economy and take food from the mouths of hungry people by
blocking technology?
There’s just one problem with this unchallenged Monsanto claim: It’s total and complete bullshit.
GMO technology has demonstrated itself
to be markedly inferior in producing increased crop yields versus
millennia-old, proven and safe forms of traditional plant breeding.
Why isn’t this basic fact of plant science well known?
There’s nothing complicated about these facts:
GMO: unproven, potentially dangerous,
backed by thuggish behavior on the part of an entity with a criminal
track record – and ineffective.
Traditional plant breeding: tested over millennia and proven safe and effective in increasing crop yields.
The scientific study on this came out in 2009 to resounding new media silence silence.
Or you can cut to the bottom line:
No currently available GE varieties
enhance the intrinsic yield of any crops. The intrinsic yields of corn
and soybeans did rise during the twentieth century, but not as a result
of GE traits. Rather, they were due to successes in traditional
breeding.
But there’s more
GMO is not only untested, potentially
hazardous and ineffective in increasing yields, it’s also markedly
inferior in the area of creating plants that are resistant to variations
in weather. You know, “climate change”, the phenomenon that has the
world in a panic.
Regardless on where you stand on this
“sky is falling” topic, one fact is clear: Weather is not always a
friend to farmers and climate patterns can and do change dramatically.
We need plants that can adapt to these changes.
Does the “advanced technology” of GMO help with this very real and very serious problem?
Answer: Not in the slightest.
Here’s the bottom line from the expert on this subject:
“While (traditional) plant breeding
continues to meet important challenges like improving drought tolerance,
improving nitrogen fertilizer efficiency, or increasing yield, genetic
engineering has contributed little or nothing.”
Plant scientist Dr. Doug Gurian-Sherman’s made this case in 2014 – again to resounding news media silence:
Let’s get this straight
Here are the takeaways from all this.
Please share them widely because for all practical purposes they’re a State Secret:
1. GMO is markedly inferior to traditional plant breeding techniques when it comes to increasing crop yields
2. Traditional plant breeding has
repeatedly demonstrated massive effectiveness in the area of developing
drought resistant crops. GMO technology has contributed nothing in this
area
3. In spite of these realities, the vast
majority of public crop research money is being spent to promote the
GMO agenda of companies like Monsanto
4. The news media does nothing to make these simple facts known to the public
5. You’re probably getting this
information for the first time – along with up to 50,000 other readers –
from a blog run on a (very) part time basis by someone who has to work
to support himself in other arenas while there are literally thousands
of people whose full time job it is to make information like this
available to the public.
What’s wrong with this picture?
A lot.
Note: I wish I could
say that Dr. Doug Gurian-Sherman’s current employer The Center for Food
Safety helped us with the preparation of this article. Six requests for
an interview – all responded to by their PR department with “we’ll get
back to you” – yielded nothing.
Perversely, the most detailed study on
the effectiveness of traditional plant breeding vs. GMO technology is
only available to people willing and able to pay “Nature: The Weekly
Journal of Science” for access to it.
If you like to eat at least once or
twice a day, and like to see your fellow human beings do so as well, you
should be outraged by this. I know I am.
