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Friday, 21 May 2010

GM crops: Why It Is Inevitable

GM crops: Why It Is Inevitable
Today at 10:19
Failing to exploit GM potential could, may be not right away but perhaps in some 10 years, put Europeans at a competitive disadvantage within an agricultural economy that is becoming increasingly globalize.


Why should we get involved in a technology that most consumers don’t want? Should we really risk ruining the market for our products in this way? Isn’t it enough that we are nowadays virtually forced to use imported genetically modified feed components because worldwide there is hardly anything else available as protein source? These questions are being asked by many European farmers currently: with right. But the sceptical view is a short-term one that doesn’t really consider the future possibilities for gene technology. Failing to exploit GM potential could, may be not right away but perhaps in some 10 years, put Europeans at a competitive disadvantage within an agricultural economy that is becoming increasingly globalize. And when even farmers, as appliers of this technology, seem not too keen to expedite its progress then it is fair to ask why politicians should then bum their fingers on the hot potato.

After a decade of biotechnology in farming, major factors remain: herbicide resistance, soybeans and the USA. Statistics put world-wide GM cropping in 2004 at 81m ha, an increase of20% on the year. Of this, 72 % involved herbicide tolerant crops and 19% crops resistant to insect damage. Both characteristics were combined in 9% of crops and only less than 1 % had other GM attributes such as virus resistance. In 2004 the USA grew 59% of world GM crops on 47.6m ha. A long way behind came Argentina (16.2m ha), Canada (5.5 m ha),Brazil (5.0 m ha) and China (3.7m ha). Because GM cropping is now legal in Brazil this ranking could well change in the coming years. In Europe only Spain and Romania have GM crop areas worth mentioning -usually growing Bt maize. Among the different GM crops, soybean with 56% has the greatest proportion worldwide, followed by cotton (28%), canola (19%) and maize (14%).

Farmers accept new technologies when they offer an advantage. In this respect the American farmer doesn’t differ from the European counterpart. For example, Iowa farmer and office bearer in the National Corn Grower’s Association Gordon Was senaer grows herbicide tolerant maize. The main machinery on his 470 ha farm consists simply of tractor, crop sprayer and direct drill. Growing herbicide tolerant crops allows him not only a broad window for fighting weeds but also the cost-cutting changeover to environmentally friendlier direct drilling. Both these advantages explain why, quite apart from the level of regulations and consumer reactions, biotechnology has more attraction in other parts of the world compared to high-yield region Europe. Neither soybeans nor direct drilling play any major role in Europe. Here we mainly speak of Bt maize for warmer areas where there is a threat from com borer damage.

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