If you think that it is fine to include 10 years of data before GMOs were used as part of the GMO data then that speaks to your own intellectual integrity and standards.
Only true if he’s lumping all the figures together to distort the data, and he’s not. In his response to that blog article Heinemann says that he did it because larger datasets don’t mislead while small datasets do. He illustrates it with a graph showing how easy it is to choose a slope for the graph which suits your argument with small datasets (Figure 1 in his reply).
http://www.inbi.canterbury.ac.nz/response.shtml
So you could equally say that Tribe is lying by taking too small a dataset.
I also see that David Tribe is variously called a pro-GMO communications specialist – I might even say ‘notorious pro-GMOer’ if I were to sink to the your tactics. As Heinemann points out this is a non-peer reviewed blog while Heinemann’s was a peer-reviewed paper
. Are we all noting this, pro GMOers? I’m repeatedly seeing that non-peer reviewed papers – and particularly open access ones like this blog – are suspect. It seems that pro GMOers are quite happy with open-access stories when they support GMO but not otherwise, and peer-reviewed papers when they support GMO but not otherwise.
As Chris Preston shows, when Heinemann's data is done properly it shows:
Yield increases per year by standard regression (ha/hg/yr) for Maize:
US 1961-1995: 1073 +/- 113
WE 1961-1995: 1392 +/- 95.08
US 1996 - 2011: 1273 +/- 231.4
WE 1996 - 2011: 887.4 +/- 334.8
While it is not significant due to the large error bars, it is thoroughly dishonest to claim that the results show WE has had the same, or marginally greater, yield increases.
It’s not that simple though, is it? For a start the US didn’t suddenly shift over 100% to GMO corn production in 1996. It was introduced gradually. So you’re comparing years that were mainly non-GMO production in the US.
From the Heinemann response.
Seventy-five percent (75%) of the GM maize in the US has been produced since 2005 (Figure 2). During the eight years 2005-2012, yield actually declined (y= 1423x+3e6) in the US but was increasing in Western Europe
And if you use the USA DOA figures to compare yields from 1999 to 2011, EU 27 goes from 6 to 7 MT/HA while USA goes from 8 to 9 MT/HA. And from 2005 to 2011 Europe stays at 7 while USA stays at 9 MT/HA.
http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?country=eu&commodity=corn&graph=yield
http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?country=us&commodity=corn&graph=yield
So, again, where’s the great increase in yield from GMO that you are claiming? You’re the one making the claims for the GMO magic beans, remember, so you have to prove them. Heinemann is the skeptical one.
The most interesting thing about that result is that after 3 hours of various google and scientific literature searches it seems Heinemann completely made that number up. It bares zero resemblance to anything I could find. France is still ranked roughly fourth highest in the world in pesticide usage. The only journal article I could find that included insecticide use in France reported a 1% reduction from 2001 to 2004.
If a country managed to produce reductions anywhere near the supposed claim that Heinemann made about France, it would be found every where. Greenpeace would be trumpeting it. It would be all over the place in newspapers, scientific journals, Government of France websites. But the claim exists no where except for being vomited out of Heinemann's mouth.
http://faostat.fao.org/site/424/DesktopDefault.aspx?PageID=424#ancor
Check the insecticide figures for France for 1995 and 2009. The figures are actually vomited out of the official statistics of the United Nations.
In Heinemann’s response he refers too to
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/2190-4715-24-24#page-1 which says
Herbicide-resistant crop technology has led to a 239 million kilogram (527 million pound) increase in herbicide use in the United States between 1996 and 2011, while Bt crops have reduced insecticide applications by 56 million kilograms (123 million pounds). Overall, pesticide use increased by an estimated 183 million kgs (404 million pounds), or about 7%.
Partially it seems because we’re now getting resistant weeds
So Heinemann’s statements seem to be correct – USA GMO yield increases are no higher than W. European non-GMO yield increases, and that pesticide use is higher in USA GMO crops than W European non-GMO crops.
Heinemann is a notorious anti-gmo liar.
Not from what I’ve seen of this argument. GMOers are the ones claiming great yield increases and great decreases in pesticide use. Not from these figures – from the USA Department of Agriculture note, you don’t get any larger scale trials than this.
I wouldn't normally use this sort of language in what should be a scientific discussion but with statements like that you seem to be the notorious liar here.
Monsanto Company
, so no, I've never had any chemically enhanced hybrids, mine are all descendants of my first crop from 41 years ago.
).