Skeptics and GMO Labeling

[pgwenthold]

From the Daniel Guacamole Fox Facebook page.

That's really funny, btw.

 

[cosmicaug]

Relevant point about what happens when public concern is divorced from facts.

But let’s be clear here. Non-GMO farming is not the same thing as organic farming. Many farmers practice conventional farming while avoiding GMOs. While organic farmers use less synthetic pesticides than conventional farmers, non-GMO conventional farmers often use more chemicals, and more dangerous ones, than farmers using GM seeds.

How could that be? As Marc Brazeau noted at Food and Farm Discussion Lab, what Chipotle isn’t telling you is that its new “non GMO” menu is hardly a model of farming sustainability.

To better serve their customers ‘values’ they will be sourcing cooking oil from sunflowers bred through chemical mutagenesis and grown with what is apparently the anti-GMO movement’s favorite herbicide, imazamox in place of soy or canola oils grown with glyphosate. As well, they will be sourcing corn produced with the herbicide atrazine and the insecticide chlorpyrifos* rather than the herbicide glyphosate and the Bt trait.

[Emphasis added]

GMOs=increased chemical usage myth

So why do so many consumers, and even journalists, believe that the use of GMO crops has led to an increase in the US of toxic chemicals. One major source for this misinformation is a widely circulated 2012 study by organic proponent Charles Benbrook on pesticide use in the U.S. from 1996 to 2011. Benbrook leads the Washington State University Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources. His paper attempted to make the case that glyphosate-resistant crops have led to an increase of 527 million pounds of herbicide usage in the US.

But a review of his analysis–Jon Entine dissected it for Forbes in 2012 shows something quite different than what Benbrook claimed. Pesticide use actually fell on a yield per acre basis, and has been doing so since the introduction of GM crops.

As Van Eenennaam has pointed out, the critical question isn’t how much has pesticides are being used by volume, but how toxic are they.

 

[cosmicaug]

AP: USDA develops new government label for GMO-free products

 

[marplots]

AP: USDA develops new government label for GMO-free products

Good compromise.

 

[cosmicaug]

Good compromise.

It's another voluntary label. A voluntary label proclaiming GMO free status is really all that is needed because what those who have a concern really want to know is whether a food is GMO free. This is what this (and other voluntary labels) provides.

It'll be good because it will drain money away from the GMOFree Project.

 

[Donn]

We could label all food as "GMO free". You get the GMO free.

 

[dakotajudo]

I read, someplace, that those borders along fields that used to be left semi-wild are now being removed (to increase field sizes). The net effect has been that a lot of wild-flowers are now gone — along with the insects they fed. This then impacts birds and mammals too.

Mono is mono. Corn deserts. Just desserts.

Depends on where you read this, I suppose.

Where my family farms, and where I live, the borders are the same. They're the roadside ditches that have always been there, and roadside ditches are public property. Farmers can't plow them to increase fields. Well, some try, but they get caught.

On the other hand, I've seen more spraying of roadside ditches to control noxious weeds; thistles and the like, but leaving grasses. This may be what you refer to when saying a lot of wild-flowers are now gone. They're not gone, they're just not growing in all the ditches.

 

[dakotajudo]

I am sure that I have seen trees wilted by 2,4-D, I have seen many dead insects. But the lack of critters is confusing to me, if you sit still long enough they just seem to be everywhere in the fields.

Are you sure that you saw wilting? I would be surprised that normal application of 2,4-D caused mature trees to wilt.

2,4-D drift is known to trigger an epinastic response in some sensitive species - tomatoes and grapes come to mind. Epinasty is a growth response, sometimes seen in flooding, where leaves or stems grow with a distinct downward curvature that looks like wilting.

 

[dakotajudo]

I lived next to a farm for a couple years and not only do they throw barely aged at all poo into their fields, they also throw dead animal carcasses, the nitrates in the drinking water are lovely and you can't drink it at all, another fun fact is that there is no wildlife at on near a field, no birds, nothing, It might be because of all that grain they considerately leave around for the non existent wildlife to eat. Power lines are fun places too in rural areas, you can find hundreds of dead birds around power lines. It was also within walking distance of an abandoned minuteman missile silo. That actually was kind of cool

What you're calling "barely aged poo" is what we called manure, and it's organic. Nobody throws dead animal carcasses into their fields; they get all tangled up in the machinery.

Are you sure you lived near a farm?

 

[Donn]

Depends on where you read this, I suppose.

True. Sorry for lack of source.

Farmers can't plow them to increase fields. Well, some try, but they get caught.

Nice to hear sanity still exists.

On the other hand, I've seen more spraying of roadside ditches to control noxious weeds; thistles and the like, but leaving grasses. This may be what you refer to when saying a lot of wild-flowers are now gone. They're not gone, they're just not growing in all the ditches.

That would cut-down on the flowers. I wonder why this control is thought necessary?

 

[dakotajudo]

True. Sorry for lack of source.


Nice to hear sanity still exists.


That would cut-down on the flowers. I wonder why this control is thought necessary?

Good neighbors control noxious weeds.

Thistle, for example, is very hard to control without herbicide. The larger varieties tend to be resistant to cultivation and and not suppressed when crops canopy out. It's highly unpalatable to cattle, so you sometimes see patches of ungrazed land where thistle is established. In hay ground, you can try to mow the larger bunches, but it's almost impossible to get rid of all the isolated plants, and these get into the hay that's later fed to cattle.

So, what if you do manage to get rid of the thistle in your crop land, but it's allowed to remain in ditches? It doesn't take long for the thistle to re-establish itself.

It would be the same kind of problem if you had your own garden and you were fastidious in pulling the weeds, but your neighbor let the weeds grow wild in his plot. I was cursing myself last year, when I got lazy about my garden and let some weeds go to seed. Weed seeds can persist for decades.

Then there's weeds like nightshade that contaminate the harvest and decrease value. These drift over from ditches pretty easily.

To be honest, the control that's being applied ditches is probably little different than the control of weeds in cities. When was that last time you saw noxious weeds - not just ordinary weeds, but weeds with that specific designation - in your favorite park?

 

[Donn]

Noxious weeds have not been a factor in my life, as you say.

Looking at the fields (wheat, I think) around me (when I drive-through those parts), I see edges and pockets of scrubby bush; plenty of smaller wildlife around. Guess farmers here are doing it right.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Thistle, for example, is very hard to control without herbicide. The larger varieties tend to be resistant to cultivation and and not suppressed when crops canopy out. It's highly unpalatable to cattle, so you sometimes see patches of ungrazed land where thistle is established.

Funny, my cows years ago loved young thistle and would seek it out. True after thistle gets a certain size that stopped, but if you graze your paddocks correctly thistle will gradually disappear, replaced by perennial grasses. To help the process along we used to go out with a corn De-Roguer and chop them right at the soil line when they first started to flower. (first year we had to brush hog it) In just a couple years thistle is no problem at all. It usually isn't a problem anyway except in disturbed soil. But we did have a paddock that some drainage tile was laid. We had a nice clean healthy row of 6-8 foot thistle exactly over it until we figured out the trick.

 

[marplots]

It's another voluntary label. A voluntary label proclaiming GMO free status is really all that is needed because what those who have a concern really want to know is whether a food is GMO free. This is what this (and other voluntary labels) provides.

It'll be good because it will drain money away from the GMOFree Project.

It's a voluntary label backed up with discoverable standards set by the FDA. A slight, but significant difference. Otherwise, I agree with what you posted.

 

[cosmicaug]

On the other hand, I've seen more spraying of roadside ditches to control noxious weeds; thistles and the like, but leaving grasses. This may be what you refer to when saying a lot of wild-flowers are now gone. They're not gone, they're just not growing in all the ditches.

Sometimes there are laws about this sort of thing:
http://www.mda.state.mn.us/plants/pestmanagement/weedcontrol/fsmnwp.aspx