Break out the heavy artillery: Sen. Inhofe leads the denier brigades. Photo: U.S. ArmyPaging Michael Specter: I've got some live ones for you. Deniers, that is--folks who irrationally cling to faith-based beliefs, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary.

I'm not talking fear-mongering Internet bandits here--guys who amplify their dubious screeds on large-type blogs. I'm talking about Sen. James Inhofe, ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works; and Bob Stallman, President of the American Farm Bureau Federation, probably the nation's most potent agribusiness interest group.

The two have opened an assault on the Senate climate bill--on the assumption that human-induced climate change is a hoax. Click here (via Farm Policy blog) to hear the two chat about how the real threat to agriculture going forward isn't climate change, but rather climate change legislation.

Their exchange is most notable for its utter banality--just a couple of regular guys shooting the breeze about kiboshing the government's first serious effort to avert climate calamity.

DTN Ag Policy Editor Chris Clayton (via Farm Policy blog) gave the following summary of Stallman's testimony before the committee.

Scientists and officials who believe climate change is caused by human industrial emissions make the claim that agriculture will be one of the most affected sectors because farming and livestock production are sensitive to weather changes. Stallman questions the logic.

"‘Before you ask that question, implicit is the assumption that all of that [climate change] is going to happen,' Stallman said."

Clayton added:

Stallman said the organization [the Farm Bureau] has a lot of skepticism about the science and the process the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used to come to its conclusions on climate change. Congress should at least hold hearings to consider the scientists and climatologists who disagree with the IPCC data and analysis, Stallman said.

The Farm Bureau’s Bob Stallman: Climate what? Hey, let’s grow more corn and meat!Now, this is not just idle denialist banter. Stallman worked closely with House Ag Committee chair Collin Peterson to turn the House climate bill into yet another sop for Big Ag. He has vowed to do the same with the Senate bill--if he can't kill it outright.

As for Stallman's dear friend Sen. Inhofe, he's reportedly preparing to trip up the climate bill by leading a boycott of the Environment and Public Works committee's vote.

But then again, maybe Michael Specter doesn't have any special problem with these two distinguished gentlemen. In his book Denialism, Specter ignores climate-change deniers and instead attacks critics of GMO agriculture, which he presents as the solution to climate change. With the climate crisis so neatly solved, I suppose, there's no need to curb GHG emissions. Specter envisions a future in which "genetically engineered organisms .. propel our cars and sustain our factories" amid melted ice sheets and rising seas.

Stallman and Inhofe, too, bow before the awesome power of GMOs.

So heave away, boys! Let us move bravely into the future, knowing that our political system can't deal with climate change, but that guys in white lab coats working for Monsanto can. Or so they assure us!

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"The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon Earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings."
-- Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

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In the late 18th century, Edward Gibbon fretted about getting into trouble for his blunt take on the early Christians. Short summary: their intolerance and stupidity unwittingly helped bring down Rome. In the above-quoted passage of his Decline and Fall, Gibbon tried to prepare the gentle reader for his coming exposé of early-church idiocy.

Like the great institutions of European Christianity, modern science has amassed tremendous power--and not always lived up to its founding creeds. Science needs a Gibbon--someone who appreciates its intellectual grandeur and potential, but who also can train a cold eye on the "inevitable mixture of error and corruption" that has accompanied its tenure since the Enlightenment.

That Gibbon is not Michael Specter, a New Yorker staff writer and author of the new book Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives. His book purports to defend science from its philistine critics--people who, in Specter's view, reflexively deny the validity of the scientific process.

In his intro, Specter sets up the defining focus of the book. He contrasts the "rigorous and open-minded skepticism of science" with "the inflexible certainty of ideological commitment" (i.e., "denialism"). Already, we're on thin intellectual ice; Specter evidently believes in a pure science, one that exists completely apart from ideology. In Gibbon's phrasing, he's defending a science as "she descended from Heaven [read: the Enlightenment], arrayed in her native purity."

Menace to society? An organic farmer, with bounty. According to Denialism, organic farming threatens millions in Africa. According to the UN, not so much. But science doesn't exist in an ideal state. Like the arts, it lives on its patrons--and their interests shape its contours. Here in the United States, public funding for universities and research has plummeted since the Reagan era. Into that void have stepped monied interests--corporations more inclined to finance the generation of proprietary knowledge than the sort of pure science Specter so values.

Does this factor automatically invalidate the scientific enterprise? Of course not. But anyone who takes on the topic of modern science has to account for it--or risk playing the fool. Specter blithely ignores the political economy of science as it is practiced. That oversight severely limits the value of his book.

But there's another, even more glaring oversight at work here. In a book devoted to "denialism," and "how irrational thinking hinders scientific progress, harms the planet, and threatens our lives," there is almost no discussion of the most powerful and successful of all the denier cliques: those who insist human-induced climate change is a hoax.

So what do we find in these pages? We get a chapter defending the pharmaceutical industry against critics who question its wares--an industry with nearly $300 billion in sales in the U.S. alone, and fast-growing markets overseas. Specter's defense aside, Big Pharma typically vies with "oil and mining" and "commercial banks" for the title of most profitable industry in the United States.

There's a chapter decrying those who question the necessity of vaccinations--even as global child vaccine rates continue to rise. (Indeed, according to a recent report, the main factor holding vaccines back isn't denialism, but rather their heightened cost.)

We get a chapter lambasting what Specter calls the "organic fetish"--even though organic food sales remain less than 5 percent of the U.S. market (as Specter acknowledges). But really, this chapter (more on which below) amounts to a ringing defense of genetically modified organisms--which can now be found in 75 percent+ of the offerings on supermarket shelves.

Another chapter blasts the herbal remedy and supplement market--substantial at $23 billion in sales per year (according to this report), but still a fraction of the pharma market's size.

In other words, Specter mainly trains his sights on unsuccessful or marginally empowered "deniers," such as those challenging the pharma behemoth or vaccines for children.

But what about the successful deniers--the ones who have managed to block any meaningful response to climate change from the federal government, and are even now fouling up the effort to pass an effective climate bill? These folks, part of a loosely concerted movement funded largely by the oil and coal industries, get barely a mention in Denialism; they certainly don't rate a chapter.

The book's index has no entry for "climate change." The entry for "Global warming" cites just one page--a reference to genetically modified foods as a "solution" to global warming. 

Does this mean that Specter thinks Monsanto's critics--of whom I am one--pose more of threat to humanity than the likes of Sen. James Inhofe, who airs his views not in a blog but on the floor of the U.S. Senate? Monsanto has certainly shaken off its deniers; it now dominates the U.S. corn, soy, and cotton seed markets. The movement to mitigate climate change hasn't been so lucky.

Specter's failure to consider this most successful foray into denialism just astounds me. Did an author really just publish a book about "denialism"--and forget to address climate-change deniers? It's like writing a book about the British invasion of the 1960s, and neglecting to mention the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

OK, so what's in Specter's chapter on organics and GMOs? Astonishingly, not very much science. Two major assumptions underlie it: organic agriculture delivers frightfully low yields, and GMO agriculture delivers reassuringly high yields. He doesn't deliver data to back up either of those claims. Here are two studies, both of which came out in time for consideration in Denialism, that Specter really should have grappled with: 1) a 2009 study by the Union of Concerned Scientists showing that after decades of research, transgenic seeds have yet to deliver yield increases; and 2) a 2005 study in Bioscience (summary here) showing that yields of organically grown corn and soy match those of their conventional counterparts--with dramatically lower energy inputs.

Straddling his two wobbly, undefended givens about GMO and organic yields, Specter leaps to the conclusion that proponents of organic agriculture are dooming millions to starvation. Or as he puts it:

An organic universe sounds delightful, but it would consign millions in Africa and in much of Asia to malnutrition and death.

To hear Specter tell it, the only thing standing between the African continent and a future marked by widespread famine is a complete surrender to GMO technology. But in declaring that vision, he's brazenly denying the conclusions of the largest and most comprehensive study on the future of agriculture in the global south, the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD).

Under the auspices of the United Nations, World Bank, WHO, and other institutions, the IAASTD gathered 400 scientists and development experts from dozens of nations to assess the very problems that concern Specter. A three-year project, it has been called the IPCC of agriculture. Its conclusion: agroecological practices--including the very organic-farming techniques Specter finds so frightful--are at least as important as biotechnology in terms of "feeding the world" in the decades to come.

The study [PDF] is at best lukewarm on GMOs. It openly doubts whether GMOs actually increase yields; and deplores the patent regime that now governs them. The IAASTD states:

In developing countries especially, instruments such as patents may drive up costs, restrict experimentation by the individual farmers or public researchers while also potentially undermining local practices that enhance food security and economic sustainability. In this regard, there is particular concern about present IPR instruments eventually inhibiting seed-saving, exchange, sale and access to proprietary materials necessary for the independent research community to conduct analyses and long term experimentation on impacts. Farmers face new liabilities: GM farmers may become liable for adventitious presence if it causes loss of market certification and income to neighboring organic farmers, and conventional farmers may become liable to GM seed producers if transgenes are detected in their crops.

The IAASTD turned out to be so unenthusiastic about GMOs, in fact, that Croplife International, the trade group for the globe's dominant GMO/agrichemical purveyors, angrily pulled out of participation shortly before its release.

I'm not blasting Specter for refusing to agree with the IAASTD's conclusions; but I do find it inexcusable that he failed to grapple with this vast scientific undertaking. In doing so, he lurches toward a kind of denialism of his own.

Generally, he might have more fully engaged the major literature on ag development in the global south. He glancingly refers to the FAO's 2003-'04 "State of Food and Agriculture" paper that gave tepid support for GMOs among poor farmers (while stressing that they're "not a panacea"). Yet Specter ignores a more recent paper (this one from 2008, by the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development) that's directly relevant to the topic of his chapter: its on the potential of organic ag in Africa. The paper concludes:

Organic agriculture can increase agricultural productivity and can raise incomes with low-cost, locally available and appropriate technologies, without causing environmental damage. Furthermore, evidence shows that organic agriculture can build up natural resources, strengthen communities and improve human capacity, thus improving food security by addressing many different causal factors simultaneously ... Organic and near-organic agricultural methods and technologies are ideally suited for many poor, marginalized smallholder farmers in Africa, as they require minimal or no external inputs, use locally and naturally available materials to produce high-quality products, and encourage a whole systemic approach to farming that is more diverse and resistant to stress.

Again, no need to agree with every science-based report that praises organic ag. But to pretend such papers don't exist is poor journalism. Judging from his organic chapter, Specter spent a lot of time trolling the aisles at Whole Foods, marvelling at the simplistic comments of the shoppers. Fine. I have no doubt that he heard silly, science-denying things there. But where is the push to find the intersections between organic and science--such at the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania, which has for years been running a test organic farm, complete with control farm? The results of its work, often in conjunction with USDA researchers, show that innovative organic techniques have at least as much promise for mitigating and surviving climate change as some patent-protected transgenic seed cooked up in a Monsanto lab.

Scientific output is messy and full of contradictions. And that brings me back to my broader critique of this book: that Specter defends an ideal, objective science that doesn't exist in this world. There is no greater case study of the grubbiness of real-world science than the rise of Specter's beloved GMOs.

(I'm still marveling at this statement, from the introduction: "I wonder, as the ice sheet in Greenland disappears, the seas rise, and our sense of planetary foreboding grows, will denialists consider the genetically engineered organisms that propel our cars and sustain our factories as a continuation of what [organic champion] Lord Melchett described as a war against nature?")

GMOs are hardly a product of the kind of pure and objective science that Specter celebrates. Indeed, the few companies involved in GMO seed production have been accorded such extraordinary intellectual property power by the U.S. government that research scientists have risen up in rebellion.

In an article published in February of this year--maybe too late for consideration by Specter--The New York Times reported that 26 corn-insect specialists signed a letter to the EPA complaining that "no truly independent research [on GMOS] can be legally conducted on many critical questions" because the patent-holding companies have so much power over research. From the Times:

The problem, the scientists say, is that farmers and other buyers of genetically engineered seeds have to sign an agreement meant to ensure that growers honor company patent rights and environmental regulations. But the agreements also prohibit growing the crops for research purposes.

Shockingly, "The researchers ... withheld their names [from the EPA letter] because they feared being cut off from research by the companies." Now there's an example of scientists who are free to pursue the path of truth!

I'd also urge Specter to read a paper by Don Lotter, published early this year in the International Journal of the Sociology of Food and Agriculture. Lotter's paper, provocatively titled "The Genetic Engineering of Food and The Failure of Science," shows how the collapse of biology's "central dogma"--the one-gene, one-trait thesis that fell apart with the mapping of the human genome--exposed GM plant breeding as a rather crude tool. He traces the rise of GMOs, convincingly arguing that political and economic power, not scientific rigor, have driven the technology's ascent.

But political and economic power are precisely what elude Specter's gaze. This great defender of science appears to be cursed with something that a love of science should have cured: naiveté. To be sure, the kind of know-nothing, reflexive anti-scienticism that Specter deplores certainly exists; and its adherents need a kick in the pants. Specter's boot misses the target. Moreover, he sees deniers everywhere, except where they are actually powerful and effective: denying climate change.

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Don't worry about climate change and world hunger--this lady's got your back!Watching SuperFreakonomics author Steve Levitt sitting next to Jon Stewart as they shook their heads in disbelief that everyone wasn't on the climate change/geo-engineering bandwagon (It's easy! it's cheap! We know it works!) depressed me to no end. It seems like every challenge we face now has an "easy" technological silver bullet that will spare us sacrifice or even change. GMOs will end hunger. Geo-engineering will solve climate change. A pill will cure obesity. Cellulosic ethanol will eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. It doesn't seem to bother anyone that none of these phantasms currently exist. Indeed, if you ask an expert when exactly we'll get one or the other of these whiz-bang items, the answer is almost always the same: "within ten years." And so it's been for decades.

At root, I don't think this is really about faith in technology. After all, the only plot twist more hackneyed and familiar than the miraculous, world-changing invention (a plot twist the media have a long history of falling for) is the unintended consequences that cause it all to go horribly wrong. Instead, this is, as Ralph Loglisci of the Center for a Livable Future put it regarding GMOs, "about political expediency." I would also add a healthy dose of denial to that mix. Not necessarily a denial of whatever impending disasters face us. Rather it's denial of the failure of progress -- in other words, an unwillingness to accept that what we've been doing in this country more or less since WWII represents anything other than progress. Techno-fixers' courage and will quails at the thought that we might be heading for dead-ends and not the limitless plains of the future.

Topping it all off is the feeling among elites in this country (in the media, in politics, in business) that they neither want to do the heavy-lifting that's required to deal with our problems nor do they think Americans will accept any real changes to their fossil-fueled, meat-powered, SUV'd way of life (although I think it's an open question as to whether the elites are considering "typical" Americans' desires or their own). We can't change our ways, they say, so you scientists better get out your magic wands and start waving.

GMOs are, of course, a perfect example of this phenomenon. The NYT hosted a recent debate asking if "Biotech food can feed the world." As usual, "activists" were the voices in opposition to a biotech solution while scientists provided the favorable opinion. This despite the fact that there are indeed scientists who remain skeptical of GMOs -- like those behind the landmark analysis of GMO shortcomings, Failure to Yield. And to read the pro-GMO arguments, you'd think that there were piles of magic seeds sitting around that could cure hunger if only the "activists" would let farmers plant them. There aren't.

The only GMO seeds available are ones that have been engineered to survive dousings of particular herbicides or to produce their own pesticide. Of course, they do still require heavy applications of fertilizer and water (and even pesticides and herbicides). But drought tolerance? Or supersized fruit? Or any other really promising development? Ten years away, swears Monsanto. And health risks? No worries -- it's not like anyone's gotten sick from eating GMO food, supporters declare. Of course, we've never had an industrial product whose health effects on humans, animals or insects only became clear years or even decades later (at which point early studies suggesting risks are once again unearthed). Critics are such a bunch of lily-livered worry-warts!

And when scientists do create a more useful GMO trait, like virus resistance in squash, things still don't turn out right. In field trials, the GMO squash was indeed more resistant to the viruses, but more susceptible to a squash-killing bacteria. As a result, the conventional squash out-performed them. Meanwhile, we're seeing more and more examples of seeds developed through advanced but standard breeding techniques out-perform even the highest-tech GMOs.

If this were really about preventing the catastrophe of 9 billion mouths to feed in 2050 (as GMO proponents incessantly remind us), the obvious answer isn't a magic seed, it's to do all we can to ensure there aren't 9 billion mouths to feed in 2050. Some might read that sentence and call it "population control." Others, like Nick Kristof, might observe that policies which empower women in the developing world can actually accomplish the goal of reduced birthrates (not to mention higher standards of living) -- and probably for less money that we'd pay Monsanto and its ilk in their fruitless quest for super seeds. But those kinds of on the ground, "small-scale" policies get far more rhetorical support than they do financial support. After all, cynicism about the ability to make change in this country pales in comparison to cynicism about the ability to make change in Africa. It's much easier to invent some magic seed, give it to African farmers and leave it at that.

I recommend keeping the GMO story in mind when you hear about the next great techno-fix, whether it's spraying sulfate particles into the upper atmosphere to solve global warming or turning to agriculture to solve our gasoline addiction. Hyping these mythical future developments has nothing to do with the success of science and everything to with the failure of politics and our collective imaginations.

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As it has come to dominate the agenda for reshaping African agriculture over the years, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been very careful not to associate itself too closely with patent-protected biotechnology as a panacea for African farmers.

True, the foundation named 25-year Monsanto veteran Rob Horsch to the position of "senior program officer, focusing on improving crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa."

Yet its flagship program for African ag, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), explicitly distances itself from GMOs. "AGRA does not fund the development of GMOs," the organization's Web site states.

But AGRA -- co-funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, proud sponsor of the original Green Revolution -- is just part of what Gates does around African ag. What precisely is the foundation getting up to over there? Is it pushing GMOs on African smallholder farms?

[I have a call into the foundation to ask directly about the role GMOs play in its efforts. I'll report on the response.]

It has been surprisingly hard to say. Until now.

In a speech at the World Food Prize gathering last week (see video below), Bill Gates himself chided the critics of GMOs -- and shed some sunshine on the foundation leadership's philosophy on ag development. At one point, he declared, "some of our grants [in Africa] do include transgenic approaches, because we believe they have the potential to address farmers' challenges more efficiently than conventional techniques."

Gates' speech seems like a significant event to me -- the World Food Prize website describes it as his "first major address on agriculture." One of the major knocks on the foundation's Africa efforts is the lack of democratic accountability and transparency. Since the foundation's careful message management makes it hard to figure out precisely what it's getting up to, I'm glad to see its leading light airing his views freely.

Gates opened with a standard-issue awestruck paean to Norman Borluag, recently deceased architect of the original Green Revolution. Gates delivered a rather unnuanced assessment of Borlaug's legacy. Gates declared: "He [Borlaug] proved that farming has the power to lift up the lives of the poor."

Really? To be sure, Borlaug's "dwarf" hybrid seed varieties, when coupled with the heavy fertilizer and pesticide doses they need to thrive, dramatically increased yields in the places where the Green Revolution took root -- the main success story being India.

But higher yields drive down crop prices -- and increased use of imported inputs requires the taking on of debt. Rather than boosting the fortunes of most farmers in its purview, the Green Revolution drove hundreds of thousands into ruin. The survivors consolidated land holdings. The big got bigger and the poor tended to leave the land -- too many of them ending up as excess labor in urban slum zones.

Maybe Gates didn't mean that Borlaug's efforts improved the lives of farmers, but rather the lives of non-farming urban dwellers. As he later says in the speech, also in the context of Borluag's legacy, "better farming can end hunger and poverty and lift whole countries out of poverty."

To be sure, many people were predicting famine for India in the 1960s, and the availability of cheap grain engendered by the Green Revolution no doubt forestalled widespread starvation. But it's demonstrably wrong to claim that the Green Revolution ended hunger and poverty in India.

Indeed, hunger rates remain appalling in India -- site of the Green Revolution's greatest putative success. From a 2008 report by the International Food Policy Research Institute:

According to the 2008 Global Hunger Index, India ranks 66 out of 88 nations (developing countries and countries in transition). Despite years of robust economic growth, India scored worse than nearly 25 Sub-Saharan African countries and all of South Asia, except Bangladesh.[Emphasis added.]

The bit about India faring worse than "nearly 25 Sub-Saharan African countries" is particularly noteworthy, given that the Gates Foundation is explicitly spearheading a "new Green Revolution for Africa." Of course, the original Green Revolution in India lies in shambles -- the water table has been tapped near dry by massive irrigation projects in the zones where the Borlaug program took hold, and the remaining farmers there are struggling mightily with crushing debt loads and heightened pesticide-related cancer rates.

To be fair, Gates did point to "excesses" of the first Green Revolution, naming "too much irrigation and fertilizer" as examples. He vowed to avoid those mistakes in Africa. He insisted, more than once, that ecological sustainability was critical to the foundation's project. Yet he repeatedly emphasized that increasing gross production--the Borlaug project of squeezing as much yield out of a piece of land as possible -- was the key.

And that led him to the most fiery moment of his speech (if this dour man's demeanor can ever be described as "fiery"): the part where he denounced unnamed "environmentalists" who are somehow blocking GMO seeds from entering Africa.

"This global effort to help small farmers is endangered by an ideological wedge that threatens to split the movement in two," Gates declared. He decried what he called a "false choice" between a "technological" approach geared to boosting productivity and an "environmental" one geared to sustainability. "We can have both," he said.

He went on: "Some people insist on an ideal vision of the environment which is divorced from people and their circumstances. They have tried to restrict the spread of biotechnology into sub-Saharan Africa without regard to how much hunger and poverty might be reduced by it, or what the farmers themselves might want."

The Gates Foundation, by contrast, isn't so demure. In an apparent reference to this project with GMO seed giant Monsanto, Gates allowed that "one of our [unnamed] private-sector partners" is working on a genetically modified drought-tolerant corn variety for African farmers. The seeds will be available to farmers royalty-free -- meaning that farmers will pay market price for the seeds themselves, but not pay the hefty biotech premium Monsanto normally slaps on top. It's unclear whether seed-saving will be allowed under the arrangement.

According to the above-linked press release, the magic seeds are expected to come online in 2018. Gates emphasized repeatedly that as climate change proceeds apace, greater and greater swaths of Africa will face persistent drought conditions. In pushing for drought-tolerant seeds, Gates is swinging for the fences -- looking for a single big solution to feed Africa's drought-stricken areas.

For me, this deal raises questions that cut to the heart of the Bill Gates approach to African ag.

First of all, it can't be noted often enough that a) GM agriculture's much-hyped ability to boost yields, taken as a given by Gates, has thus far proven purely spectral; b) there's serious evidence, despite a paucity of cash for critical research and heavy-handed control of research by seed companies, that GMOs cause health problems; and c) GMOs have so far proven quite proficient at generating unintended ecological consequences, such as the rise of "superweeds."

There's no room for any of that in Gates' discourse.

Further, I absolutely agree with Bill Gates that there's no zero-sum tradeoff between productivity and sustainability. But I urge him to tear his gaze away from the biotech lab and train it toward the field, where the best research on organic ag is being done. Indeed, one of the great benefits of organic farming is its long-term focus on soil health -- and healthy soils can increase productivity over time without massive ecological externalities.

Here's a summary of a 2005 paper published in Bioscience comparing yields of organic and conventional corn. The 22-year study compared yields of corn and soy for the following systems: 1) conventional chemical-based agriculture; 2) organic ag using manure for soil fertility; and 3) organic ag using "green manure" (nitrogen-fixing cover crops) for fertility. From the summary, here's the key nugget of the study:

"First and foremost, we found that corn and soybean yields were the same across the three systems," said [researcher David] Pimentel, who noted that although organic corn yields were about one-third lower during the first four years of the study, over time the organic systems produced higher yields, especially under drought conditions. The reason was that wind and water erosion degraded the soil on the conventional farm while the soil on the organic farms steadily improved in organic matter, moisture, microbial activity and other soil quality indicators. [Emphasis added.]

Note well the "especially under drought conditions" bit. Here is a technology for "drought-tolerant" corn that's ready right now -- no need to wait until 2018. It doesn't rely on the benevolence of Monsanto to waive a technology fee; and there are no questions about seed-saving. It asks no one to accept a drop in long-term productivity as the price paid for sustainability. And not only does it help farmers adapt to climate change with its drought-tolerant qualities, but it helps mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon. From the summary:

The fact that organic agriculture systems also absorb and retain significant amounts of carbon in the soil has implications for global warming, Pimentel said, pointing out that soil carbon in the organic systems increased by 15 to 28 percent, the equivalent of taking about 3,500 pounds of carbon dioxide per hectare out of the air.

Moreover, in a 2008 paper (PDF), the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) endorsed organic ag as a way to boost food security and improve farmer livelihoods in Africa. Concluded the FAO:

Organic agriculture can increase agricultural productivity and can raise incomes with low-cost, locally available and appropriate technologies, without causing environmental damage. Furthermore, evidence shows that organic agriculture can build up natural resources, strengthen communities and improve human capacity, thus improving food security by addressing many different causal factors simultaneously ... Organic and near-organic agricultural methods and technologies are ideally suited for many poor, marginalized smallholder farmers in Africa, as they require minimal or no external inputs, use locally and naturally available materials to produce high-quality products, and encourage a whole systemic approach to farming that is more diverse and resistant to stress. [Emphasis added.]

Gates cash could go a long way in dispersing the skills and (relatively low-cost) equipment needed for effective organic farming in Africa. Why not, for example, fund a dramatic expansion of the Soil, Food, and Healthy Communities project that's proving so successful in Malawi?

So where's the Gates cash, and the fiery speech from the foundation's leader defending organic ag from its critics? Now, it's true that the Gates Foundation does fund research into alternative, low-input agriculture. Just this past spring, the foundation awarded $1.3 million to World Watch to study such techniques for improving ag productivity in Africa.

But let's look at funding levels. The above-mentioned Monsanto GMO corn project got $42 million from Gates -- and an additional $5 million from the Howard Buffet Foundation, run by the son of investor/insurance magnate Warren Buffet. The Worldwatch grant is loose change in comparison. (When I get a Gates official on the phone, i'll ask about other organic-style programs they're funding.)

Given the pro-high-technology thrust of Gates' speech, this imbalance is hardly surprising. As I took in the video of Gates' speech and heard him go on about the "needs of small farmers" and the critical role of biotech in serving those needs, I couldn't help but think of him as a kind of unelected agriculture commissioner for the African continent. And I wondered how many African farms will survive the embrace of the great software magnate.

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It's good to see a big Midwest "land grant" agricultural program that's concerned about the Gulf Dead Zone, and upper Midwest farms' large contribution to it. But this release about a study underway at Iowa State University aiming to reduce nitrogen entering the Mississippi River from farm fields falls flat when you realize it's just a technical fix for the status quo of over-fertilized conventional commodity crops.

Half of the nitrogen that makes it to the Gulf is from commercial fertilizer, and 15 percent is from livestock manure. The rest comes from wastewater treatment plants, industry, and rainfall, according to the U.S. Geological Society.

As much as 39 percent of the nitrogen buildup in the Gulf has been traced back to the Upper Mississippi River Basin, including Iowa.

So what is a bioreactor and how can it help? From the Iowa state page:

While the pilot bioreactors are only about 12 square feet in surface area, full-scale bioreactors require about 25 square feet per acre of farmland drained and a depth of about four feet depending on the location of the tile line. A 100-acre field would require about 2,500 square feet of bioreactor space covered by a grass buffer.

Sounds expensive! And, uh, like a lot of digging. Add in all the plastic "tile" tubing that's buried in the fields to drain the fertilizer (and all attendant pesticides one would assume) off quickly and into watercourses, now it's sounding pretty wasteful. And toxic.

Organic methods of reducing such runoff would necessitate a whole different system that would by default radically limit nitrogen and pesticide pollution of the rivers, and would institute weed management techniques like crop rotation and cultivation that could be the region’s only defense against herbicide resistant GMO superweeds which are well established in the South and marching northwards.

So how about putting more funds, effort, and multi-year studies toward getting conventional farmers off of chemicals altogether, instead of building enough trenches to hide an army?

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Like a tractor driven by a drunk, the Obama administration keeps zigzagging on food/ag policy--sometimes veering in the direction of progressive change, other times whipping back toward the agrichemical status quo.

In the last couple of days, there's been a sharp turn toward the status quo. As I reported yesterday, Obama plucked Islam “Isi” Siddiqui from the nation's most powerful agrichemical lobby group and made him our chief negotiator on ag issues in global trade talks. This is a major coup for Big Ag. Ramming open foreign markets for our cheap food commodities and pricey ag inputs is critical to the industry's future profits--and perilous for global food security and the environment.

And today, Obama's Big Ag side got the best of him again. He tapped Roger Beachy, long-time president of the Danforth Plant Science Center, as chief of the USDA's newly created National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA).

A creation of the 2008 Farm Bill, the NIFA "replaces the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, which distributes $200 million in competitive grants and about $280 million in 'formula funding' to land-grant universities," Science blog reports.

Science continues:

The Farm Bill adds another $106 million annually of competitive funding for research into organic farming, biomass, and fruits and vegetables. It also calls for a "distinguished scientist" to be appointed for a 6-year term as director.

So this is a critical post. If the sustainable farming movement is going to scale up and really start providing a large portion of the nation's calories--and deliver on its potentially huge environmental promises--than we're going to need a significant commitment of federal research dollars.

Roger BeachyPhoto: Courtesy of the Danforth CenterAnd what are we getting with the appointment of Beachy? The Danforth Plant Science Center, nestled in Monsanto's St. Louis home town, is essentially that company's NGO research and PR arm. According to its website, the center "was founded in 1998 through gifts from the St. Louis-based Danforth Foundation, the Monsanto Fund (a philanthropic foundation), and a tax credit from the State of Missouri."

Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant sits on the center's board of trustees, along with execs from defense giant McDonnell Douglas and pharma titan Merck. Another notable board member is Alfonso Romo, a Mexican magnate who cashed in big during his country's notoriously corrupt privatization /liberalization bonanza in the early '90s.

Romo used his connections to build a company called Seminis into the globe's biggest vegetable-seed concern, with dreams (as yet unrealized) of loads of new GMO veggie varieties. Monsanto bought Seminis in 2005. Here's a revealing Wall Street Journal profile of Romo from 1999; and here's what I wrote about him and the Monsanto/Seminis tie up back in 2005. (Interesting tidbit: Romo claims credit for innovating those insipid and ubiquitous "baby carrots"; and for reducing the spiciness of jalepeno peppers.)

On its short list of "partners" we find several research-oriented universities and one corporation: Monsanto. In the Danforth Center's 2007 annual report (PDF), Monsanto is mentioned no fewer than ten times funding this or that project.

So essentially, the public face of Monsanto's research efforts now has his fingers on the USDA's research purse strings. Score a big one for agribusiness!

So Obama has become an agribiz shill, right? Well, it's not nearly so simple.

Last winter, the administration tapped Kathleen Merrigan as deputy USDA secretary. This is traditionally a powerful position within the agency; under Bush, a paid-up industrial corn man held the post. Merrigan has pristine credentials as an organic advocate--and from the whispers I've heard, has been pushing that agenda within USDA.

I'm told she's met with many prominent sustainable-ag advocates--folks who were completely frozen out by the Bush USDA. The latest: On Twitter, Michel Dimock of California's Roots of Change recently announced he has "4 mtngs w/ USDA nxt 2 days." That sort of access simply wasn't available at Bush's USDA.

Then there's Merrigan's brainchild, "The Know Your Farmer Know Your Food" initiative (complete with splashy new web site). It's essentially an attempt to alert players in the sustainable food movement to possibilities of getting existing USDA funding. (I wrote briefly about its limits and promise lat week.) Again, you can call the initiative largely symbolic, but nothing remotely like it was happening under Bush.

It's certainly energizing sustainable ag NGO chiefs. On Chews Wise blog, Sam Fromartz reports that such folks are "pumped" by the initiative. He asked several for their reactions. Words like "fantastic," "thrilling," and "quite encouraging" tripped off their tongues.

Meanwhile, Michelle Obama--and her food ambassador, White House assistant chef/gardener Sam Kass--continues to push sustainable ag from the East Wing. One can assume she has some influence in the Oval Office.

So what's going on here? Whither the Obama administration on food and ag--toward a food future that seeks big, top-down, corporate-led answers, always straining to leapfrog ecological limits--and creating new sets of problems to be (lucratively) solved? Or toward one that works within ecological limits, builds resilience, and generates wealth and health within communities?

Right now, we're getting a kind of policy whiplash. But I have a conjecture--based completely on my own observation, not on any inside info. I'll give it here; and I urge readers to give their own conjectures below.

My conjecture is this: Obama likes cutting-edge ideas. You look at the ag landscape, and you see two distinct areas with great innovation, energy, and movement: biotech and organic/sustainable. So he's coming out strong behind both camps, and plans to sit back and see which one develops the best ideas.

The problem is that the biotech side has a massive advantage in terms of resources; and, as I've shown before, has benefitted from years of government cronyism and coddling. Moreover, it utterly dominates the university research agenda, aided by the draconian intellectual rights the government has awarded it.

So if Obama is setting up a kind of contest between the two camps, the game is rigged in advance.

That's what I think. Please write what you think below.

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Agribiz: flying high ... or comiing down? If you run a globe-spanning, U.S.-centered agribusiness firm, you're probably not sure whether to cry in your Krug or toast with it this week.*

The bad news for the GMO/fertilizer/pesticide set: A federal court in San Francisco rebuked the USDA for greenlighting genetically modified sugar beets without rigorous testing of the novel crop's environmental impact. And that could have a major impact on the GMO seed industry, because there's never been a real reckoning among federal agencies about the impact of GMOs.

Want to know who came with the official rationale that GMOs are "substantially equivalent" to conventional crops--and this worthy of a regulatory free ride? It was that noted beautiful minder Dan Quayle, sitting on an Bush I's Council on Competitiveness in the early '90s.

The sugar beet ruling, coming on the heels of a similar one on GMO alfafa, may mark the beginning of the end of that free ride.

Fully 30 percent of the globe's refined sugar comes from beets--and the U.S. is a major producer. In 2005, the USDA ruled that the use of Monsanto's new line of Roundup Ready sugar beets--genetically rigged to withstand application of Monsanto's flagship herbicide--had "no significant impact" on the environment.

Trouble is, the agency did so without issuing a detailed "environmental impact statement," as it's arguably required to under the National Environmental Protection Act--and that's why the Center for Food Safety and other sustainable-food NGOs sued the USDA.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White ruled (PDF here) in favor of the Center for Food Safety argument.

The ruling hinged on the argument that GMO sugar beets can cross-pollinate with and genetically contaminate non-GMO beets--and even with related species like Swiss chard and table beets. (In Willamette County, Ore., epicenter of industrial sugar-beet production, these other beet types are grown commonly, too.)

"In light of the large distances pollen can travel by wind and the context that seed for sugar beets, Swiss chard, and table beets are primarily grown in one valley in Oregon, Plaintiffs have demonstrated that deregulation [of GMO sugar beets] may significantly effect the environment," the Judge White declared.

So now he's ordering a detailed environmental impact statement (EIS) from the USDA on GMO sugar beets. But any rigorous EIS will include not only the cross-contamination problem, but also the  growing specter of Roundup-tolerant "superweeds," which are already rampant in many parts of the country where Roundup Ready seeds are commonly used.

The agency might even have to reckon with the recent study that showed that so-called "inert" ingredients in Roundup quite actively damage human cells.

In other words, this ruling--if it stands up under an imminent round of appeals--could be a slippery slope for Monsanto. Investors, for their part, seem a bit concerned--since the ruling was announced Tuesday, the company's shares are down about 2 percent.

Now for the good news for the great masters of the corn field: President Obama has nominated one of their own as the chief agricultural negotiator at the U.S. Trade Office.

To take the post, Islam "Isi" Siddiqui will have to leave his current perch as vice president for agricultural biotechnology and trade at CropLife America, the trade group representing the U.S. agrichemical industry (member list here). Its mission: to hip the public (and the government)  to the ""benefits of pesticides and crop-protection chemicals."

This is the crew that chided Michelle Obama for daring to opt not to use "crop protection" (i.e., toxic pesticides) in the White House Garden.

Once the Senate's conservative stalwarts recover from the shock of supporting a man named Islam, they'll surely wave Siddiqui right through.

As the Doha round of global trade talks lurches on, Siddiqui's position will be an important one. Southerm-hemisphere nations like India and Brazil are pushing for lower U.S. crop subsidies, while the U.S. is demanding wide-open markets for U.S. goods--everything from foodstuffs like industrial corn to agrichemicals. Siddiqui can be counted on to push that agenda hard.

Another critical ag-related trade issue is GMOs. Many nations have opted to ban GMOs on the precautionary principle. The few companies who dominate the GMO seed market--Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta, and BASF, all Croplife America--find that attitude abhorrent. Siddiqui can be expected to play hardball in using trade talks as a blunt instrument to knock those precautions down.

* Since I'm an acolyte of the wine writer Alice Feiring, you should read my casual assumption that agribiz execs quaff Krug, an insipid status-brand Champagne, as a stinging insult.

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When my info-larder gets too packed, it’s time to serve up some choice nuggets from around the Web.

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• "Everything I've written is straw," Thomas Aquinas is supposed to have lamented from his deathbed. Whole Foods CEO John Mackey seems to have come to a similar conclusion about the supermarket chain he founded decades ago. "Basically, we used to think it was enough just to sell healthy food, but we know it is not enough," he recently told The Wall Street Journal in a blunt interview.  "We sell all kinds of candy. We sell a bunch of junk." He said that in the beginning, bulk items like oatmeal made up 15 to 20 percent of sales. "Now," he adds, "our bulk foods are down to about 1 percent because people don't cook anymore." Interesting stuff--not even Whole Foods shoppers cook anymore? It's true that like all supermarket chains, Whole Foods seems to be devoting more and more floor space to takeout fare--and most of it, from what I've tried, mediocre and short on information about ingredients. (Local? Organic? Who knows?)

In the interview, Mackey reveals plans to reposition the company as more of a health-food store--fewer cheesecakes and chips, and more carrots and quinoa, presumably. The move may be an effort to distinguish itself from rivals--based on the interview, Whole Foods is locked in brutal competition with Trader Joe's and Costco on price for packaged items. Be it remembered: When a few giants compete furiously over a market like, say, organic potato chips, consumers get a great price but suppliers--including potato farmers--get squeezed. For another take, big Organic expert Sam Fromarts weighs in on his blog Chews Wise.

• Will the Obama administration use U.S. aid money to promote pricey GMO seeds for African farmers? Paula Crossfield at CivilEats wants to know--and the early evidence isn't encouraging. Paula reports that Secretary of State Clinton and USDA chief Tom Vilsack recently visited the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), whose main claim to fame was its much-hyped, ultimately failed joint project (partners: Monsanto and USAID) to create a GMO sweet potato for African farmers. While Clinton and Vilsack toured, somewhere, Nina Fedoroff, Clinton's zealously pro-GMO chief science adviser, was smiling.

• Wow--commodity traders are worried about our old friend swine flu coming back with a vengeance this fall. Reuters: "U.S. hog prices fell on Wednesday to their lowest levels in nearly two years as investors worried [about] a resurgence of H1N1 flu, commonly called swine flu." Meanwhile, up in Canada, there has been a swine flu outbreak at a factory pig farm--and sick pigs have infected workers.

• Remember the story of how an FDA researcher found that the corn industry was leaving traces of mercury in high-fructose corn syrup--and the agency proceeded to ignore the researcher? I wrote about it a lot when the news broke. The story quickly faded away--not much interest in the fact that the most popular U.S. sweetener, often and prodigiously fed to kids, might be commonly tainted with mercury. Good for Mother Jones for bringing it back. One of the subtleties in the tale was the chemical state of the mercury--the industry and FDA insisted it was elemental mercury, which poses an unknown risk, and not methylmercury, the definitively brain-wrecking stuff found in some fish. According to MoJo, maybe not. Writes reporter Melinda Wenner:

Though it provides no scientific evidence to back up this assertion, the FDA says that the mercury in [former FDA researcher] Dufault's HFCS samples is elemental. But the lab that analyzed the samples believes there's a good chance the mercury is organic [methylmercury]. The analysts "said in so many words, 'It doesn't look like inorganic,'" says Peter Green, Dufault's UC-Davis colleague who coordinated with the lab. "They would even say it's more likely not the regular elemental mercury."

• From Environmental News Service, a fascinating article on bee collapse. Washington State University researchers are hanging colony collapse disorder on two culprits: rampant use of pesticides, and a uni-cellular, hard-to-fight parasite called Nosema ceranae.

• I'll give Julia and Julie a chance out of respect for Julia Child and Meryl Streep. But has Nora Ephron ever really made a good movie? I find those Meg Ryan romances pretty awful. And I hate stuff like this: Maureen Dowd and Nora Ephron waxing vapid (sample factoid: Ephron's favorite cooking tool is the microwave. Don't tell Michael Pollan!) Meanwhile, Ephron's being treated like an auter--huge, fawning New Yorker profile, Corby Kummer declaring her "brilliant"; etc. Maybe I'm just bitter because no one's offered to turn Meat Wagon into a romantic comedy. Come on, Hollywood!

• Speaking of Pollan, I got the rumor on a listserv today that Pollan's mother--whom we get a glimpse of cooking boeuf bourguignon in the '60s in Pollan's big cooking essay--is the style editor at Gourmet Magazine. Then I confirmed it. Can there be a more fabulous job in food than style editor at Gourmet? And speaking of Hollywood, is his brother-in-law really Michael J. Fox? [Update: Just heard Pollan's brother-in-law is Micheal J. Fox; and his sister is the actress Tracy Pollan. That means Pollan's got Hollywood connections. Hey, Mike--have I told you about my movie idea? It's about a blog I do called Meat Wagon....]

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"The inevitable aim of industrial agri-investors is the big universal solution. They want a big product that can be marketed everywhere. And the kind of agriculture we're talking about that leads to food security and land conservation is locally adapted agriculture. And they can't do that. Industrial agriculture plants cornfields in Arizona; locally adapted agriculture says, what can we fit in this place that will not destroy it? Or what can nature help us to do here? That's the critical issue."

-- Wendell Berry, responding to a question about GMOs from The Washington Post's Jane Black

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Seed blinded me with science. The questions were shamelessly loaded:

Why do many environmentalists trust science when it comes to climate change but not when it comes to genetic engineering? Is the fear really about the technology itself or is it a mistrust of big agribusiness?

When do you plan to stop beating your wife, or start taking science seriously, you fear-mongering hippie? But I couldn't resist taking the bait on a Seed Magazine forum on science and GMOs--mainly because Nina Fedoroff, science and technology adviser to the US Secretary of State and to the administrator of USAID, was also participating.

Who could resist going toe to toe with Hillary Rodham Clinton's science czar? Not I.

While I think the package presents a robust enough debate, I feel like the panel was nearly as loaded as the questions: three pro-GMO scientists -- one with a high post in government -- vs. Raj Patel and me. Raj is a great writer and scholar; but, like me, he's not a scientist. I don't know whom else Seed invited to contribute, and I realize getting these things together is chaotic. You can only publish what gets handed in. But the panel's composition reinforces the assumptions enshrined in the questions: real scientists love GMOs, and hysterical environmentalists oppose them.

Yet as I show in my entry, the scientific "consensus" around GMOs is an illusion. Industry dogma aside, real skepticism around GMOs flourishes in the scientific community. Where, for example, was Doug Gurian-Sherman of the Union of Concerned Scientists? Gurian-Sherman has a doctorate in plant pathology from Berkeley and has worked on GMO policy for the USDA and EPA. He is the author, most recently, of the report "Failure to Yield," which documents the, well, failure of GMOs to deliver real gains in crop yield, despite much industry claptrap to the contrary. Gurian-Sherman just told me he wasn't approached to conrtribute. That just seems silly to me.

Or for that matter, where were the 26 university scientists who recently complained to the EPA that "no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions" around GMOs, because companies like Monsanto have control over who uses their seeds and for what purpose? True, they would be a bit hard to dig up, given that they declined to sign their names to the complaint "because they feared being cut off from research by the companies," as The New York Times recently reported.

But a few of them did speak on record to The Times, including the University of Minnesota entomologist Ken Ostlie, who had this to say:

If a company can control the research that appears in the public domain, they can reduce the potential negatives that can come out of any research.

Ostle's perspective would have added much to the debate, I'd wager. And he is one of the many credentialed scientists who could have added a critical perspective. As for the scientists who did participate, they mainly dished up Monsanto talking points, barely warmed over. Here's UC Davis plant pathologist Pamela Ronald:

The misdirected protests [against GMOs] are an unfortunate diversion from the obvious: We need to feed more people on less land with less water and do it in a way that reduces environmentally harmful inputs. This is a critical environmental issue of our time.

And here is horticulturalist Noel Kingsbury:

World population is increasing, arable land availability is decreasing, and water resources are shrinking. We need every technology possible to increase yields, reduce toxic pesticide use, improve nutritional value, and feed the world.

And here is the rehetoric of Monsanto itself, which owns a huge portion of the GMO traits now on the market, from its Web page (it might also sound familiar from its Marketplace ads):

By 2050, say United Nations' experts, our planet must double food production to feed an anticipated population of 9.3 billion people. (That figure is 40 percent higher than today's 6.6 billion.) Then factor in a pressured water supply, an energy-supply crunch and climate change. How do we surmount these obstacles? Agricultural innovation holds a key solution --and Monsanto pledges to do our part.

As for Fedoroff, Clinton's science czar, her entry is full of similar rhetoric. She goes over the line, though, with this statement.

Fact: Modern genetic modification of crops is responsible for most of the crop yield increases of recent years.

Come now. The above-linked Gurian-Sherman paper shreds that notion. It's a sad but all too familiar spectacle to see a public servant mouthing inaccuracies on behalf of some dodgy industry.

Condoleezza Rice originally hired Fed0roff to her current post; Clinton has elected to keep her on. For grins, I'm pasting in a post I wrote about her back in August 2008, which looks at her background working for the industry she now promotes as a State Department rep. Warning--the last line might be a bit painful.

Genetically modified diplomat
U.S. foreign policy: GMO all the way

Aug. 25, 2008

About a week ago, The New York Times ran a brief interview with Nina V. Fedoroff, official "science and technology adviser" to the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Not surprisingly, Condoleezza Rice's science czar has a special place in her heart for genetically modified organisms. In the Times interview, Fedoroff defends GMOs:

There's almost no food that isn't genetically modified. Genetic modification is the basis of all evolution.... The paradox is that now that we've invented techniques that introduce just one gene without disturbing the rest, some people think that's terrible.

Right; GMOs merely mimic nature, and are thus no different than any other organisms. But if that's true, then why do GMOs require such draconian intellectual property protection? Why should Monsanto be able to enforce patent claims on, say, Round Up Ready soybean seeds if they're really just the same as other soybeans?

Perhaps Fedoroff is pushing an open-source approach to GMOs -- the idea that a handful of of companies shouldn't be able to lock up ownership of the globe's most widely planted seeds. But given her corporate affiliations -- which the Times didn't see fit to divulge -- that's doubtful.

On taking the job at State in 2007, Fedoroff stepped down from her post on the "scientific advisory board" of Evogene, an Israeli agriculture-biotech firm. She had held the post for five years. What does Evogene do? According to the company's "about us" page, it's "geared toward developing improved plants for the agriculture and biofuel industries through the use of plant genomics."

And that means working with the very few companies that control the GMO-seed business:

A number of improved plant traits are in relatively advanced stages of development through deals and collaborations with world leading companies, such as Monsanto Company, Pioneer Hi-Bred, Bayer CropScience, Syngenta and other [sic].

At the same time, Fedoroff was also serving on the board of Sigma-Aldrich, a transnational biotechnology company. According to its "about us" page, Sigma-Aldrich's "biochemical and organic chemical products and kits are used in scientific and genomic research, biotechnology, pharmaceutical development, the diagnosis of disease and as key components in pharmaceutical and other high technology manufacturing." In other words, like Evogene, Sigma-Aldrich provides services to the big ag-biotech companies.

And gets up to all manner of dodgy stuff, like projects to "develop cell-lines and transgenic animals that have targeted modifications in a specified gene in a specified species."

In this day and age, it seems perfectly natural that U.S. ag-development policy should be dominated by the agenda of such companies. Let's hope that changes soon.

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One cube or two? Jill Richardson made a good catch on the GMO crop front the other day. She dug up an article from a Boulder, CO newspaper that detailed the debate over local sugarbeet farmers' request to plant GM seeds within the city limits. The farmers claim that without GM sugar beets, they'll be unable to meet their Western Sugar Cooperative quota. But that's not the reason I'm telling you all this (nor is it for the useful fact that sugarbeets have been a staple crop in Boulder for a century). I'm telling you all this because the article contained this revelation:

Since it was approved a year ago, more than 90 percent of the nation's sugarbeet crop has been converted to Roundup Ready, according to a Boulder County staff report.

"Roundup Ready," of course, refers to Monsanto's group of genetically engineered corn, soy, canola, cotton and now sugarbeet seeds that can withstand the direct application of the potent pesticide glyphosate (aka Roundup). In the course of a year, Monsanto's Frankensugar has taken over the national sugarbeet crop. Yeesh.

As Jill observes, something like half of the refined sugar available in the US comes from sugar beets. That, of course, means that no small amount of the sugar that you cook with or put in your coffee is genetically modified -- and suggests that pretty much 100% of conventional processed foods now contain GMOs. Whatever our expectation of processed foods, few of us, I think, would have considered plain, old table sugar a potential GMO product. I know I found this unsettling.

This wouldn't be quite the same problem, of course, in Europe, which has mandatory GMO labeling laws. You wouldn't need crack bloggers digging around in local Boulder, CO newspapers to learn the truth. It's enough to make you think that the big food companies just don't want you to know. Nah. I must just be getting paranoid. Anyway, I think I'll take up Jill's suggestion and stick to organic sugar. For better or for worse, the organic label, with its restrictions on the use of GMO ingredients, is the closest we've got to GMO-labeling in this country.

UPDATE: Stephanie Ogburn in comments below flagged another sugarbeet battle going on in Oregon. Turns out an organic farmer found viable GMO sugarbeet roots in a commercial soil mix. His fear is that it could contanimate huge swathes of land with Roundup Ready sugarbeets when the roots sprout and then flower. The farmer involved also has a "lawsuit, now before a federal judge in California [that] contends that USDA officials violated federal law when they deregulated the genetically modified sugarbeets in 2005 and asks for an injunction to halt their planting, sale or distribution." I doubt the suit will succeed but one can only hope. This kind of unpredictable cross-contamination does make you feel like Monsanto has no real understanding of exactly what they've unleashed on us.

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Jolly gene giantSource: ETC Group Monsanto dominates the global market for GMO seeds like Microsoft dominates the operating-system software market. 

You don't skirt around antitrust enforcement like that without having good friends in Washinton. And to make friends, you've got have guys in suits working the Hill and the agencies. La Vida Locavore's ever-enterprising Jill Richardson got her hands on Monsanto's first-quarter lobbying disclosure form (PDF). Turns out, the GMO-seed giant spent $2 million pushing its agenda in Washington the first three months of the year.

Conspiracy theorists fixated on a food safety bill called HR 875--insisting that Monsanto is planning to seize the globe's farmland (why would a highly profitable transnational want to move into a low margin business like farming?) and ban organic agriculture--will be disappointed. The form makes no mention of food-safety bills.

Monsanto does, however, mention lobbying on Senate Bill 384--the so-called Global Food Security Act--which would gear U.S. foreign aid policy to promote GMO seeds in developing countries.

As Jill points out, a Monsanto flack dropped by La Vida Locavore last month to deny that that the company had worked to shape the bill. Shame, shame.

Monsanto's other big legislative concern? Strengthening already-draconian patent protection for the GMO seed industry--the one it dominates like Microsoft dominate operating system software.

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Editor's note: Several weeks ago, the National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) issued a press release proclaiming that 75 percent of its member farmers support the rollout of genetically modified wheat seeds. According to NAWG, wheat farmers are clamoring to follow their corn and soy counterparts toward a biotech-dominated future. Todd Leake, a wheat farmer and NAWG member, has a different viewpoint.

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Since the Nixon Administration, farmers have been told that their survival was dependent on the ability to compete in the global marketplace. Wheat producers have been particularly mindful of the need to grow a product that meets broadest possible consumer and market expectations. As a result, fifty percent of the wheat produced in this country is destined for buyers in foreign markets, and these buyers have very specific requirements for the wheat they purchase.

Over the last 50 years we have worked diligently to develop and enhance our relationship with international buyers, who are routinely surveyed to determine which specific characteristics and traits they desire. We work with agronomists and plant breeders to develop hybrids that meet our customers' expectations; in doing so, we have developed a mature and stable market for the wheat produced by U.S. farmers.

However, this is an increasingly shifting marketplace. Our competitors in other countries have developed the capacity to grow wheat for the export market, and buyers now have the luxury of being very selective. They are now spoiled for choice.

When Monsanto first petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture for deregulation of their Roundup Ready wheat, we feared consumer backlash based on the loss of European and Asian markets that corn growers experienced when genetically engineered (GE) corn varieties were commercialized in 1996. Our fears were substantiated through a Canadian Wheat Board buyer survey conducted in 2003, which determined that 83% of foreign buyers would not accept genetically engineered wheat and would seek alternate sources if either the United States or Canada commercialized a GE wheat variety. Building on that survey, Dr. Robert Wisner, a respected Iowa State agricultural economist, concluded that wheat producers would see a drop of as much as 35% in farmgate prices if GE wheat were commercialized.

Nothing has changed in the global marketplace for wheat, but a recent National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) survey would have the world believe that wheat growers themselves overwhelmingly support adoption of genetically engineered wheat.

But this couldn't be further from the truth. Although NAWG has publicly claimed its survey finds that "more than three-quarters of the respondents approved a petition supporting the commercialization of biotechnology in wheat," a close examination of that petition reveals that NAWG fundamentally misrepresents its own data, overstates the significance of the results, and exaggerates U.S. wheat growers' demand for genetically engineered wheat - all to the detriment of its member farmers.

To begin with, NAWG states that only growers with more than 500 acres of wheat and more than 1,000 acres in total production were chosen to participate (to save on postage, NAWG claims); only 32% of them took part in the postcard solicitation survey. Every year I grow substantially more than 500 acres of wheat, and yet, I never received a survey. Why were particular farmers chosen and why were other growers left out?

The survey itself made virtually no effort to glean nuanced truth from its participants. Respondents were not asked whether or not they would grow GE wheat, only to endorse a petition that "encourages both public and private sectors to support the discovery and development of new technologies" for wheat. Biotechnology was merely one of many potential methods mentioned within the much broader context of NAWG's stated desire to increase the productivity, profitability, and sustainability of the wheat growing industry, three things no sane wheat grower would disagree with.

Of the 21,262 survey cards sent out, 5,272 marked their checked the "I AGREE!' biotech wheat/petition box. NAWG somehow interprets this as 76% of growers endorsing biotech wheat. NAWG apparently didn't want to mention the 1, 635 wheat farmers who checked the I DISAGREE box and chose to ignore the 14,355 producers who likely tossed it aside with the rest of the junk mail.

I first became aware of this NAWG survey at a speech by NAWG CEO Daren Coppeck given at a breakout session of the Minnesota Association of Wheat Growers (MAWG) annual meeting in Grand Forks, North Dakota in Dec. 2008. In his speech Mr. Coppeck said "There will be biotech wheat." He went further to say that enforcement actions against farmers would be necessary to protect biotech companies' investment. Does it surprise me that Mr. Coppeck would be able to predict the outcome of a survey that had yet to be mailed out or he would advocate suing farmers that save their own wheat seed? Not really, because after years of attending such annual meetings and MAWG functions such as the annual wheat summits, I have witnessed the leadership of MAWG endorse GE wheat even when a poll of the membership attending did not. I have seen the leadership of MAWG endorse GE wheat even when there was no particular GE wheat trait that they were endorsing. In other words: GE wheat for the sake of GE wheat.

It is clear to farmers and close observers that improving productivity, profitability, and sustainability does not depend upon the introduction of genetically engineered wheat. In fact, the greatest strides in developing modern, superior wheat varieties have been made through traditional breeding methods, not genetic engineering. Introduction of GE wheat will cause wheat seed to become proprietary property of seed companies, increase seed costs for farmers and keep wheat producers under the thumb of 5 international seed companies.

NAWG's claim of overwhelming demand is misleading at best, and does not represent the position of the farmers for which NAWG claims to speak. Even if NAWG's survey had not been fudged, U.S. wheat growers know that there is zero market demand. We know our buyers, and they will simply not accept genetically engineered wheat. They have told us so to our face, politely and repeatedly.

The purpose of the National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) is to promote our industry and to develop our markets, and it is funded with wheat grower dollars. To conduct and publish a survey that blatantly misrepresents the opinions of the very constituency it was created to serve is unconscionable. The commercialization of GE wheat will have one consequence only: the destruction of a stable, mature wheat producing industry that has taken 50 years to build.

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Editor's note: This post originally focused on NPR; but we've since found that the Monsanto ads run on Marketplace, produced by American Public Media, which isn't directly affiliated with NPR. We regret the confusion.

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Monsanto's ad blitzFor years my alarm has been set to pubic radio so I can lie in bed for five minutes and have a grasp on the day's news before I even get up. I, like many other Americans, rely on NPR and other public-radio shows for news that is what I deem to be as unbiased and fair as possible. But this morning my ears burned as I listened to an on the American Public Media show Marketplace sponsored by Monsanto, the world's largest corporate agribusiness chemical firm, touting how its genetically modified (GM) seeds are going to save the world from environmental catastrophe and human hunger. It left me wondering, particularly in tough economic times, how do media ethics hold up? (The GMO seed giant has been bombarding liberal-minded publications with similar propaganda, see image to the right, for months.)

The Monsanto ads are quite simply false. The premise of the ad is more or less that Monsanto's genetically modified (GM) seeds are going to save the world from environmental catastrophe and human hunger. All while the corporation made more than 11 billion dollars in 2008 amidst a world food crisis. The catch phrase, "Produce more, conserve more" even has its own website, which conveniently links directly to Monsanto's website section on "sustainable agriculture". But the reality of Monsanto's seeds and the company's ethics and commitment to fighting world hunger have nothing to do with producing more or conserving more.

 Let's get a few facts on the table. Eighty-five percent of all GM seeds are engineered for herbicide tolerance. Most of these crops are Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" cotton, corn, soy, and canola seeds. What this tolerance means is that the plant can actually withstand significant amounts of pesticides being sprayed on it--in effect promoting pesticide use. In the past farmers were motivated to spray judiciously since their crops could be adversely affected. Farmers growing GM seeds don't worry about this, and as a result there has been an increase in pesticide use in the United States since the introduction of GM seeds. The most comprehensive independent research done utilizing USDA data demonstrates that since the introduction of GM crops in the United States, more than 120 million pounds of additional pesticides were used. This seems to be a growing trend as well, as the active ingredient in Roundup Ready crops--glyphosate--s becoming less efficient and creating scores of resistant weeds, resulting in increased use.

In 2008 Monsanto's total sales for Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides was more than $4 billion--up 59 percent from 2007. Perhaps more importantly, its gross profit from such sales was nearly 2 billion dollars- up 131% from 2007. So, what is Monsanto conserving more of? Certainly not biodiversity, human health, wildlife, pollinators or the soil, which are all adversely affected by pesticide use.

 The claims of "producing more" that Monsanto touts in the NPR ads are also completely unfounded. Not a single GM crop has been commercially introduced that is intended to increase yield. Agronomists and plant scientists made far greater advances in yields through conventional breeding methods in the 20th century than they ever have with GM crops. In fact, there have been several studies which show that there are actually yield losses associated with Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybeans. What biotech companies have been effective at doing is crafting media messages that persuade the average person to believe that their crops increase yield and that without GM crops we simply couldn't feed the world.

In fact, GM crops account for less than 3% of total agricultural acreage globally. Five countries in North and South America account for more than 90% of total global acreage, with the United States, Argentina and Brazil making up 80% of total global GM crop acreage. In Africa, only two countries-South Africa and Burkina Faso-allow the commercial planting of GM crops, which are minimally grown. Less than 3% of the cropland in India and China is planted with GM crops, and in India most of that is cotton- not food. This leads me to my next point- four cash crops- soy, maize, cotton and canola make up almost 100% of GM crops planted worldwide. Of these commodity crops, most are used to make biofuels, processed foods, animal feed, and vegetable oils-they are not fed directly to people in their whole form. The bottom line? GM crops are not feeding the world, and they are not enabling us to produce more.

 Perhaps the most important consideration for Monsanto's ads on Marketplace is the unethical implications behind their words. They want us to believe their crops are feeding hungry children in Africa and that they are allowing farmers to use fewer chemicals. But their actions demonstrate that their concern lies otherwise- in their profits. In 2008, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) a global group of scientists, NGOs, private sector officials, and country governments initiated by the World Bank and the United Nations released its long awaited report, "Agriculture at a Crossroads". The report painted a grim picture for food security and described the harsh reality of the challenges that agriculture and food systems must overcome to ensure food security in the future. What made the IAASTD report so groundbreaking was its unprecedented questioning of the role of GM crops to aid in food security and environmental improvement. IAASTD authors paraphrased the conclusions of the report in Science stating, "The assessment found GM crops appropriate in some contexts, unpromising in others, and unproven in many more. No conclusive evidence was found that GM crops have so far offered solutions to the broader socioeconomic dilemmas faced by developing countries."

This was certainly not the golden ticket for GM crops that Monsanto hoped for from the IAASTD. So, what did they do? They bailed. The failure of biotech corporations to influence the IAASTD led Monsanto and Syngenta to withdraw from meetings and collaboration just a few months before the final release of their report. According to the journal Nature, which published a story on the issue titled "Deserting the Hungry?", such actions resulted after drafts devoted more space to biotechnology's risk than its benefits and failed to recognize that GM crops produced higher yields. In a year with unprecedented world hunger, Monsanto pulled out of the most comprehensive international attempts to examine the problems and solutions of the situation. And, they made 11 billion dollars the same year, mostly from their Roundup chemicals and biotech seeds-both which they increased in price at the height of a global food crisis. So, producing more and conserving more, or deserting the hungry?

I encourage American Public Media and all other news media services to think about their principles, ethics, and mission statements and consider applying these principles to the ads they are running.

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I learned of a newly popular hobby for the masses thanks to a recent edition of Food Chain Radio podcast: amateur gene tinkerers. It's such an obvious plot for a Michael Crichton book, featuring an innocent experiment wiping the planet's motherboard. Why let corporations and academics in their ivory towers have all the fun? Just join DIYbio and you can access all the info and encouragement you need to extract DNA and poke it WHERE IT DOESN'T BLOODY WELL BELONG without the hassle of safety protocols (why destroy novel organisms in an autoclave when you can just flush them down the toilet and let the river sort 'em out?).

While I appreciated the heads-up on what seems on the surface to be an almost entirely bad idea, I was bewildered that the show's guest list featured only DIY fans: the high school biology-trained coordinator of DIYbio, a fellow tinkerer, and a woman from a gene science company that didn't quibble at all with the idea of creating GMO yogurt in the kitchen. All she wanted to say is 'let's try to be safer about it.'

Michael, where was the person from the Nature Institute or Center for Food Safety to give your listeners a little more context as to why Nintendo or crochet might be a safer outlet for these folks? Or hey, if they're that stoked about biology, how about other citizen science hobbies like birdwatching or wildlife tracking, two low tech and rewarding activities that add to humanity's understanding of the world with the fringe benefits of fresh air and use of cheap, low tech, non-disaster-prone tools.

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GMOs: false promise?km6xoTom Philpott's post on USDA chief Tom Vilsack's comments regarding biotech deserves a bit more attention. Vilsack was speaking at the first ever meeting of the Group of Eight agricultural ministers. I guess we have to consider it progress that the top ag officials from the eight largest industrialized nations finally decided it was worth getting together despite the fact that there's no consensus on what to do about food.

It doesn't help that when Tom Vilsack leaves the country -- the meeting was held in Italy -- he goes from being "Farmer Tom" to "Salesman Tom." His prime responsibility (indeed a fundamental mission of the USDA) is to further the interests of US agriculture. Right now that means two things -- pushing US food and technology exports. It's almost a reflex -- there's no indication of any meaningful thought behind his position. Rather, if you take another of Vilsack's statements in the FT article Philpott linked to -- "[t]his is not just about food security, this is about national security, it is about environmental security" -- at face value, it's entirely at odds with a reliance on GM seeds.  After all, GM seeds are controlled by a handful of companies -- Monsanto, Syngenta and Dow (although Monsanto really is the most dominant player) -- and are wedded to the Three Evil Sisters -- synthetic pesticides, synthetic fertilizers and diesel fuel, which has nothing to do with "environmental security."

But while I'm not willing to overlook Vilsack's presentation of the false choice of GM seeds as key to food security, I would hope that he's serious about bringing what he referred to as "agricultural science" front and center. Because if he does, he'll see that perhaps, at last, the research tide has turned against GM seeds. Most notably the Union of Concerned Scientists just released an analysis of 20 years' worth of scientific research designed to determine the extent to which GM seeds have improved overall crop yields. The answer? Only one GM crop -- Monsanto's RoundUp Ready corn -- has shown ANY yield increase.  And it has managed a mere 3-4% total increase over 13 years.  That's it, folks. No huge jumps in productivity. No magic seeds. Why is this? According to the UCS:

One likely reason is that new yield genes often have much more complex genetic interactions with the plant genetic material than the few currently successful transgenes, and therefore cause more genetic side-effects that often lead to undesirable agricultural properties.

In other words, the heribcide resistant genes (which represent the only true GM success stories) don't cause much in the way of adverse genetic side-effects that might interfere with plant growth. But the genes involved with yield do. So while the industry's ability to manipulate individual genes has increased over time, their ability to control the side effects of their manipulation has not. And there is no indication that this will change. Monsanto, however, will forever sing the siren song of the magic yield-doubling -- or even tripling -- seed to anyone fool enough to listen. But they simply can't deliver.

The UCS report also addresses the question of the whether GM (aka GE) seeds will produce greater benefits in the developing world where yields are generally lower to being with. The signs point to no:

The record so far suggests that GE is unlikely to play a major role in increasing yields in developing countries—especially those with limited public infrastructure—in the foreseeable future. Overall, GE has not had a major impact on yields in developing countries. As with developed countries, there are only a few GE crops, with herbicide-tolerant soybeans being most widely grown (in South America), followed by Bt cotton, primarily in India and China. There are small amounts of Bt maize (corn) in South Africa and a few other countries.

Even Monsanto's own research demonstrates the limits of GM techniques. According to a study they funded, RoundUp Ready crops still require significant investment, careful pest management and applications of multiple kinds of pesticides. Say what? The dark side is supposed to be the quick and easy path. Now it turns out that the stuff doesn't even do what it's supposed to do. That's one seriously naked emperor.

Unlike the US, the UN understands all this, which is why they released a report declaring that organic techniques are ideal for answering the developing world's agricultural needs. In fact, adopting the basic organic techniques of composting, mulching, and crop rotation could double or even quadruple current yields in Africa. Take that, Monsanto!

Of course, organic practices aren't patented.  There are no license fees or expensive supplies. No flying in compost from Iowa or manure from North Carolina. Just education and investment in "human capital." How awfully boring and unsexy. But until US international ag policy focuses on results in the field rather than on the balance sheets of US biotech conglomerates, we'll have to listen to otherwise smart guys like Tom Vilsack parroting their party line.

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Rajiv ShahPresident Obama has named Rajiv Shah, the Gates Foundation's director of agricultural develpopment, as Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics at the USDA.

The Gates Foundation's agriculture efforts have been criticized for ties to Monsanto, the globe's largest seed company and dominant purveyor of genetically modified seed traits. In 2007, the Gates Foundation named Rob Horsch, a long-time Monsanto VP, deputy director of its agricultural development initiative.

I'll have more on this story soon.

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BRUSSELS—The European Commission was foiled Monday in its bid to force France and Greece to allow genetically modified maize from U.S. biotech giant Monsanto to be grown in their fields.

Food chain experts from the E.U. member states, meeting in Brussels, could not reach agreement on whether to back or oppose the French and Greek refusal to allow the maize, which has been given the green light to be grown in Europe.

The standing committee on food chain and animal health “failed to reach a qualified majority in favour or against,” the commission said in a statement.

Nine of the 27 E.U. nations supported the commission call for the ban to be lifted while 16 opposed it or abstained. Germany and Malta did not take part, a source at the meeting said.

Monsanto’s MON810 strain is the only genetically modified crop approved in the European Union but last year France suspended its cultivation, invoking a “safeguard clause.”

Greece used the same legal provision in 2006 and has extended it since then.

The European Food Safety Authority has said the maize is safe and there is no scientific evidence to justify the bans.

Without a solid mandate the European Commission, the E.U.‘s executive arm, will refer the matter to E.U. ministers to decide whether France and Greece should fall into line and allow the GM crop to be sown.

Monica Frassoni,  co-leader of the Green group in the European parliament, urged vigilance against the commission’s attempt to make member states allow GM crops to be grown.

“We must remain vigilant because it is not the first time that the commission has tried to force the hand of those member states that are most resistant to the growing of genetically modified maize,” she said.

“The challenge now is to secure a majority big enough to reject the commission’s proposal.”

Last week,  France’s food watchdog also concluded that the genetically modified Monsanto maize was safe, contradicting an earlier report that led to a ban on the maize.

The earlier expert report had said evidence had emerged that MON810 had an effect on insects, a species of earthworm and micro-organisms.

There was also concern that wind-borne pollen from MON810 could travel much further than previously thought, perhaps as much as hundreds of kilometres.

But the report was controversial: 12 of the 15 scientists who compiled it issued a statement complaining that their findings had been misrepresented.

E.U. environment ministers will on March 2 vote on whether to ask Austria and Hungary to lift a similar GM ban.

Divided over the GMO issue, the European Union in December adopted a series of measures aimed at overcoming their differences and reaching unified decisions.

The member states notably recommended that the EFSA should be Europe’s final arbiter on the safety of GM crops, but with input from national bodies.

They also agreed that decisions should take into account the medium- and long-term environmental impact of any decision, not just the health aspects.

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