COM 0882.009 2006-2008 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

NON-GM BREAKTHROUGHS - 2007 1. INTRODUCTION - GM WATCH Does mention of allergen-free peanuts, striga-resistant cowpeas, salt- resistant wheat, beta-carotin rich sweet potatoes, virus-resistant cassavas make you think of CMOs? If so, you've missed the great unpublished story of 2007 - all the non-GM breakthroughs with precisely the kind of problems (drought- resistance, salt-resistance, biofortfiption etc.) that GM proponents claim only GM can provide the answer to. While GM "miracle" stories win vast amounts of column inches, the non-GM stories generally get minimal if any reporting in the popular media. Without GM's often exaggerated crisis narratives and silver bullet solutions, it seems there is no story! The biotech industry and its PR people are, of course, very keen to keep it that way, particularly because the non-GM solutions are often way ahead of the work on GM. They also bring with them none of the uncertainties that surround GM. All of this makes keeping track of some of the many non-GM success stories especially important. Another reason its important is because - thanks to the lack of success with GM "solutions" - non-GM success stories can end up being claimed as GM breakthroughs!! This happened again recently with the UK Government's retiring Chief Scientist, David King, who claimed an important non-GM breakthrough in Africa as evidence of why we need to embrace GM. The real lesson of the example IGng chose is that we need to do the exact opposite, is stop being distracted by GM and gat the funding and support behind the non-GM solutions to the problems we so badly need to address. So here's some of the good things we came across on the non-GM front in 2007. 2. ORGANIC RESEARCH + ORGANIC FARMING CAN FEED THE WORLD - STUDY Organic fanning can yield up to three tines as much food on individual tam in developing countries, as low-intensive methods on the sane land - according to new firdings which refute the log- standing claim that organic tanning methods cannot produce enough food to feed the global population. "My hope is that we can finally put a nail in the coffin of the idea that you can't produce enough food through organic agriculture," said Ivette Perfecto, professor at University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and Environment, one of the study's principal investigators. htto://www.gmwatch.orq/archive2.aso?arcid=8107 + ORGANIC FARMING COMBATS GLOBAL WARMING... Big time, according to data from the Rodale Institute's long-running comparison of organic and conventional cropping system. Converting the US's corn and soybean acres to organic production would sequester enough carbon to satisfy 73 percent of the Kyoto targets for C02 reduction in the US. htto://www.newfarm.orgldeots/NFfiield tdals/1003/carbonsequest.shtmi + ORGANIC FARMING BEATS NO-TILL Organic farming can built! up soh organic matte better than conventional no-fill lamming, according to a long-term study by US Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists. Organic fanning, despite its emphasis on building organic wetter, was previously thought by some to erdarger $oil because it medics on tillage and cultivation - instead of herbicides - to kill weeds. But Teasdale's study showed that organic