Pesticide Potpourri
- After acquisition of Delta and Pine Land (D&PL), Monsanto stated that Monsanto's business in the South will be known as Delta and Pine Land, but the letterhead on bills to buyers will say “Monsanto.” That and faster delivery of new varieties will be the only changes for cotton growers in the South who are concerned about how the long-anticipated merger will impact their farms. The final score, as outline by the U.S. Department of Justice in the agreement announced May 31 was:
- Bayer CropScience bought Stoneville Pedigreed Seed Co. and a batch of Delta and Pine Land Co. germplasm, including Delta Pearl, the background variety to DP 555.
- Americot Inc. bought NexGen and a germplasm base held by D&PL that was once owned by Syngenta.
- Syngenta held onto its VIP technology trait.
- Dupont, which owns Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc., held on to the GAT technology trait.
- Monsanto now allows third-party traits stacked on Bollgard and/or Roundup Ready. (California Farmer, 6/20/07).
- Ingo Potrykus, Emeritus Professor of Plant Sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, was cited as saying that perceived risks, extreme precautionary regulations and hypothetical risks from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and poor public sector funding are delaying the development of “golden rice” into a commercial reality. Potrykus says in an article to be published in a World Bank report that though he, along with his co-founder, Peter Beyer, had donated the golden rice for development and cultivation in the developing countries, no significant progress has been made in its adoption or commercial cultivation because of these factors. Golden rice is a strain genetically modified to include a vitamin-A precursor designed to reduce the ravages of blindness among many people in poor countries. Since the golden rice prototype was developed in 1999, new lines with higher beta carotene content have been generated. The goal is to be capable of providing the recommended daily allowance of vitamin-A in the form of beta-carotene in 100-200 g of rice, the amount of daily rice consumption of children in rice consuming counties like India, Vietnam, and Bangladesh. In other countries golden rice could still be available as a complement to children's diets, thus contributing to the reduction of clinical and sub clinical vitamin-A deficiency. According to Professor Potrykus, though there is no scientific justification, “perceived risks” are a major barrier. He says that “after 25 years of biosafety research and regulation there is a wealth of clear scientific evidence as well as a scientific consensus that there is no inherent and specific risk associated with the technology. If someone claims the contrary, either he/she does not know the scientific literature or is lying. But I agree that there is the perception of risk which has to be accepted as a psychological fact. It should be up to governments to inform their people about what is right and what is wrong.” However, the cause for the slow progress, the professor says, “is the system of extreme precautionary regulation” established around the world. (Financial Express, 6/18/07).
- In the U.K., McDonalds announced that all the milk used in the teas and coffees it sells in 1,200 outlets will come from organic British cows by the end of next month. It already sells organic milk in its children’s Happy Meals, but the new move will make McDonalds one of the biggest buyers of organic milk in the country. Many farmers stopped producing organic milk after they failed to make enough money and last year some of the leading supermarket chains admitted they had to ship in supplies from overseas to meet demand. Despite the association of organic milk with many middle-class shoppers, it equates for just six percent of all the milk sold in the U.K. (The Telegraph, 6/28/07).
- U.S. farmers planted 92.9 million acres of corn in 2007, exceeding last year’s planted area by 19 percent and surpassing the March projection by 3 percent, according to
the Acreage report released by the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. The actual planted acreage is the highest since 1944, when farmers planted 95.5 million corn acres. Driven by favorable prices, growing ethanol demand and strong export sales, farmers in nearly all states increased their corn acreage. They set state records in Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and North Dakota, while Iowa continued to lead all states in total corn acres. The increase in corn is offset mainly by fewer acres of soybeans in the Corn Belt and Great Plains, and fewer acres of cotton in the Delta and Southeast. (Biofuel Review, 7/4/07).
- Organic farming can build up soil organic matter better than conventional no-till farming, according to a long-term study by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists. Researchers made this discovery during a nine-year study at the Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. Plant physiologist John Teasdale, with the ARS Sustainable Agricultural Systems Laboratory in Beltsville, was surprised to find that organic farming was a better soil builder than no-till. No-till has always been thought to be the best soil builder because it eliminates plowing and minimizes even light tillage to avoid damaging organic matter and exposing the soil to erosion. Organic farming, despite its emphasis on building organic matter, was thought to actually endanger soil because it relies on tillage and cultivation - instead of herbicides - to kill weeds. But Teasdale's study showed that organic farming's addition of organic matter in manure and cover crops more than offset losses from tillage. From 1994 to 2002, Teasdale compared light-tillage organic corn, soybean and wheat with the same crops grown with no-till plus pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. In a follow-up three-year study, Teasdale grew corn with no-till practices on all plots to see which ones had the most-productive soils. He found that the organic plots had more carbon and nitrogen and yielded 18 percent more corn than the other plots did. (USDA ARS, 7/10/07).
