This is from earlier this month, but worth noting. It also reminded me of comments made by Dr. Stephen Schneider of Stanford University on the role of ag biotech in both adapting crops to the effects of climate change as well as contributing to reducing the impact of emmissions.

From the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO):

Alexander Mueller, Assistant Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), has urged policy makers to include agriculture in negotiations for a new climate change pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol. Speaking at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) taking place in Germany, Mueller noted that while agriculture is contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, farmers will also become victims of climate change. “Rural communities dependent on agriculture, particularly in developing countries, will face risk of increased crop failure and loss of livestock,” said Mueller. Agriculture is responsible for about 14 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and improper land use practices account for another 17 percent.

Mueller stressed the role farmers can play in reducing greenhouse gas emission. By carbon sequestration, the capture and long term storage of carbon in the soil, farmers can help reduce carbon dioxide levels in the air, enhance the soil’s resilience and boost crop yields. Mueller however noted that current global funding arrangements, like the Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol, are inadequate and are not offering sufficient incentives for farmers to get involved in climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Thousands of delegates from public and private institutions are meeting in Bonn, Germany. The meeting is the first of three sessions that will be held to come up with a draft climate change treaty in preparation for a high-level U.N.-backed conference in Copenhagen in December.

Agricultural research firm PG Economics Limited of Dorchester, UK has released an analysis of the Union of Concerned Scientists report “Failure to Yield.” The study concludes “that the UCS report title does not reflect the report findings. Fundamentally, the UCS report confirms that GM crop technology has improved crop yields and productivity in the US.”

The PG Economics report states: “The headline to the release also says ‘failure to yield’, yet the detailed content of the report shows the opposite and subsequently acknowledges that GM insect resistant corn has increased (operational) yields in the US.”

The report also provides “The Real Impact of GM Crop Technology:”

Peer reviewed research in scientific journals consistently shows that GM crop technology has delivered substantial economic and environmental advantages. In the first eleven years of commercial use (1996-2006), incomes of the 10.25 million farmers using the technology increased by over $33.8 billion and pesticide use is 7.8% lower (a savings of 286 million kg of active ingredient) than it would otherwise have been if this technology had not been used. The reductions in the use of insecticides and herbicides, coupled with a switch to more environmentally benign herbicides, have delivered significant net environmental gains. Important savings in carbon dioxide emissions were also made, equivalent to removing over 6.5 million cars from the roads in 2006.

On Wednesday, former Senator/Democratic presidential nominee/Recipient of the 2008 World Food Prize George McGovern wrote in Politico about the connection between investment in food production in developing countries and their economic success:

“With 80 percent of the world’s poor — most of whom are women — living in rural areas, consider …the enormous ramifications of investing U.S. assistance directly in agricultural productivity. This bolsters domestic food production and security in developing nations, equipping them to feed their own citizens by making investments throughout the entire agricultural value chain, including in seeds, fertilizers, soil health, agriculture technology and basic infrastructure, like roads, water systems and irrigation. It also involves land and policy reforms, agricultural education and training, and greater access to markets, as well as finance and credit for agricultural producers and better food distribution practices.”

In his book “The Third Freedom: Ending Hunger in Our Time,” Senator McGovern wrote:

“It is probably true that affluent countries can afford to reject scientific agriculture and pay more for food produced by so-called natural methods. But the 800 million poor, chronically hungry people of Asia, Africa and Latin America cannot afford such foods.”

Different views, but similar reaction to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) report “Failure to Yield:”

Georgia farmer Jimmy Webb wrote, “We started growing BT cotton seed in 1996 and at first our yields dropped but have risen since then and we are at our highest average ever with cotton. I think it is a combination of the breeding and genetics. No one ever brings up the benefit this has on our environment.  We have also decreased our insecticide applications down from 10-12 per year to 1-2 per year. ”

And from Dr. Wayne Parrott, Professor in the Department of Crop & Soil Sciences at the University of Georgia , “The report is at odds with the results from the experience of farmers around the world. At the very least, the current biotech crops are preventing yield losses to pests. In the end, it is not just about yield- it is about the ability to practice no-till farming (thus saving fossil fuels and preventing soil erosion); it is about the ability to use less insecticides, it is about the ability to make farming easier and more profitable and sustainable. So even if there were no yield advantage, there are plenty of other reasons to use biotech crops.”

Sharon Bomer Lauritsen, Executive Vice President, Food and Agriculture for BIO was quite clear, “Biotech crops help to provide for more sustainable agricultural production.  The benefits include a reduction in the environmental impacts of agriculture, increased production on the same amount of acreage, improved food quality, and increased farmer incomes.”

Dr. Wayne Parrott

Dr. Wayne Parrott is a Professor in the Department of Crop & Soil Sciences at the University of Georgia in Athens. He teaches plant genetics courses at the University as well as a course that focuses on agricultural sustainability. He also runs a laboratory research program which uses biotechnology to improve crops.

Tell us about your work.
My work centers on developing methods to genetically engineer crops and then to use these crops effectively.

We work on several projects related to soybeans. The one we have been working on the longest is insect resistance, trying to combine both biotech and traditional approaches to come up with insect resistance that is effective, durable and economical. We have started working on nematode resistance. Nematodes are very difficult to control with traditional methods. We are also trying to develop a specialty soybean for use by certain industries such as the poultry or the aquaculture industry.

Additional work is aimed at getting alfalfa to grow on a broader range of soils, and trying to make switchgrass more amenable as a source of cellulosic bioethanol.

You will be on the panel “Plant Biotechnology’s Role in Advancing Sustainable Development.” What is plant biotechnology’s role in advancing sustainable development?
The role that agricultural biotechnology has played in advancing sustainability is unfortunately a very well kept secret.

One of the exciting things about the advent of the biotech crops in the past 10 years is that they have really changed farming practices. Things that were environmentally unfriendly and unsustainable such as plowing are going out the window. If you don’t have to plow as much, you don’t have to burn as much fossil fuel, you don’t produce as many greenhouse gases; your soil won’t erode with rainfall which means you don’t clog up canals, streams and rivers with sediment.

Agriculture biotechnology also means we have been able to eliminate older chemical herbicides classes and replace them with more environmental friendly types. In terms of insecticides we have been able to really cut down on the number of insecticides used, which means we are able to increase the availability of beneficial insects and desirable organisms in the crop fields.

Biotech will be very important in the future as well. In the year 2000 there was about 5 and a half acres that could be used to feed every person on the planet. By the year 2020, when there is projected to be 7 billion people, there will be only 4 and a half acres available to feed every person alive.

In other words, in order to feed the world’s population in the year 2020 we will have to increase production per acre by 40 percent relative to what it was in the year 2000. And we have to do it without cutting down forests and expanding into environmentally sensitive areas, without using more resources such as fuel and water, and while reducing the use of insecticides and fertilizer.

A year ago reports began to appear of the global food crisis. Where are we now?
We are still waiting with bated breath for the next harvest to fail. What brought the last global food crisis on was that there were droughts in a couple of key areas of the world. The droughts demonstrated that in this day-and-age, all that it takes is for one part of the world to have a bad growing season and the rest of the world then faces a food shortage.

The goal of agricultural biotech is to stabilize yield. We have generations of crops coming up that are more drought-tolerant, and stress tolerant in general, so if there is a bad growing season somewhere in the world, the impact on the world food situation should not be as drastic as it was last year.

What would surprise most people about agricultural biotechnology?
There are a lot of groups that position themselves as environmentalists and that oppose genetically modified crops. But, the people who oppose genetically modified crops and those developing genetically modified crops have the same goals in mind, which include: achieving sustainability, promoting the long-term environmental benefits of reducing the use of resources such as fossil fuels and water, securing economic prosperity for agricultural communities, and reducing our environmental footprint. We just differ on the way to achieve these goals. We have 13 years of data from about 25 countries in the world that demonstrate that ag biotech crops are much more environmentally friendly compared to what was done in the past and support the continued use and development of genetically modified crops.