> All farming inputs, including genetic
> modification, are aimed at increasing
> yield. What was meant was specific
> genes that increase output have not
> been targeted. Rather, yield is indirectly
> increased by controlling pests, weeds, etc.
But IS yield actually indirectly increased? What's missing is any example
where the yield actually increased in the GE crop over the same non-GE crop.
There had better be a significant yield increase resulting, as the
collateral damage being done by the widespread use of these GE products
includes detectable levels of glyphosate in HONEY:
http://www.producer.com/2017/03/glyphosate-presence-in-honey-raises-concerns
/
http://tinyurl.com/ycp5reok
So, let's consider corn yields:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14735903.2013.806408
http://tinyurl.com/yahlvfu3
Overall yields of GE corn in the United States from 1986 to 2011 were
slightly lower than corn yields over the same period in western Europe,
where GE crops aren't grown at all.
And how about soybeans?
The same study shows no significant difference between the yields of GE corn
and GE soy grown in the United States and the non-GE varieties in western
Europe.
What about cotton? It is not food, but there are GE varieties, and claims
were made of increased yields in India.
http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ifpridp01170.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/yb54qz2t
Increased fertilizer use, improved irrigation and other management
improvements turned out to be the primary source of the rising yields
in India, not the GE traits. The punchline is that the marketing of the GE
product also made farmers aware of non-GE hybrid varieties, and the uptake
of hybrid varieties were responsible for much of the increases in yields.
Between corn, soy, and cotton, we have addressed the overwhelming bulk of GE
crops available today.
What GE crops HAVE done is increase the use of RoundUp, which is where the
profit is in making these GE seeds both ubiquitous and unavoidable. The
SuperWeeds have damped spirits in weed control a bit, not sure what one can
do, except rotate crops and otherwise return to "traditional" tactics.
But the actual yield increases are illusory when one goes looking for hard
data.
There was this:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0111629
http://tinyurl.com/nf4qxhh
But when one includes the same data several times just because the authors
published the results in multiple papers, people call you on that faux pas,
and point out other basic flaws in this sloppily-done "meta-analysis":
http://rightbiotech.tumblr.com/post/103665842150/correlation-is-not-causatio
n
http://tinyurl.com/y7bnybax
I hope that GE crops DO make a difference, and I hope that they do so
without collateral damage. But right now, they offer no advantage at all,
or a dubious one at best, and the collateral damage is that RoundUp has
become a ubiquitous and detectable part of the water supply, with ripple
effects throughout the food chain, INCLUDING HONEY, noted.
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