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Jason Stein Wisconsin State Journal
Biotech crops like corn and soybeans cut pesticide use and boosted farmers' earnings in Wisconsin and around the country, a study released Wednesday found.
The National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy in Washington, D.C., found that in 2003 the use of genetically modified crops cut pesticide and herbicide use in Wisconsin by 1.1 million pounds, up from 747,000 pounds in 2001, and added $14.5 million to state farmers' pockets, up from a $11.2 million boost in 2001.
Click for full 852 kb ".pdf" of the study
Farmers around the country cut chemical use by 46 million pounds, a slight rise from 2001, and increased their income by $1.9 billion, up from a $1.5 billion increase in 2001, the report found. The controversial issue of biotech crops is of growing significance, with their use on the rise in Wisconsin and nationwide.
"This new technology has revolutionized agriculture and is creating widespread economic and environmental benefits," the study's lead author Sujatha Sankula said in a statement.
But local growers and experts said biotech crops, while reducing chemical use and showing strong potential, didn't always improve farmers' bottom line. Local environmentalists also criticized the crops as just another element of industrial agriculture, raising questions about the risks such crops pose for the environment and consumers.
Fitchburg farmer Pat O'Brien has planted biotech soybeans for two years in a row. The plants, genetically engineered to resist the herbicide Roundup, are easy to work with and save on chemical spraying, O'Brien said.
But the grower said he wasn't sure if the biotech soybeans saved him as much as they cost in added fees, and for that same reason he decided not to try out a recently released corn variety genetically modified to fight the corn rootworm pest.
"When it came down to looking at the cost of that seed we decided not to go with it," O'Brien said.
David Fischer, a Dane County crops and soils agent with UW-Extension, said the cost of the added fee for biotech soybean seed rose this year, from around $13 an acre to around $17 an acre.
Sankula said overall savings from biotech crops were growing for Wisconsin farmers in spite of the added fees, mainly because more farmers were adopting the technology.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that 82 percent of the state's soybean fields were planted with biotech varieties this year, up from 63 percent in 2001. Thirty-eight percent of corn fields had biotech varieties this year, up from 18 percent in 2001.
Brett Hulsey, the Sierra Club's senior Midwest representative, argued that trend was bad for farmers and consumers.
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Governor bucks GOP to endorse bond to fund research
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's stem-cell proposal puts him at odds with the White House.
SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has endorsed a $3 billion bond measure that would fund human embryonic stem cell research, a move that bucks Republican leaders and threatens to further strain the state's budget.
"California has always been a pioneer," Schwarzenegger said Monday. "We daringly led the way for the high-tech industry and now voters can help ensure we lead the way for the biotech industry."
The endorsement of the stem cell research measure comes at some political risk for the governor, who campaigned against California going deeper into debt when he unseated Gray Davis as governor in last year's recall election.
The endorsement also will put Schwarzenegger at odds with the state Republican Party, which officially opposes Proposition 71, and perhaps the Bush administration, which has limited federal funding of the research.
"It's a surprise given the economic challenges facing the state," said Jack Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College who is voting against the measure.
"Social conservatives might be unhappy, too, but he was never their favorite anyway."
Schwarzenegger has said he supports stem cell research.
His father-in-law, Sargent Shriver, is in the early grips of Alzheimer's disease, which supporters of the measure say could someday be treated with stem cells.
If the measure is passed, it would provide California researchers with nearly $300 million annually for 10 years but cost a total of $6 billion to pay back.
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Les Chappell
Print this article • E-mail this article • Add a comment Wisconsin’s head start in stem-cell research could be challenged by the intervention of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In opposition to the policies of the Bush administration, whose campaign he supports, Schwarzenegger announced on Monday that he will be giving his support to Proposition 71, a California initiative on the November 2 ballot. This measure would authorize in California the sale of $3 billion in bonds, and lay the framework for the creation of a state institute which would supply embryonic-stem-cell researchers with grants.
Stem cells are cells without specific purposes that can transform into other parts of the human body, helping to rebuild damaged systems. They are thought to hold the potential for curing degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Federal research funding has been limited because of ethical concerns over the fact that a main source for the cells is human embryos from fertility clinics. Stem cells taken from adults have not shown the same potential.
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BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Twenty-three tigers have died from bird flu at a private zoo in Thailand after being fed the carcasses of chickens infected with the disease, a government official said Tuesday.
The tigers had been dying at the Sriracha Tiger Zoo in central Chonburi province since September 14, and the animal park was forced to close its doors to the public while authorities investigated, said Charal Trinvuthipong, director of the Bird Flu Prevention and Elimination Center.
"We've discovered that all 23 dead tigers had bird flu," he said. "We've found that another 30 tigers are sick.
We believe that the tigers contracted bird flu because they ate chicken carcasses, and we believe the carcasses had bird flu."
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By Megan Lindow
CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- Most people probably wouldn't associate the leafy green tobacco plant with saving lives. But to Dr. Blessed Okole, the maligned cash crop is a potential gold mine of affordable medicine and vaccines for the overlooked diseases afflicting the developing world.
In the laboratories of the Council for Science and Industrial Research, or CSIR, South African researchers are honing techniques for turning genetically engineered tobacco and other crops into factories for producing drugs for HIV and tuberculosis. With a bit of genetic engineering, Okole says, plants' cellular machinery can be tweaked to produce antibodies on a large scale and far more cheaply than conventional drug-manufacturing methods allow.
"We feel it is going to be cheaper to produce the drugs in plants, and also easier for local communities in Africa to have access to them," says Okole, who is business area manager of the CSIR's plant biotechnology group.
This practice, called "pharming," could dramatically boost the availability of drugs in the developing world, Okole says. This is the stated aim of the Pharma-Planta Consortium, a European research group and CSIR partner. Launched in July with 12 million euros in funding from the European Union, the project hopes to produce plant-derived drugs ready for clinical trial within five years.
Scientists with CSIR are already working to produce in plants two antibodies that scientists have found -- one that neutralizes HIV, the other tuberculosis.
he first product -- which will probably be grown in maize plants -- is likely to be a cream containing antibodies to HIV, which could be used to help prevent transmission of the virus during sex. But the technology is still highly experimental.
The first field trials are still several years away, Okole says.
Nevertheless, proponents of pharming are touting the technology as the latest genetically modified form of salvation for Africa. Around 3.3 million people die each year from diseases for which vaccines are available. But the high cost of producing vaccines -- roughly $100 million to get to the clinical trial stage -- is often a barrier to new research on diseases that primarily affect the poor.
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Ballot measures in four counties would ban genetically modified agricultural products -- 'Frankenfood' to foes.
By Eric Bailey, Times Staff Writer
GRIDLEY, Calif. — Like gigantic lawnmowers, three agricultural combines cut the final swaths through Ryan Schohr's rice fields the other day. The harvest was complete. It was time to take a breath and set aside perennial concerns over pests and weeds and weather.
But as the Nov. 2 election approaches, folks in Butte County's sprawling farm industry are fretting over a ballot measure that aims to ban genetically modified crops in this corner of the California breadbasket.
Butte is one of four counties — Marin, Humboldt and San Luis Obispo are the others — trying to follow Mendocino County, which in March approved the nation's first ban on cultivation of bioengineered crops.
The electoral assault — dubbed Measure D in Butte — worries farmers like Schohr.
Never mind that nothing he plants is genetically engineered. Never mind that Butte County has virtually no crops borne of DNA spliced in the biotechnology lab. His worries are long term — about staying competitive, about being shut out of agriculture's next big thing, whenever it rolls down the gravelly farm roads.
"There's benefits on the horizon from biotech," Schohr said, peering out of his mud-splattered pickup truck. "We don't want to be excluded."
A different sort of future worries bioengineering foes.
They say genetically engineered food could harm the environment and blow on the winds to contaminate organic crops. As for the potential health impacts, nothing short of the fate of the world's food supply is at stake, they contend.
"Without their consent, consumers are being forced to participate in the largest uncontrolled biological experiment in the history of humankind," said Scott Wolf, a leader of Citizens for a GE-Free Butte.
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