US farmers attack "myths" surrounding GM crops
Date: 17-Sep-02
Country: UK
Author: Veronica Brown
"Various pressure groups and some media are hoodwinking the public by making unsubstantiated assertions about U.S. farmers' adoption of biotechnology," said American Soybean Association technical director Kimball Nill.
The report, entitled "Let the facts speak for themselves," attacks a number of statements made about GM-crops, including the belief that widespread growing of GM herbicide-tolerant crops has harmed the environment.
"Far from causing harm, herbicide tolerant crops have transformed much of U.S. agriculture by reducing the need to plough the land," it said.
Thanks to nil, or minimal ploughing, soil erosion is minimised and less carbon escapes from the soil to contribute to global warming gases in the atmosphere, the report added.
Public opinion in Europe is wary of gene-altered crops after a string of unrelated food safety scares, including mad cow disease, and there is a three-year de facto ban in place on approvals of new GM varieties.
Trust in biotechnology companies also took a battering recently with the disclosure of small impurities in field trials for oilseed rape, which threatened to derail the British government's three-year test programme on the environmental impact of such crops.
The seed blunder also prompted UK environment minister Michael Meacher to break with the government's broadly GM-sympathetic government line, saying that the country was being pressured by the United States to allow commercial planting of gene-spliced crops.
Nill said that while he was aware of the debate in Europe about adopting biotechnology, myths and misinformation were fuelling much of the discussion.
British farmers hosting the launch of the report, which is backed by nine U.S. groups, said that all sides of the GM argument needed to be heard.
"Momentum for biotech crops has become unstoppable - at least globally, where does this leave the UK in particular and the EU in general?" said Henry Fell, Chairman of the UK's Commercial Farmers' Group.
"The truth is, we are being left behind. Investment in science and biotechnology is being cut, he said.
"We must learn from what is happening in the rest of the world and benefit from their experience and advances in technology."