GM crops in FST: Rodale researchers outline new crop mix in their long-term trial

Are there any preliminary results from teh 2008 growing season?

I'm curious which GE traits you are using in your trial. Are you using herbicide tolerant corn and soybeans or BT corn? If you are using BT corn, are you in an area that has significant problems with European Corn Borer, enough so that it would be economically justified to plant a BT variety? Do you use an equivalent hybrid variety of corn for the organic treatment? When you fertilize the conventional and organic systems do you apply equivalent amounts of N, P, K, or does the conventional system get the recommended amounts in synthetic fertilizers (e.g. 150 units of nitrogen), while the organic system gets whatever nutrients are available that season from cover crops or added compost? Have you ever grown the herbicide tolerant corn and soybean varieties using otherwise no-till organic farming practices? Or grown the BT corn varieties using organic farming practices? Could these be treatments in your experiments? Thanks. Rod

Watch this video:

articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/11/06/the-real-reasons-you-want-to-avoid-genetically-modified-foods.aspx

I am very disappointed that rodale has chosen to include crops that effect the consumer's immune system. I will be looking to Acres, Biodynamic and other resouces in the future.Mixing organic and GM crops in the same areas severly affects the quality of the organic products. Shame on you.

To Anonymous, I would resectfully disagree with your idea of a con. The goal of food is to sustain health *of the population*. Without an increase in the amount of food produced and realistically compared in all farming methods, how can you say you are sustainable if you aren't able to feed the entire population. There might need to be an understanding of all aspects of food everyone eats.

Astonishing! Rodale testing GM crops! But after mulling the concept over, I applaud you.
I haven't much trust in the "scientific research" that shows GM yields better, is "substantially equivalent", is safe, uses less pesticides, etc... Virtually all of these factoids are researched and reported only by the makers of GM seeds.
There is plenty of spin and years of misinformation pervading agriculture and most U.S. farmers believe it all.
Flavor, nutrition, yield and carbon sequestering have all been proven to be higher in organic production in recent years. Yet the old, often biased evidence is still dug up and circulated as truth.
If anyone can (and is willing to) factually and safely make a comparison, and to report factual results, I would trust The Rodale Institute.

I have no comment but rather, 2 questions.

1.How many generations comprise a valid test- 1, 2, 10, 20, 50?

2. How do you plan to test for flavor, nutritional values, etc., especially since these values can change under the many variables involved in growing crops. For instance, in some years when the season is favorable, tomatoes can taste great. In a cold, wet, season, they taste like crap. Sweet corn (actually, most crops) is another sensitive to the weather. As a local grower, taste and presumed nutritional values are of primary concern to buyers. Those are main reasons for buying locally. Consequently, our growing strategies try address these interlaced ambiguities. Will yours?

Your work is important, especially if it has integrity. Thanks.

Where is the test to see what gm crops actually do to people who are eating them? We are all guinea pigs because no one has made a test to see if there are reactions to eating GM crops. Why are there so many more diseases or health problems now with GM crops in all the stores than there were when we only had organic or semi organic production?

Well most industrial agriculture is grown on land that is used and abused in many ways, from many different types and quantities of chemicals (farmers in the Roundup Ready System are having to apply more toxic chemicals due to glyphosate resistance building in weeds), to a relentless annual monoculture, etc.

However, you indicated above that "the field is not certified organic, even though two-thirds of it is farmed organically". That being the case, how then can this be a true comparison to industrial GM acres? For one thing the soil is probably not depleted of nutrients as in industrial agriculture (thus conventional's tasteless produce).

Another aspect of GM that should also be studied is whether any gene fragments of the GM plant(s) migrate or transfer in any way into any other organisms.
Remember that it has already been shown that, at times, GM vegetable crop genes have been found incorporated within the genome of the microorganisms that reside within the gut of the honeybee that fed on that crop. I think you should not only look at this in your setting, but look further to see if any GM genes migrate yet another step, i.e., into the genome of the cells lining the gut of the bee itself.
Further work should be done to examine the molecular logistics of the viral promoter genes, in order to determine the stability and "longevity" of these gene sequences, and to discover how often they can recombine with other genes or gene segments to become new lifeforms or new viruses.
Much work to be done.

OK, I do see the value in including GMO crops in a controlled way in comparison studies, so that seems fine on a simple level.

I'm just really concerned about the known detrimental effects of GMO crops on the locally available beneficial insects, which are vital to organic crops. How can you control for the impact of this on your non-GMO crops? There also should be concern about the effects of GMO crops on soil organisms, local water, local pollinators (such as bees), the available pollen for your seeds, and who knows what else? Are you able to control this range of effects? It's all very complex and possibly interconnected. It seems likely that having GMO crops in the area may well have negative effects on non-GMO crops. Is there any way to study this?

Thanks for all the work you do!

I assume you intend to test these crops as to the nutritional value, and the presence or absence of toxic substances, both from chemical contamination and negative nutritional substances as a result of genetic engineering. I'd be particularly interested in knowing if the modified genetic material, previously not part of the food supply, can produce genetic changes in the consumer, or is likely to produce immune system responses (allergic reactions), being a previously nonexistent living substance. Their effect on babies and children would be interesting to note, since these products are being tested on an unknowing and unsuspecting population.

If you could, through your research, challenge the assumption of 'substantial equivalence', that would be a step toward some kind of control of these crops, or at least a recognition that they are not natural, and should be labeled as such.

Thanks for your efforts, and I look forward to learning of the results.

I'm glad to see the inclusion of GMO crops. The people who support GMO need to see some evidence that organic can do better than GMO. Great on Rodale for doing this.

THE ESSENCE OF THE CON IS ITS COMPLEXITY.....THE GOAL OF FOOD IS TO SUSTAIN HEALTH NOT PRODUCTIVITY. JJ

I think it's important that respected research institutions like Rodale take on the challenge of comparing GM products and conventional farming practices against naturally hybridized seed and the newest organic cropping methodologies. We need to support non-corporate scientific research even though that research may result in findings contrary to the farming ethic I support.

The problem - as I see it - is that these trials don't take address the real world needs of millions facing a global food crisis. They are trials that ultimately serve the industrial agricultural model rather than the needs of those of small communities who are grappling with the day-to-day need for access to reliable, renewable seed that will provide local food in the face of falling commodity prices for their market crops.

I just have to think that where we in the West have both the agricultural research financing and the global awareness of the need to support sustainable local small farm development, that it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to be doing GM trials.

Thanks for the opportunity to comment.

Scientifically it is important to compare GM crop production with both Conventional and Organic crop production.

However, GM agriculture is simply a more chemically dependent form of Conventional agriculture. GM crop production is still based on chemical agriculture; monoculture; long term soil depletion and related loss of nutrient value in the food produced; loss of climatically adapted crop varieties and increased environmental costs due to long distance shipping; and ever stronger control of the worlds' food supply by transnational corporations. These environmental, social and economic costs must be incorporated into any comparitive analysis.

Wherever possible, all decisions should be based on fact.
I congratulate the Rodale Institute on its actions to gather facts on GM crops.
I share its view of being against GM, but I don't know why, and I can't argue the case. There is so much biased information available I choose to ignore it all.
I trust the Institute to provide the world with good data.
Bob Guthrie
Violet Hill, Australia.

I am not a farmer and do not have a profound understanding of agriculture. However, as a psychologist I have some understanding of research and its design. If you are comparing two variables (conventional and organic agriculture) to make meaningful assumptions regarding the results, each representative of a variable must be true to its definition. I have no doubt that your farming practices will accurately reflect "organic farming". On the other hand, is it not a distortion of "conventional farming" to arrange timing of GM crops other than when a conventional farmer would plant? Perhaps the earlier planting of GM crops is a "conventional farming" practice and my ignorance is showing. In any case, I believe your work is invaluable and I appreciate what you are doing.

Thank you for taking the time to research and study GMO crops.
I personally don't believe or agree with them but I realize that to prove that they are inferior to organically raised crops we must have an equal testing ground. With your institutes years of recognized study on agriculture I can think of no better "agency" to do this. And not matter what you find...I will at least feel that it came with integrity and honesty.
I can completely understand why people would not believe being told GMO doesn't do as well if it is told to them by someone consistently pushing organics. I myself do not believe chemical agriculture just because they tell me to. Proof is in th e pudding they say.....so thanks Rodale for making pudding. Hopefully, you can smoosh them in the dirt!

Monica & Byron DeLoach
Chickamauga, Georgia
30707

Thank you for taking the time to explain the need for comparability in the scientific process. I understand that we cannot assert that organic is as good or better, especially on larger scales, without trials that adequately compare the two. I am curious if the inclusion of GM crops, with the precautions mentioned in place, might also allow research into how organic farmers might be able to protect themselves from GM contamination they don't control. I'll admit, at first blush I'm a bit skeptical of the efficacy of the protection; but I would consider success at it a wonderful tool for developing methodologies that concerned local farmers can employ.

Thanks for the explanation. Your research will be taken most seriously when organic alternatives are compared to the best of conventional agriculture. Unfortunately in the world of corn and soybeans, the best conventional varieties are essentailly all GM at this point, since the seed companies have moved GE-traits into a very large portion of their breeding stock.

Your decision will likely have a silver lining, since evidence continues to suggest that both GM corn and GM soybeans are experiencing a yield drag of 5% to 15%, and higher in dry years.

Keep up the great work, and thanks for developing the great new website and newsletter.

Congratulations on your decision to include GM crop trials. I personally believe that GM is the right answer to the wrong questions, but agriculture won't be helped by Rodale, which asking the right questions, ignoring GM. It just may happen that GM is beneficial to organic agriculture, in which case ignoring it because of an ideological position would be to unnecessarily disadvantage the planet.
However, it's hard to see how some tinkering in the lab will improve on a few million years of evolution - or that messing around with genes and releasing them into nature won't result in disaster, somewhere.
I'll be following those trials with interest. There's too much polarised thinking in agriculture, and it's good to see a research effort that has a broader view.

Matt