From England's GM Watch web site

Warning on bitter GM Harvest

The points made at the end of the following article by Dr Ian Edwards, a spokesman for the biotech industry lobby group AusBiotech, are totally misleading.

Edward says, "To blame GM crops for weed resistance has no basis in science."

He should try telling that to Stephen Powles, a world-leading expert on weed resistance who directs the Western Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative (WAHRI) at the University of Western Australia. Powles has been warning for years that, "Farmers are planting too many Roundup Ready crops".http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4892Powles was recently quoted as saying, "The massive adoption of Roundup Ready across vast slices of the United States - along with the persistent usage of glyphosate [the active ingredient in Roundup] - is a very strong selection pressure. Increasingly, U.S. weeds are surviving glyphosate. And a weed that can survive glyphosate is in herbicide heaven. Its competitors are killed while it can grow and reproduce. This is slowly but surely, and inexorably, occurring."

Powles' warning of too much reliance on Roundup Ready crops has been echoed by others. Fort Baldwin, the veteran Arkansas weed specialist, says, "Very shortly, I think, the impact of herbicide resistance is going to be huge."http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?

arcid=4892And this problem is not incidental to GM crops. GM herbicide resistant crops constitute about 80% of all the GM crops being grown worldwide with RR traits accounting for the bulk of Monsato's GM seeds.

And when Edwards claims that farmers could always change the type of herbicide they use to avoid problems, this again is misleading. They could only change away from Roundup, for example, by not growing Roundup Ready crops!

And even if farmers resorted to using other chemicals in addition to Roundup in order to keep using Roundup Ready crops, they would end up with increased costs as well as losing the convenience of using a single herbicide - the very thing that attracted many farmers to Roundup Ready crops in the first place.

Edwards also tries to blame farmers themselves for weed resistance, saying it is because farmers misused or over-used the chemicals. But these problems have been arising even where farmers have carefully followed the instructions they have been given, as Larry Steckel, a Tennessee Extension weed scientist, recently noted when Roundup-tolerant Palmer pigweed was found in different parts of west Tennessee:

"To my knowledge, correct, full-label rates were used. I'm very familiar with the farmers involved. They're very good at growing crops and don't cut rates. I'm confident this wasn't human error."http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5818The real root of the problem is that the biotech industry has been hyping GM herbicide resistant crops for all they are worth without alerting farmers to the downside.

Edwards' response to Dr Benbrook is a good example of what happens when someone does draw attention to the problems. Prakash's AgBioView campaign has also been conducting a hate campaign against Dr Benbrook. -
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Warning on bitter GM harvest

By Wendy Frew Environment ReporterSiDecember 6,
2005

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/warning-on-bitter-gm-harvest/2005/12/05/1133631203239.html