National Geographic gets it spectacularly wrong on GM

http://gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2015-articles/16155-national-geographic-gets-it-spectacularly-wrong-on-gm

Reporter Jeremy Berlin and pro-GMO scientist Pam Ronald used the example of a non-GM rice variety to argue that GM is necessary to feed the world. Claire Robinson reports

On 4 May National Geographic published an article by Jeremy Berlin that featured pro-GMO scientist Pam Ronald talking about submergence-tolerant (flood-tolerant) rice. Ronald and her team have developed a variety of such rice called Sub1.

The article eulogized both Ronald and GM, using Ronald’s marriage to an organic farmer to suggest that only a combination of GM and organic farming will feed the world: “Only by combining elements of each, she contends, will we have a chance of feeding the world’s swelling population (expected to reach 9.2 billion by 2050) while also protecting the planet’s natural resources and countenancing the effects of climate change.”

The article was enthusiastically subtitled, “Pamela Ronald isolates genes in rice that feeds millions. Her integrative approach to agriculture could be an even bigger game-changer.” 

The reader would have come away with the message that while organic farming has worthwhile contributions to make, it can only succeed in feeding the world if GM is also used.

One big problem with this message is that the example promoted in the article, of submergence-tolerant rice, is not GM but the product of conventional breeding.

Is Genetically Engineered Food A Fraud?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/150422-genetically-modified-food-agriculture-health-ngbooktalk/#.VTiDUZKUHsM.twitter

Naylor responds to Foley's article in the National Geographic

National Geographic's 'Five Steps' Won't Feed The World: An Iowa Farmer's View

By George Naylor

The brief article, "A Five-Step Plan to Feed the World" offered by Professor Jonathan Foley in the latest National Geographic magazine, clearly states the stark features of a global society on the brink of overshooting the capacity of the ecosphere. I highly commend Professor Foley and his colleagues for being honest about the depth of the crisis because in the general media, and especially the farm media, one wouldn't know that anyone should be alarmed at all. Here in Iowa where the landscape is plastered with millions of acres of genetically modified corn and soybeans along with their poisonous herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and fertilizers polluting our lakes and rivers, our institutions deny that Silent Spring has arrived, let alone that anything needs to change. In fact, politicians and educators of every stripe bow to the god of Norman Borlaug, mesmerized by the World Food Prize mantra that we must feed the world using whatever new technology the chemical giants offer to deal with new problems turning up every day. Alarmingly, looking at the title of Foley's article, we see the same mantra!

TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-naylor/national-geographics-five_b_5290883.html