Revolution, legend or myth

June 2019

The Legend of the Green Revolution in India

Once upon a time in India, there were too many people and their agriculture was too old-fashioned and burdensome to feed them all.  There was famine in the land, and so many were facing death from starvation that there were fears the people would soon be feeding on each other.

Then came the Green Revolution.  Modern high-yielding wheat and rice which only needed a dab of artificial fertiliser and pesticides to grow just about anywhere.  The foundations of this Revolution lay in crops with short stalks which didn't collapse under the weight of their great big yield.

Thus, a billion lives were saved, Indian peasants were freed from the drudgery of farming, and they all lived happily ever after.

Meta analysis shows how different GM really is

August 2018

Domestic breeding has been a 'powerful evolutionary force' on our food plants, to which the introduction of GM plants has added a whole new dimension. Noting this, a Mexican team of scientists took a look at the extent of the changes now present in conventional and GM crops compared to their wild ancestors.

GM in Mexican maize revisited

February 2018

One of the early embarrassments for the biotech industry was the publication of a study in 2001 which reported GM contamination in Mexican traditionally bred maize varieties (landraces - see Note).

Mexico is the centre of origin of maize and an important reservoir of genetic diversity of the species. To preserve this valuable and irreplaceable resource, the cultivation of GM maize has been banned there since 1998.

The unwelcome finding of contamination was met with a slew of pro-GM publications casting doubt on its validity by criticising its methodology.

The butterfly wake-up call that keeps on calling

April 2014

Monarch butterfly. CC photo by Robert Huffstuttuer on Flickr

America's first ominous wake-up call to the presence of GM in its food chain came in 1999 in the form of a butterfly.

 

The bad news was that 'Bt' insecticide-laden pollen from GM maize dusted onto milkweed killed Monarch caterpillars.

 

Monarchs are gloriously-hued butterflies which migrate huge distances all over America where they have become iconic. To achieve this, they must pause to breed so the next generation can continue the epic journey. The stationary caterpillar stage depends solely on milkweed for sustenance, and their milkweed grows in the same areas as GM crops, such as Bt maize.

 

At the time of this first warning shot, the biotech industry's damage-limitation machinery quickly persuaded regulators that the experimental finding was too divorced from any real-life situation to worry about.

 

Over a decade later, the real-life situation in Mexico where Monarchs over-winter, was that the numbers of the butterflies making it back down South were in decline [1].