"Farmers in South Africa have suffered millions of dollars in lost income due to the failure of their genetically modified (GMO) corn to produce kernels. The three varieties of plants look lush and healthy from the outside, but when the husks were pulled back there are no kernels. Monsanto's GMO corn was planted on 82,000 hectares of farmland, an amount that equals over 202,000 acres. The loss is spread over three South African provinces, and 280 of the 1,000 farmers who planted the corn have reported the lack of kernel development.
Monsanto has blamed the failure on under fertilization processes in the laboratory and attempted to make light of the situation by claiming that only 25% of the Monsanto seeded farms are involved in the loss. But Marian Mayet, environmental activist and director of the Africa Centre for Biosecurity in Johannesburg is not buying it. According to her information, some farms have suffered up to an 80% crop failure. She has demanded an urgent government investigation and an immediate ban on all GMO food. She points out that it is biotechnology that is the failure, and a careless mistake would not affect three different varieties of corn at the same time. The varieties failing to produce kernels were designed with a built-in resistance to Monsanto's weed killers, and were manipulated to increase yields."
http://www.naturalnews.com/025992.html
"While Big Agriculture has touted that GMO crops will save the world, the report says they are largely failing to do so. GE (Genetically Engineered) soybeans have not increased yields, and GE corn has only marginally increased yields. While corn and soybean yields have risen substantially over the last 15 years overall; that hasn't been the result of GE traits, but due to traditional selective breeding or improvement of other agricultural practices.
The report says that organic and other methods that use reduced amounts of fertilizer and pesticides compared to typical industrial crop production generally produce yields comparable to those of conventional methods for growing corn or soybeans.
Non-transgenic soybeans in recent low-external-input experiments produced yields 13 percent higher than for GE soybeans.
So why does Big Agriculture continue to push the GMO envelope if this is the case? It's all about control - these companies through their tinkering own the species they create - they are patented."
http://www.greenlivingtips.com/blogs/428/GMO-crop-failure.html
There are GOOD things about modern farming and there are BAD things. We didn't have to throw out the old just because it was old. Nor is it smart to do something new just for the sake of newness. Different methods give different results and have different unintended consequences. The less diverse the growing methods and the type of seeds, the more chance one thing can wipe out a whole crop. What works in one place isn't always going to work somewhere else. Monoculture is dangerous even if you aren't talking about GMO.
