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Report Stirs Debate Over GMO Benefits

A discarded bag of GMO seed corn displays a marketing slogan "technology that yields."

 The Scoop



An investigative article in The New York Times found that genetic modification for crop grown in the U.S. and Canada has failed to reap the bounty that seed companies promised to deliver.

The report compared two decades of crop data from North America and Europe, which has rejected GMO methods.

The article said the amount of food produced per acre has been about the same on both continents, but herbicide use has increased in the U.S. by 21 percent while use of those chemicals dropped by 36 percent in France, where GMO crops are banned.

In the U.S., use of insecticides and fungicides dropped by 33 percent, compared to a drop of 65 percent in France, Europe's biggest producer.

The article was based largely on a sweeping report from the National Academy of Sciences released in May this year.

Weeding The Data



But the story has come under fire for cherry-picking data to support its conclusions, and comparing crop yields across a broad area without taking into account widely varying factors like climate, soil, pests and farming techniques.

Unsurprisingly, agribusiness giant Monsanto responded with its own selective sample of the same data and drew pro-GMO conclusions, and groups like the American Soybean Association have also blasted the article.

But other journalists on the GMO beat have also taken the Times' conclusions to task.

A piece in Grist says the writer overlooked spots where genetic modification boosted yields where weed control or pest infestation used to be particularly high.

Grist also blasts the Times for singling out France in its comparisons, because use of pesticides has increased in other parts of Europe and France started with unusually high pesticide levels 20 years ago.

More Than Yields



On WBUR's "On Point" program, Fred Gould, professor of agriculture at North Carolina State University and the chair of the committee that wrote the National Academy of Sciences report, said data does show crop yields from GMOs have not increased overall, but he cautions that there are other important benefits to consider, such as a dramatic drop in pesticide use for cotton in China.

"When we talk about the U.S. that's one thing, but when we talk about developing countries you can see a different picture where there's pretty good evidence that there's a decrease in hospitalizations" of farmers from exposure to pesticides, he said.

Speaking on the same program, the Times reporter, Danny Hakim, defended his reporting, saying the article doesn't tell readers to outright reject GMO crops. He added that the story does cover some benefits of GMOs, such as those that combat crop diseases or add nutrition.

"With each crop, with each kind of trait that you're adding, you have to look at it and see if it's really adding value," he said.

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