
With shift to non-GMO sugar, farmers will abandon environmental and social gains - nkurz
http://weedcontrolfreaks.com/2016/05/as-consumers-shift-to-non-gmo-sugar-farmers-may-be-forced-to-abandon-environmental-and-social-gains/
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ced
This is relevant information about the author, that should have been added to
the article:

 _Funding for Dr. Kniss’s program at the University of Wyoming has been
provided by the following sponsors:

Arysta LifeScience, BASF, Bayer CropScience, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont, FMC,
Hatch Act Funds – USDA, Loveland Industries, __Monsanto__, NovaSource, Repar
Corporation, StateLine Bean Cooperative, Syngenta, United States Department of
Agriculture National Insitute for Food and Agriculture, University of Wyoming
Department of Plant Sciences, University of Wyoming School of Energy
Resources, Valent, Western Sugar Cooperative, Winfield Solutions, Wyoming
Agricultural Experiment Station, Wyoming Crop Improvement Association, Wyoming
Department of Agriculture, Wyoming Seed Certification._

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epistasis
So, you see BASF, Bayer, Dow, Dupont, and you decide that Monsanto is the only
one to highlight?

These are not so significantly different.

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colordrops
Monsanto is the manufacturer of Roundup, which is featured very prominently in
the article.

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mikekchar
Let me preface this comment with the acknowledgement that it's crazy talk. I
don't think it can work in our modern economies. However, I have often
wondered what the cost of manual labour is compared to the cost of
distribution.

Especially when we are talking about herbicide, we're not actually talking
about something for which there is no alternative. Manual labour will work
just as well (actually probably better because you can be more selective).
Anyone who has grown a garden knows this. The question is, how much more
expensive is it?

Just randomly googling, I notice an article stating sugar beet is 20.30 GBP
per tonne. That's apparently 1.3 US cents per pound (gotta love google
calculator). Sugar is trading at 16.7 US cents per pound. Apparently standard
sugar beets yield 130 kg of sugar per tonne, which handily comes out to 10.0
US cents out of the 16.7 US cents per pound of the sugar.

I don't live in the US, but it's looking like the retail price is somewhere
around USD $2.50 per pound (ha ha, got the price from Amazon). So the
breakdown is $0.10 for the beets, 0.07 for the processing and $2.33 for
distribution and packaging.

The amazing thing for me is that back when I brewed beer as a hobby in Canada,
I bought bulk malt directly from the maltster. 55 pound bags delivered across
the country only cost a couple of dollars. There is a huge loss happening
somewhere in the middle.

I guess what I'm saying is that we are pinching the farmer more and more and
more to shave a few cents off the price of our produce. We could double the
production price and it _still_ is an order of magnitude lower than the
distribution price. Avoiding manual labour at potential cost of the
environment seems insane to me. It would make much more sense to see if we can
fix the distribution problem.

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raddad
I have driven tractor for a farmer. He claimed the cost to control weeds was
about the same whether he sprayed with his tractor, hired a crop duster or
migrant labor. He was a beet farmer.

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colordrops
The article reads like an ad for Roundup, especially the first quote by the
farmer.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
I mean, you're certainly not wrong. The article went from discussing the issue
of going back to non-GMO on the environment to a full-on "here's the data for
like 50 things that shows how awesome GMO is".

While I am certainly for using GMOs (there is too much great science behind
it) this article just screams "someone paid me to write this".

I would have loved to see something much more focused on the topic at hand:
large companies switching to non-GMO sugars to appease the current market
forces and what this may mean as far as food production, etc could go. I mean
the article _touched_ on that a tiny bit here and there but not in any
satisfying way in my opinion.

~~~
smaddox
Bill Nye had an interesting chapter on his change of view on GMO's in one of
his recent books.

Personally, I see genetic engineering as the path to apotheoses. The risk of
it leading us the opposite direction is very real, though. The solution is not
to avoid it all together, but rather to tread carefully.

~~~
7sigma
thats why gmos are the most tested foods in history (despite what the
naysaysers say)

Mutagenic crops devised with stuff like cobalt 60 was never tested. Also you
can breed a potato to be poisonous. In the end its a case by case basis

Edit: spelling

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foxylad
I imagine sugar producers are far more concerned about the current focus on
the health effects of heavy sugar consumption. Surely reduction in general
demand is going to have a greater impact on prices than a small trend towards
non-GMO sugar.

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cmrdporcupine
The comparison photo between the non-RoundupReady and RoundupReady planting is
notable to me not so much because of the difference in the plant health but in
the fact that it's depressing just to look at the 'soil' they're growing in.

Is it typical to grow sugar beets in what is basically pure sand with no humic
matter?

Bleak.

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burfog
It's a root crop. Objects in the soil (twigs, leaves, stones, bark, etc.)
block root growth. The same goes for carrots and potatoes.

Think of it as hydroponics. It's even done for non-root crops. All tomatoes in
Florida grow in pure sand. Just add water and fertilizer.

BTW, this is partly because we turn our best farmland into condos. San Jose
was the best place in the world for apricots; now look at it.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
I am well aware of growing practices. I live on 7 acres farmland and have
taken courses in agri etc.

You're describing a pretty reductionist model of plant growth.

Plants don't just need NPK and a few micronutrients. The interface between a
healthy plant and its soil involves millions of microorganisms. And a healthy
carbon content in the form of humus etc. in the soil is extremely important
for water conservation and consistent root growth.

Not to mention getting carbon into the top soil is a great way of getting it
out of the atmosphere...

~~~
burfog
Hey, at least they have sand! Lettuce is often grown without anything solid at
all. It's just liquid, indoors, under red and blue LED lighting.

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BrainInAJar
What a fucking joke. "before <roundup ready> we had crop failures, we had
sprayers running all the time"

Roundup is carcinogenic. All Roundup-Ready sugarbeet means is the farmer uses
a different type of toxic chemical.

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BinaryIdiot
> Roundup is carcinogenic.

To be fair it's a useless distinction to simply say something is
"carcinogenic". There are 5 groups of carcinogens and many foods that people
eat even have chemicals that fall into those groupings ("organic" or GMO).

Yes part of roundup falls into Group 2A which means it's _probably_
carcinogenic to humans but you forget that these chemicals are both usually
gone by the time the food is shipped (though you should always clean it just
in case) but also in such low quantities that many studies are showing it's
likely not harmful in the typical, or even heavy, usage.

Regardless I don't think it's fair to try and paint is as black and white.

> All Roundup-Ready sugarbeet means is the farmer uses a different type of
> toxic chemical.

Not really. Roundup Ready means the seeds will continue to live when Roundup
is used. Without that trait you have to use something much weaker (and
therefore much larger quantities) to achieve something near the same affect.

You should talk to some farmers. It will help shape your perspective :)

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hoodoof
It seems almost a corporate cliche to argue that any shift from GMO means "the
environment pays".

Only Monsanto is capable of arguing that the most environmentally friendly
option for agriculture is GMO.

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incepted
> Only Monsanto is capable of arguing that the most environmentally friendly
> option for agriculture is GMO.

No, plenty of objective scientists argue it as well. It's just common sense.

You don't need a PhD to understand that for crops, you will have to choose
between GMO or heavily pesticided products. The equation is that simple.

The author of the article certainly has its own agenda but you can make up
your own mind about some of the points he makes, in particular the cycle of
around the clock pesticide spraying that non-GMO seeds require in order to
produce an acceptable crop.

It's time to step back and be a bit rational about all this, the anti-GMO
movement is reaching levels of absurdity and hysteria approaching the anti-vax
movement.

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jasonjei
I'm not against GMO, but one thing that I think is a fallacy is the choice
between GMO and heavily-pesticided products. In fact, GMO has made some plants
more pesticide-tolerant, thereby increasing the use of pesticide. That's not
to say GMO has also decreased the use of pesticides, but it's not just a
it's-this-or-that comparison.

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incepted
> I'm not against GMO, but one thing that I think is a fallacy is the choice
> between GMO and heavily-pesticided products.

You're right, I made a false dichotomy there, sorry about that.

There is at least a third choice here (non GMO, no pesticides) but it costs a
lot more money, so it's not viable for farmers or anyone involved in mass
producing tons of crops each year.

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x5n1
I personally think that the focus on producing crops at breakneck speeds to
feed the billions starving all over the world is a sad thing. Reduce your
population you miserable people you are killing the planet. But somehow
everyone believes that technology will save us all at the cost of everything
else, we will survive and move to a new planet in our spaceships.

> when societies industrialize, their birth rates drop

How long will it take society birth rate drop to cause population to reach
1600s levels. Like they say don't hold your breath. Some day all this stuff
will lead to salvation, but other than rhetoric, not in my life time or those
of my children. It's a good story, but in real terms, our impact is not in any
way getting better it's getting worse. And using technology, green tech,
whatever, to fight technology to make everything alright just slows things
down it does not actually fix anything. I doubt it ever will. Call me a
pessimist about these sorts of things.

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dlp211
Sure, you start.

~~~
x5n1
Gotta get my voice in the wilderness in there somehow.

