The GM/no-till inference...

I use lots of GM seed. Look at my seed bill. But I still till the ground. And I suspect in a few years I won't be alone. Four years of corn residue can be a challenge.

But it is still fun to watch GM seed companies (via mouthpiece organizations) throw out numbers which assume every GM seed falls into untilled earth.

If 4 million cars were taken off the road in a single year, stopping 9 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide being discharged, most environmentalists would whoop with joy. But what if the same saving came from planting genetically modified crops?

This is the claim of an annual audit of GM crops by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), which is funded largely by the GM industry.

The audit, published on 18 January, bases its estimate on GM planting in 2005 in the US, Canada and Argentina. Graham Brookes of PG Economics in Dorchester, UK, who supplied the data, says 85 per cent of the savings come from the fact that farmers growing weedkiller-resistant GM crops don't have to plough their fields to get rid of weeds, so organic matter in the soil is not exposed to the atmosphere. This, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, prevents the release of 300 kilograms of CO₂ per year per hectare. The rest of the figure is from fuel savings (Agbioforum, vol 9, p 139).

Gundula Azeez of the Soil Association, which represents UK organic farmers, says the ISAAA is only interested in promoting GM crops. [whole article alas, is subscription blocked]

Look, GM crops are slowly overcoming consumer reservations because they are just as safe and nutritionally identical to conventionally bred crops. While I understand the instinct to spin their attributes - I mean, PR workers need to something accomplished at the end of the day - don't expect this producer to back up their exaggerated extrapolations.

GM crops make good sense. They are not the magic bullet for every problem.

And I think the seed costs way too much.