http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/0,2763,1192869,00.htmlGM soya 'miracle' turns sour in Argentina
Paul Brown, environment correspondent
Friday April 16, 2004
The Guardian
Seven years after GM soya was introduced to Argentina as an economic miracle for poor farmers, researchers claim it is causing an environmental crisis, damaging soil bacteria and allowing herbicide-resistant weeds to grow out of control. <snip>
However, a report in New Scientist magazine says that because of problems with the crops, farmers are now using twice as much herbicide as in conventional systems.
Soya is so successful it can be viewed as a weed itself: soya "volunteer" plants, from seed split during harvesting, appear in the wrong place and at the wrong time and need to be controlled with powerful herbicides since they are already resistant to glyphosate.
The control of rogue soya has led to a number of disasters for neighbouring small farmers who have lost their own crops and livestock to the drift of herbicide spray. <snip>
Monsanto says the crop is the victim of its own success. Colin Merritt, Monsanto's biotechnology manager in Britain, said that any problems with GM soya were to do with the crop as a monoculture, not because it was GM. "If you grow any crop to the exclusion of any other you are bound to get problems. What would be sensible would be to grow soya in rotation with corn or some other crop so the ground and the environment have time to recover," he said. <snip>
Adolfo Boy, a member of the Grupo de Reflexion Rural, a group opposed to GM, said that the bacteria needed for breaking down vegetable matter so that the soil was fertilised were being wiped out by excessive use of Roundup Ready. The soil was becoming inert, and so much so that dead weeds did not rot, he told New Scientist. <snip>
Special reports
GM food debate
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/0,2759,178400,00.htmlSpecial report: what's wrong with our food?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/0,2759,178225,00.htmlExplained
03.06.2003: GM crops
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theissues/article/0,6512,969438,00.htmlMay 2003 investigation
Food: the way we eat now
http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/focus/0,13290,951051,00.htmlUseful links
GM public debate - the official site
http://www.gmpublicdebate.org.uk/Monsanto
http://www.monsanto.co.uk/Agriculture & environment biotechnology commission (government advisory body)
http://www.aebc.gov.uk/Agricultural Biotechnology Council
http://www.abcinformation.org/Official reports
Royal Society report on GM plants (pdf)
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2002/02/04/document-165.pdfParliamentary Office of Science and Technology report on GM food labelling (pdf)
http://www.parliament.uk/post/nfr/pn172.pdf