Seeds, Genes and Business as Usual

  (December 30) - It is hard to know what will be the next turn in the debate between science and ideology over the acceptance of GM crops. If history is any indication, the gulf between the two sides will widen and the antagonist’s rhetoric will become even more obtuse.

Fundamentally, I see this as a debate where the debaters are like two ships passing in the night. Each can see the other at a distance, but they never get close enough to understand each other.

The pro-GM side–especially from a U.S. vantage point–is firmly planted in science and offers scientific evidence to support its position. The anti-GM side–almost universally–holds a seemingly religious adherence to philosophical ideals. Neither side gives credit or sees much value in what the opposition is saying.

The scientific pro-GM side relies on data. Hard, cold uncompromising numbers substantiate its position. Not surprisingly, the pro-GM side relies on experimental outcomes: “Prove it - show me the data.” After all, it was experimental outcomes that led to creation of this controversial seed technology.

Scientific outcomes are not validated by philosophical beliefs. Indeed, preconceived notions of what the experimental result ought to be is one of science’s biggest stumbling blocks. It takes complete objectivity to assess the complexities of research data.

On the other hand, the anti-GM side is largely dominated by those who embrace an antitechnological approach to production of consumer products: food, fabrics and even cosmetics, pet food and lawn care products.

Many anti-GM advocates see themselves as being directly involved in making a positive, global environmental contribution. A portion of those in this camp subscribe to more peasant-oriented production methods that enhances an antitechnology belief system.

A Shouting Match

The GM crop discussion has deteriorated into a shouting match as the issues increasingly have become black and white. Neither side is willing to acknowledge any merit in the opponent’s position. And certainly, neither side is about to yield an inch which is an unfortunate evolution because there is so much common ground.

The pro-GM side steadfastly defends its position with numbers: more GM acres, more GM farmers, more GM nations and more GM crops. The radical anti-GM camp does its best to sidetrack the debate by injecting totally irrelevant arguments into the discussions.

Both sides, for example, acknowledge the necessity of producing more food for a growing global population. While the pro-GM argument centers on improved production through GM plant technology, the anti-GM argument increasingly cites elimination of inefficient food distribution and anti-humanitarian government policies as the means to overcome global hunger.

Why does it have to be “either-or”? Why can’t the solution be both? It is well past the time for the GM crop debaters to get off their ideological thrones and focus how best to provide food for tomorrow’s baby-boomers. Until then, there are literally millions of people dying for lack of an answer.

(December 15) –To my way of thinking, there are only two reasons for me not to put up a new message on my blog each week: I either have nothing to say or I run out of time. During the last two weeks, I encountered both.

Two weeks ago I had absolutely no idea what to write about. The election was over and there would have been plenty of fodder for comment, but I am not a political commentator. So, rather than imitate a politician and spend 500 words to say nothing, I remained silent.

Then a week ago I got caught up in getting ready for the ASTA Seed Expo in Chicago. It’s not that the Expo itself takes all that much preparation, I had to prepare to be out of my office for four days. Work does not stop while I am gone, it just piles up on my desk, so I was busy clearing my desk before I left.

The ASTA Seed Expo and the corn, soybean and sorghum conference meetings together make those three days seem like a three-ring circus. By day’s end, I am ready to get off my feet and find some rest. If you have never worked a trade show, let me tell you - it is work.

At the same time, the Seed Expo/Conference is perhaps the most enjoyable and exciting three days of the year. This is my opportunity to say “Hello” to many of our customers - the exhibitors. Combine that with those who stop by our booth and I get more feedback in Chicago that at any other meeting throughout the year.

Recognize the Value of Your Activities

The conversations I have with seedsmen and exhibitors result in numerous leads and ideas that eventually become articles in Seed Today. An important part of my job is to listen to these people tell their “ordinary” stories and uncover ideas that are sufficiently interesting or newsworthy to become an article.

 It never ceases to amaze me how often a seedsman will tell me that nothing important ever happens at his/her company. Well, wow - if nothing important ever happens, then is all your activity unimportant? How do you expect to be in business next year if all your work this year is unimportant?

I think those companies that continue to grow, expand and morph into whatever it takes to be responsive to customer expectations are the same companies that recognize the importance of all their activities.

Communicating the importance of your activities sends a strong message to customers and prospects. It is telling you various communities “here is what we are doing to be ready and able to help you become more profitable in your business.”

Some businesses do a much better job of communicating than others, for sure. Some are more successful than others, as well. When I look back through the articles that have been posted to our seed news web site, I (gasp!) find a correlation between those that communicate and those that prosper.

News releases alone do not equate to success, it is much deeper than that. Those who communicate recognize both the importance of their activities and the value of keeping their name in front of their customers/prospects.

 (Nov. 25) It would not be hard this year to start thinking there is little for which to be thankful.

 For starters, 47 percent of the Americans who voted in the November election probably think the wrong man is headed to the White House on January 20.

More workers are unemployed and without work than in how long - 20 years?

Don’t even bother to look at your quarterly 401k statement - the value of Wall Street investments has fallen off the cliff. What you thought was your retirement nest egg has lost 40 percent or more of its value.

If you are looking for reasons to not be happy this Thanksgiving, there are plenty of them to be found. If you want to find someone to share your misery, I’m sure there are a lot of moaners who would be glad to join you.

But, before you fall too deeply into your sea of despair, take a step back, get away from your pity-party and look at what you have on a larger scale. Turn off the radio, put down your newspaper and forget about the talking-heads on the 24/7 news channels.

The news media only reports half the news - the dark, dismal half. The headlines focus on seven percent unemployment but never mention the 93 percent employment rate.

As for the election - far more important that who won or lost, we have free and open voting without having armed soldiers at every polling place. No matter how much your investments have declined in value, you at least have an investment account. Well over a billion people in this world - subsistence farmers - don’t have a dime they could put into a savings account if there were a bank in their community, which there isn’t.

Americans are living on such a prosperous island in a world of poverty that we lose perspective and forget just how much we have. Our biggest problem is that we feel entitled to always get more of whatever we want - more income, more investments. bigger house, faster cars.

The sense of entitlement is so pervasive that we no longer recognize it as greed. The mortgage brokers making sub-prime loans to unqualified borrowers were certainly greedy. The borrowers who felt entitled to home ownership even though they could not afford it were greedy. They all felt entitled to do as they did.

See the world and be thankful 

Today - two days before a national day of thanksgiving - too many Americans will see only what they don’t have. By global standards, we have so much abundance that it isn’t even funny to complain.

Yes, I know there is a lot of inequality in what we do and don’t have. And yes, it seems so unfair sometimes. But face it, folks, there is nothing that says life is going to be fair.

Instead of moaning about what you don’t have, take some time to appreciate what you do have. Look around at this world and I think you will acknowledge with me that we have much to be thankful for. Even in this economic downturn, we have much to be thankful for.
 

(November 18) The oldest trick in the trade of deception is to begin your message with a bit of truth and then add whatever you want to make your point.

It worked for the serpent in the Garden and it continues to work today.

The “bit o’ truth” trick is a favorite tactic of politicians, especially politicians in an election year. They inject just enough truth into their stump speach that we are lulled into assuming that everything that follows is equally valid.

But politicians by no means have a corner on the “bit o’ truth” market. Anyone who has a strong bias on a topic can be tempted to use the “bit o’ truth” trick to blunt the sharp edges of reality.

When it comes to the value and the utility of plant biotechnology, I certainly has a biased opinion - so do you. I favor the continued development, regulation and use of transgenic traits.

My bias affects how I look at news articles, which ones I select and how I present them.

While biased, I do not deliberately deceive or knowingly include false, fictitious or fraudulent information in what I present as fact. In fairness to the opposition, I present articles that include opinions contrary to mine and conclusions based on false information.

For sake of discussion, I’ll point to Greenpeace although I could have named one of dozens of like-minded organizations. It is news when Greenpeace issues a statement to the press following their destruction of a test plot containing GM crop.

While some of the facts presented in the announcement are obviously in error, the event of the announcement is a news item. I will usually include the article on our seed news web site without comment.

Recently, however, I posted an article that was so suspicious that I included an Editor’s note to preface the article. By giving a a little background information, I believe I enable readers to form a more objective conclsion.

See:  Austrian Research Suggests GM Corn Lowers Fertility in Mice on www.seedtoday.com

Farmer Suicides in India

There is another idea making the rounds lately that is taking the “bit o’ truth” tactic to such an extreme that I have not put it on our web site although I’m certain you have heard the claim.

I don’t know who started the report, but it has been picked up and redistributed by nearly every anti-biotechnology group out there. The main idea is that Bt cotton seed in India is so unsuccessful and so expensive that its failure has driven thousands of farmers to suicide.

The “bit o’ truth” is that thousands of Indian farmers do commit suicide each year. The full truth is that suicide in India is a sad social problem that existed long before Bt cotton was first used in 2002.

In a recent report, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a CIGAR sponsored agency, estimates that of the 110,000 total suicides in India in 2002, 17,900 were farmer suicides. But in 2002, Bt cotton was barely a blip on the radar.

Yes, farmer suicide rates did increase to over 18,200 in 2004, but the rate fell to just over 17,000 in 2006. IFPRI concludes by stating “analysis clearly shows that Bt cotton is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the occurrence of farmer suicides.”

Yet, the rumor circulates that Bt cotton is causing a resurgence of farmer suicides in India. When a “bit o’ truth” is taken for the whole truth and the whole truth ignored and abandoned, anything is possible.

 (November 11) — Biotechnology aside, there is a lot of power in today’s field crop seeds. In 1960, the average corn yield in Illinois was 80 bushels per acre (bpa). Today Illinois’ average corn yield is closer to 160 or 170 bpa.

There are a lot of reasons why corn fields are so much more productive - better farming techniques, better and more abundant fertilizers and improved seed genetics.

I have not seen any analysis that splits out how much of this increase is due to better seed and how much is due everything else for Illinois farmers. I have seen data that suggest corn’s yield potential, on average across the nation, is increasing at least 1.2 bushels per year.

Let’s be conservative and settle on one bushel per acre increase each year due to improved genetics. Since 1960 that is 48 more bushels per acre.

In 2008, the USDA estimates over 78 million acres of corn will be harvested. Take those acres times 48 bushels and the result is at least 3.7 billion more bushels of corn harvested in the United States due to improved seed technology.

If you are willing to attribute a little more than one bushel annual increase due to improved seed, the result can easily be 4.5 billion more bushels this year as the result of improved seeds.

That increase is largely due to conventional plant breeding. The increase is so steady, so constant, so ever present that we hardly notice the change. We just expect that yields are getting better and give the increase little more thought.

Now, to conventional breeding, add the potential that can be achieved with molecular marker assisted breeding technology. This has nothing to do with transgenics. This is biotechnology, but entirely within corn’s own genetic makeup.

With the use of molecular markers, a plant breeder can know before a seed is planted whether or not it contains the desired genetic composition. Instead of having to plant thousands of seeds to find the few good ones, the duds can be discarded before going to the field.

This technology can greatly reduce the time required to bring a new hybrid to market. The result is that the six bpa yield gain that previously took five to six years to develop can now be in farmers’ hands within half the time.
 
The result is that plant breeders now have the real potential to double the annual rate of yield gain. Tell this to those who are opposed to genetic research and development.

Add to this the potential of improved moisture utilization or improved fertilizer utilization that is being developed through transgenics and the result is almost unimaginable.

The results corn growers are producing today would be impossible if they had to rely on seed technology from the 1960s or even the 1980s. Even with these improvements, there are barely enough food and feed resources to keep up with demand.

In another 10 years, the demand will be even greater. By then, 2008 technology will be as inadequate as 1980 technology is inadequate today. Much of the 2018 technology will be transgenic - we already can see it in the R&D pipelines.

So, is biotechnology really necessary? You might as well ask if food and fiber is necessary for life as we know it. Is there a future need for more production? As long as the human population continues to increase, as long as those who are starving want some food, as long as those with some food want more and as long as those with more want better, then yes, there will always be a need for more production.

The power in the seed is a large component of the steadily increasing yield trend of corn and most other crops. Only our imagination can limit the power of future seeds.
 

(November 4) — For the past two days I have been in Kansas City at the 109th annual convention of the Western Seed Association (www.westernseedassociation.org). The ASTA Farm and Lawn Seed Divisions also meet at the same time.

This meeting has a tradition of being a time for forage and lawn seed buyers and sellers to come together and do their business face-to-face. There are no tabletop exhibits at the Western Conference. The Trading Area is the center of activity.

Obviously, I am not here to buy or sell seed. I am here to listen. This is a good opportunity for me to get a sense of how the industry is changing, where it is headed and to a lesser degree, where it has been.

I asked several seedsmen about how the current economic downturn, and especially the credit market, would affect their business. The answers I got all pointed in the same direction and none of it is pretty.

“This is the year that will separate the men from the boys,” was the general consensus. Or, put another way, get ready for a lot of mergers, buyouts and getting outs.

What I think I was hearing is that those businesses that are on solid financial footing, with some cash reserves, with a strong customer base and a good credit history - these companies will do all right.

But for those companies that are already on thin ice, whose credit is already maxed out or whose accounts receivables already has too may in the 60 days past due column, the next year be fatal. The bell will begin to toll in about six month.

More than once, I was told to take a good look around the room to see who is here. Next year, some of these faces will not be here.

I was also told that next year will be the time to take look closely at new customers - why isn’t they still with their previous supplier? Are the walking away from one past-due account and about to give you the same treatment?

“One man told me that maybe the best strategy for 2009 will be to sell less, not more. If you don’t sell it, you cannot be left standing with an uncollectible account.

This is not to say all is doom and gloom. There have been difficult times in the pas and the industry managed to survive, even emerge stronger. This downturn, too, shall pass. Most companies will stay afloat and live to prosper in a new day. Long term optimism is still alive and well.

This year there was also - no surprise - a lot of talk about the election. The discussion was no so much about who would win or lose, but about how little is known about the candidates in spite of a campaign that has lasted nearly two years.

How can so much talk, so many TV ads, so many talking heads - tell us so little?  Oh yeah, I remember: its politics.

(October 28) – Where has the time gone - it’s hard to believe that in only six weeks, the largest seed production equipment exhibition in North America will once again open in Chicago.  It’s the American Seed Trade Association’s (ASTA’s) Seed Expo held in conjunction with the ASTA annual corn, sorghum and soybean convention.

The convention/Seed Expo will be December 9-11 at its perennial venue at the Hyatt Regency Chicago on East Wacker Drive. But you may already know that.

Get a Pass to the Seed Expo

What you may not know is that ASTA has opened the doors to the Seed Expo to anyone with an interest is seed production, processing, packaging, shipping, etc.
In other words, if you have an interest in seed production, you can receive a complimentary one-day pass to attend the Seed Expo.

No, that pass will not give you admission to any of the convention meetings or presentations.

Nor will it give you admission to the evening functions–a pass to those activities requires a paid registration to the entire shebang.

But, if you all you want to do is to spend the better part of a day in the exhibition hall looking at equipment and talking with exhibitors, then this is a great opportunity for you.

All you have to do is ask any exhibitor for a complimentary Seed Expo pass. The exhibitor will send your name and e-mail address to ASTA. Then, when you arrive at the registration desk on Dec. 10 or 11, you will be given your one-day pass to the Seed Expo.

There’s More for Operations People

This year the conference planners have added a series of short presentations specifically targeted to operations people which they call the Production Workshop.

From what I have seen, there are some interesting, hands-on topics that should make for a worthwhile Workshop.

Okay, maybe after you look over the convention list of meeting topics, you do want get a full registration and take in some of the speakers and presentations. You can still come down for a few hours to the Seed Expo.

Before you make a decision not to attend, go to the ASTA web site (www.amseed.org) and check out the conference schedule. My guess is, that if you are really interested in seed production, you will find enough presentations to make it worth your while to sign-up for everything. But that is up to you.

The ASTA web site has a list of Seed Expo Exhibitors, any of which can arrange for you to have a complimentary one-day pass to the Seed Expo.

Frankly, this is something ASTA should have done years age. If you have never been to the Seed Expo, you owe it to yourself to attend at least once in your lifetime.
With a complimentary one-day pass, 2008 is as good a time as any to attend the ASTA Seed Expo. I hope to see you there. Stop by the Seed Today booth and say Hello.

Seed Expo information: 
http://www.amseed.org/mtg_seedexpo08_index.asp

(October 14) There are only a few more weeks before the Presidential election. I can’t say I’ll be glad when it’s over. I actually wish it had never started. The current campaign is a disgrace to the American ideals of democracy and freedom of speech.

The whole process of selecting candidates for national office has become so tortuous, so distorted by the influence of big money and special interests that the role of serving the common good is not even a faded memory.

By the very nature of the political selection process, indeed, the whole of public service on the national level for certain and on the state level to a large degree has become nothing more than an all-encompassing race for money and power.

Freedom of speech as demonstrated by the two current Presidential contenders has been taken to mean freedom to deceive. Its is freedom to begin with a mere shred of truth, then transform reality into propaganda to discredit the opponent or substantiate whatever promise will appeal to the crown at hand.

There is more substance in the competition for American Idol than in the race for the American White House.

Where’s the Substance?

In this campaign, what the big print giveth, bigger print giveth even more hollow platitudes. The devil would be in the details, but the details and fine print are absent. The campaign is all about using words to gain the big print.

News coverage is nothing more than a race for sound bites to fill the 24-hour news channels and headlines to spread across  tomorrow morning’s newspaper. Before we have time to consider what is behind the headlines and then realize there is nothing - there is no fine print, no details, no substance - the media spotlight moves to the next staged event for more hollow, big-print headlines.

Listening to this campaign reminds me of a dog chasing a car. There is a lot of noise, but the dog has no idea what to do with the car should he actually catch it.

Years ago, a candidate would met the press in a news conference. Remember those? That was a time when the candidate would stand before an open mike and take questions from reporters.

Nothing Newsworthy in Talking Head Speculations

Today, the questions come from “reporters traveling with the candidate.” They travel in the candidate’s chartered jet and stay in the candidate’s good graces only as long as they don’t ask the tough questions. 

Then, all too often, all we hear from the talking heads on the constant news channels is talk about the latest polls and predictions about what might or might not happen. I’m sorry folks, but a prediction from a talking head is not news.

So yes, I am totally turned off by the nothingness of this cycle’s whole campaign. In a few weeks the world will know who will lead the world’s greatest country for the next four years. Too bad the winner will not be one of the world’s great leaders. Instead, all we will get will be the world’s best campaigner.

It’s enough to make me wish the whole process had never started.

(October 7) –  Prince Charles is at it again, ranting and raving about the perils and hazards about to befall mankind unless GM crops are removed from planet earth.

 In a speech tele-conferenced to a meeting of organic food producers in India, the 60-year old Prince was determined not to let facts get in the way of his personal interests.

Sometime within the past ten years, Prices Charles has become involved with an organic farm in the United Kingdom. I have never seen anything to indicate to what extent the Prince has invested his personal finances into the project. But for a man who has never had to work a day in his life to procure his next meal, the amount of his investment is quite irrelevant.

What is important is that he has a personal interest in organic farming. And that is all very well and good as far as I am concerned. Some engage in organic farming as a business opportunity. Others eschew manufactured chemical inputs and see organic production as a less intensive method of production.

Finally, there are those who–like Prince Charles–have a religious fixation with pre-industrial agricultural production methods. Given their druthers, these are the ones who would like to turn the farming clock back 150 years.

Prince Charles is very adept at choosing and picking which technologies to blame for the perils that are befalling the human condition. He takes a glance over his shoulder to the nineteenth century and sees the world surviving on a simpler form of food production.

In his rear-view mirror, he and those of a like mind see a world with no manufactured chemical fertilizers, no organo-phosphate perticides, no GM crops. What they see is every farm with free-range chickens,  its own milk cow, a few fruit trees and and a large produce garden.

What they don’t see is a slow world growth rate limited by disease and hard work. In spite of women having an average of eight children, over half died before the age of five. Over eighty percent of the new world’s population was engaged in farming. A good horse and a farmer’s strong back were the primary sources of power sustaining food production.

Compared to how we live today, life then was hard. Very hard. Yet this life of toil  is the scene the good Prince should have in mind as he turns aside modern fertilizers, chemical pesticides and GM crops.

Not to mention the fact that until the early to mid-1800’s, the world had less than one billion mouths to feed. Today there are over 6.5 billion. According to most scenarios, there will be over nine billion by 2050. That is a lot of people expecting to get fed every day.

Dear Prince, we simply cannot rely on yesterday’s technology to feed tomorrow’s population. I agree that it will be a difficult task. But the answer is not an all-or-nothing solution.

 If we are to sustain a steady supply of food for future generations, we need a reasonable combination of both technology and resource stewardship. In this context, the best solution may well be organic farming methods using genetically modified seed.
 

The goldenrod is yellow,
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.

Opening lines of September by Helen Hunt Jackson

  In our corner of the world, the goldenrod has already faded from its bright yellow to a dull, tawny tan. The corn is beginning to turn brown and our apple tree is bending down. Indeed, after all that rain we had two weeks ago, it bent so far down as to fall over onto the street.

With the tree flat on the ground, it made for some easy apply picking!  That Jonathan tree will be missed by us and our neighbors who were always welcome to stop by whenever they wanted and take an apple.

Thinking of harvesting Jonathan apples takes me back to my younger days and September on the farm. Sometimes we would borrow an apple press from one of the neighbors and make apple cider.

My parents stored the juice in wooden barrels in the fruit cellar. That was a basement room with a brick floor in the back corner of the farmhouse where I was raised. Eventually the juice would turn into vinegar. Powerful vinegar.

I can remember Mother coming up from the basement with a fresh supply of that homemade vinegar. It filled the entire kitchen with its pungent aroma. Before she would use it, she would dilute the vinegar with boiling water. Even after that, it was still powerful stuff.

These thoughts of September also remind me of going out into the corn field and bringing in pumpkins and acorn squash. This was before the time my father began using herbicides.

Before he would “lay by” the corn with a final pass of the cultivator, we would go out into the field and look for blanks or skips in the row. There we would plant pumpkin and squash seeds.

Their big vines took up too much space in Mother’s garden, so we used the corn field for a pumpkin patch. Then in the fall, before they started corn picking, we would go out and bring in the squash and pumpkins.

We had to stop putting pumpkins in the corn field when Dad began using preplant granular herbicides. To Randox and Ramrod, pumpkins were just another weed.