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Keep up to date with the latest news on the issue of genetically modified (GM) food and crops and find out about the deceptive PR campaigns being used to promote GM worldwide.
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Myth Busting - behind the hype
Is GM the way to increase yields and counter climate challenges?
- U.S. crop data show GM has failed to substantially increase the productivity of food and feed crops.
- Traditional breeding has steadily increased crop yields.
- There are no drought resistant or flood tolerant GM crops on the market.
- Traditional breeding has developed a new disease-resistant cassava that increases yield under drought 5- to 6-fold.
- Traditional breeding has developed a drought-tolerant and disease-resistant pearl millet (an important native African crop).
- Traditional breeding has developed a resilient high-yielding rice resulting from a cross between African and Asian rice.
- Traditional breeding has developed rice now grown in Bangladesh that survives long submergence after monsoon rains.
- Studies also show low-cost ecologically based farming methods have actually doubled yields of some crops in Africa.
- Modern genomic methods, such as marker-assisted selection (MAS), involving none of the risks of GM, also hold promise.
- Why use a hazardous technology that hasn't proven very effective, when so many desirable alternatives are available?
- Opting for GM wastes scarce resources and may further stunt research investment into far more productive technologies and methods.
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