Uncle Stew said: The romantic nature-is-perfect approach is just horse exhaust. The UCS is a major source of such pollutants.

. . . according to Failure to Yield, a report by UCS expert Doug Gurian-Sherman released in March 2009. Despite 20 years of research and 13 years of commercialization, genetic engineering has failed to significantly increase U.S. crop yields.

It's a silly claim, but has been picked up and repeated by unthinking pundits who have some nebulous squick about genetic engineering, and sympathy for the romantic nature-is-perfect manure that Brand excoriates. But what claims can be made in good faith and good science?

Failure to Yield begins by noting that, in the United States, 90 percent of soybeans and 63 percent of the corn crop are biotech varieties. . . . The UCS study distinguishes between intrinsic yield, the highest yield possible under ideal conditions, and operational yield, the yield obtainable in the field taking into account factors like pests and environmental stresses. The study then asserts, "No currently available transgenic varieties enhance the intrinsic yield of any crops." . . .

First, keep in mind that farmers are not stupid, and especially not poor farmers in developing countries. The UCS report acknowledges that American farmers have widely adopted biotech crops in the past 13 years. Why? . . .

Later, he admits that biotech herbicide resistant crops save costs and time for farmers. Herbicide resistance is also a key technology for expanding soil-saving no-till agriculture which, according to a report in 2003, saved 1 billion tons of topsoil from eroding annually. In addition, no-till farming significantly reduces the run-off of fertilizers into streams and rivers. . .

Currently, 13.3 million farmers around the world are planting biotech crops. Notably, 90 percent of the world's biotech farmers, that is, 12.3 million, are small and resource-poor farmers in developing countries like China, India, and South Africa. . .

The yield story is very different in poor countries. For example, a 2006 study found that biotech insect resistant cotton varieties boosted the yields for India's cotton farmers by 45 to 63 percent. Amusingly, some anti-biotech activists counter that these are not really yield increases, merely the prevention of crop losses. Of course, another way to look at it is that these are increases in operational yields. Whether due to yield increase or crop loss prevention, in 2008 this success led to nearly 70 percent of India's cotton fields being planted with biotech varieties. Similarly, biotech insect resistant corn varieties increased yields (or prevented losses) by 24 percent in the Philippines. . .

When challenged, defenders of the UCS style war on science, truth and beauty fall back to anecdotes about farmers in India drinking pesticide in despair about a bad crop or debt financed bad investments, or some Canadian farmer who tried to evade paying for use of patented seed, even though the numbers of happy users world wide are so huge.

Gurian-Sherman notes that crops typically use only 30 to 50 percent of nitrogen fertilizers they receive. Nitrogen fertilizer contributes to water pollution and is the primary source of anthropogenic nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Agriculture contributes up to 12 percent of man-made global warming emissions. So one would think that a new biotech variety of rice created by Arcadia Biosciences, which needs 50 to 60 percent less nitrogen fertilizer than conventional varieties, would be welcomed by the UCS. But it isn't. The really good news is that research into transferring this same set of fertilizer-thrifty genes into other crops is moving rapidly forward.

But is transgenics the only way to achieve improved yields with fewer inputs, fewer emissions and generally reduced environmental impact? No, of course not. The fact that UCS and fellow travelers are despicable does not mean that everything that they oppose is the best or only behavior.

Transgenomics sounds confusingly similar to transgenics but differs in that the cut and paste style of gene insertion used in transgenics isn't used. Instead, knowledge of plant genomes made possible by DNA sequencing advances is used to identify the genetic foundations of desirable plant characteristics and quickly track them in conventional breeding practices. Such "smart breeding" is claimed to be able to achieve the same or better results than transgenics, without the squick. But it doesn't address the underlying fear of the romantic nature-is-perfect crowd that super plants will become ubiquitous at the expense of lesser plants.

Advanced soil management systems are another way to get similar results. When advocates for one product or another claim that they have the solution to nitrogen related problems they conceal quite a lot of details. What kind of nitrogen are they talking about? Often they don't even know, or care, but it matters greatly what form of nitrogen is applied as well as how and when it is done, and the initial soil conditions. Reductions as great as those claimed by Arcadia Biosciences can be achieved with no more than smart farming using existing rice varieties.

One must bear in mind that advocates for one approach or another are rentiers making sales pitches. UCS is merely a political advocacy organization using and abusing science and scientific credentials for nefarious purposes. But companies like Arcadia Biosciences and their cheering sections in political and business communities are rentiers too. They are not sincerely seeking good agronomic systems, they are using public concern about various threats to sell things. As we have been observing lately, the same is true for those who claim to have concerns about smart farming and soil management systems such as those that use biochar or organic methods or whatever.

One huge driver at this time is the scramble for climate related rents. Interest in nitrogen usage and related emissions due to the activities of soil bacteria is prompted by efforts to sell credits for avoided emissions under various tax or CO2 equivalent trading schemes. It's the current derivatives gold rush.

This is a hugely complicated set of problems that is difficult to do any sort of definitive synthesis about. For example, what is a sensible stance about the prospect of super plants that are superior in every way to their ancestors? What if it isn't plants alone that we are talking about but humans too? Consider future incompetence:

It is often observed that mildly or even moderately retarded people do not seem dull to themselves as long as they stay on the farm (rather: certain farms), but become so immediately when they move to the city. Here the relative difference between a dull or not-very-bright minority and the majority who are just below average, or better, becomes important, and as that majority arranges society to suit themselves, their less-bright peers become incompetent. ...

Those who are rendered incompetent in this manner need supervision, and in order to protect them in that now-dangerous environment, their rights are taken away. Humane regimes strive to protect as much of their range of free choice as possible, consistent with the need to protect them from serious or irremediable harm (and to protect others), but there is no supposition that everyone has a natural, inalienable right to self-determination that would rule out all configurations of the social and physical environment that are disadvantageous to the less-talented. ...

What, then, would be the effect of selective enhancement of intellectual capacity - that is, enhancement of some, but not all - for the social and political world that we "normals" would inhabit? Would it erode the foundations of egalitarianism, undermining the claims of many who now hold title as citizens to that equal status? Would those made or engineered to be born smart be within their rights to deprive the rest of our rights, presumably with a humanitarian intent? In a word: yes. ...

Should we be eternally vigilant and suspicious of people who appoint themselves "guardians", profess humanitarian motives, and then take over our lives? Or do the shoes just hurt because they would be on our feet?

Retarded people, retarded plants, and presumably retarded life in general, even microorganisms. The red flag mentality of the intellectually timid and emotionally fragile nature-is-perfect crowd that opposes change by predicting doom whenever such a knotty conflict is discussed isn't useful. And when they organize into rentier communities they become just another special interest keening for cash like hired mourners at the funerals of the unloved and recently departed.