Biologists call for making available more detailed maps of the locations of biotech crops. Access to maps of biotech crops on a county and township level will give researchers greater ability to analyze the effects of biotech crops on wildlife, water quality, and on pest and beneficial insects.

"Since 1996 more than a billion acres have been planted with biotech crops in the U.S.," said Michelle Marvier of Santa Clara University in Calif. "We don't really know what are the pros and cons of this important new agricultural technology."

"People on both sides of the debate about genetically engineered crops have been making a lot of claims," said Marvier, an associate professor of biology and environmental studies. "One side has been saying that biotech crops reduce insecticide use, reduce tillage and therefore the erosion of top soil. People on the other side say that biotech crops could hurt native species."

The scientists' call will be published as a Policy Forum in the April 25, 2008, issue of the journal Science. Marvier's co-authors are Yves Carrière and Bruce Tabashnik of The University of Arizona in Tucson; Norman Ellstrand of the University of California at Riverside; Paul Gepts of the University of California at Davis; Peter Kareiva of Santa Clara University and The Nature Conservancy; Emma Rosi-Marshall of Loyola University in Chicago; and L. LaReesa Wolfenbarger of the University of Nebraska in Omaha.

The article, Harvesting Data from Genetically Engineered Crops, has a map showing the distribution of crop fields in Arizona township by township.

Tabashnik, UA head and professor of entomology, said, "Putting Arizona's biotech cotton on the map has allowed us to be a leader in assessing the environmental impacts of biotech crops."

In Arizona, a unique collaboration between researchers and farmers has made detailed crop data available to researchers at The University of Arizona.

Tabashnik said, "It's a win-win situation. We analyze data they collect, so they can control pests better and make more money. It helps us obtain fundamental information about what's going on in the field that we could never get without them."

One of the UA's analyses showed that adoption of biotech cotton in Arizona helped to reduce insecticide use while sustaining yields.

Carrière, a UA professor of entomology who has done many of the analyses, said, "You have to protect the privacy of the farmers. We've done it in Arizona, so why not do it across the country?"

To start examining those questions in other parts of the U.S., the team of scientists call for the government to make available data it is already collecting.

At the present time, the team writes, the U.S. Department of Agriculture collects data at the scale of individual farms, but the data are only available to researchers at the scale of entire states. Answering key questions about the environmental impacts of genetically engineered crops requires finer spatial resolution.

"The analyses could be about quality of water, quality of soil, non-target effects, regional population density of pests and economic aspects such as yield improvement," said Carrière. "The findings could be useful to a wide range of people."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistical Service annually collects data documenting acreage planted to various crops in all 50 states, the researchers write in their paper. In addition, the NASS annually interviews more than 125,000 farmers about their land use and the acreage planted in various biotech crops.

Tabashnik said, "We're already spending the money to have these data collected. Let's make them available in the right format for researchers to use. It would be a relatively inexpensive additional step with enormous scientific and public benefit."

source: www.sciencedaily.com/

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) also asked for a 50 percent waiver of the RFS.

But will relaxing or freezing the RFS reduce food prices and quickly make more grain available? Will it make more fuel available? Unlikely.

New York Times blogger Mike Nizza gives a run down of the many factors behind the current rise in prices for grains. He includes the usual suspects -- energy prices, droughts and increased demand from growing economies in Asia -- and notes some longer term factors such as trade barriers. Nizza notes that the International Food Policy Research Institute attributes 25 to 30 percent of the global rise in grain prices to biofuels, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization attributes 10 to 15 percent of the current rise in food prices to biofuels.

Allison Kilkenny of the Huffington Post puts the blame for rising food prices squarely on the rising price of oil:

There are food shortages because oil is nearing $120 a barrel. The necessary evil, oil, is the fuel behind all the food production in the world, so when the price soared over $100 a barrel, the poorest people took the brunt of the shock. In short, they ran out of food.
“Rather than branding biofuels the villain of the food crisis, the blame should be aimed at the persons pricing the oil.”

I’ve noted before that OPEC has not increased production to meet rising demand. It’s also true that oil companies have not expanded refinery capacity to meet demand. According to the Energy Information Administration, in 2006 oil companies planned to expand refinery capacity by 1.5 million barrels per day by 2012; but in 2007 oil companies cut expansion plans to 1 million barrels per day by 2012.

With high oil prices, reserves continue to decline. Economic consulting firm KPMG International polled financial executives from oil and gas companies back in April 2007, indicating then that oil reserves and prices were a problem. 34 percent of those polled said that declining reserves were a “major concern” for the industry, and 60 percent predicted that oil reserves would continue to decline, due to rising demand from emerging markets.

A big question out there is whether OPEC can open the spigots and bring energy supplies in line with demand. Even if they are able to do so, eventually, there remains a question about the ability of U.S. refiners to meet demand.

The need for alternative energy remains. And a few environmentalists still believe the RFS is the right policy for reducing greenhouse gases. See for example Nathanael Greene of the Natural Resources Defense Council: “The RFS just adopted is not perfect, but it is the first biofuels policy to mandate a shift in our production practices in a way that will address these challenges.”

Beyond this, the RFS was also intended to provide new incentives for increased agricultural production. Gordon Quaiattini of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association points out:

Because of this new market and 21st-century agriculture practices — less fertilizer, less water, drought-resistant grains and increased yields on existing agriculture land — more crops are being planted and harvested, increasing supply at a time when, in the United States at least, a legislative cap actually restricts the amount of corn that can be directed toward ethanol production.”

And Colin A. Carter of the University of California at Davis and Henry I. Miller at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution argue that increased adoption of biotech agriculture can help break the competition between food and fuel.

A medium- and long-term benefit of high commodity prices may be that the governments in poor countries will be able to justify the testing and commercialization of critical gene-spliced food crops such as rice and wheat. Countries like China have this new technology ready to go, and the licensing of gene-spliced rice and wheat will quickly boost yields, and because of better insect, disease and weed control, reduce the costs of production.”