That GM is not the answer to the world’s cropping problems has been evident for a long time, but in the past few days there’s been a flurry of new evidence. First, a panel of 400 experts working for the world food programme concluded:

“Assessment of the technology lags behind its development, information is anecdotal and contradictory, and uncertainty about possible benefits and damage is unavoidable.”

And a study of soybeans, one of the two great “successes” of GM, has found thatyields of GM crops are lower than their naturally bred relatives.

He grew a Monsanto GM soybean and an almost identical conventional variety in the same field. The modified crop produced only 70 bushels of grain per acre, compared with 77 bushels from the non-GM one.
The GM crop – engineered to resist Monsanto’s own weedkiller, Roundup – recovered only when he added extra manganese, leading to suggestions that the modification hindered the crop’s take-up of the essential element from the soil. Even with the addition it brought the GM soya’s yield to equal that of the conventional one, rather than surpassing it.

Another earlier study suggested two factors at work: 1. while you are GMming a variety, standard selection for desirable traits such as yield is continuing, while you’ve stood still, and 2. the modification reduces productivity.

The Ecologist (admittedly not exactly an unbiased source) sets out the full case against GM. (Hat-tip to Ruscombe Green for that one.

… and quite fun really. The artists have gone to town:

If you’d prefer an academic take on the election, there’s an excellent (independent) London analysis here.

There’s something slightly inevitable about the fact that as this canvasser was cycling down Dartmouth Park Hill this afternoon, the cyclist who passed her was the Green Party candidate in the Highgate byelection.

(My excuse for going so slowly was that I had a full backpack of leaflets for the morrow, and I don’t know the road… and he is a local. Although it was slightly embarrassing that when we met up again at the lights at the bottom of the hill, he was complaining about a slow puncture and saying he was going slowly…)

Canvassing for four separate elections involving three voting systems is, you might say, challenging – but entertaining. (For the record, the London mayoral vote is by the supplementary vote system; the London Assembly constituency seats by first past the post, and the London Assembly London-wide members by the d’Hondt method (a form of proportional representation). And the Highgate byelection for Camden council is also first past the post.)

Note to my neighbours: if you hear me reciting this in my sleep, don’t be surprised.