Do cows dislike GMO corn?

The Huffington post recently ran a story about one Iowa farmer who became skeptical of effects of GMOs on his animals:

Around the same time he planted his first GMO test fields, he also decided to do a little experimenting on his own. He had heard from farmers in Nebraska that cows "shied away from the BT corn." So he gave his cows the choice to consume the conventionally grown corn or BT corn. His cows ate the conventionally grown, however they smelled the BT corn and walked away from it. "That's not normal," says Vlieger. He has tried this with many other animals and found that if they have not been forced to consume GMOs in the past, they won't eat them and will go for the conventional feed instead.

In his role as a crop and livestock nutrition adviser, Vlieger knew other farmers who were feeding their animals GMOs. In South Dakota, a farmer fed his sows BT corn and they had on average 1.6 less piglets per litter. The piglets also weighed less at birth

The story is billed as a "farmer's perspective" about GMOs (coincidentally enough the story ran on a website sponsored by Chipotle, who has been critical of the technology).  The claims about adverse effects of biotech crops on animal performance is consistent with claims made by many anti-biotech advocates.  It was one repeated by Jeffery Smith when I debated him on the John Stossel show about the subject (our portion starts about the 23 minute mark).  

How does the anecdotes correspond with the scientific evidence on the subject?  The answer is: it doesn't hold up.   

One study from the Animal Science Department at the University of Nebraska found:

Steer performance was not different between Bt corn root worm protected or RR hybrids and their parental controls following the 60 day grazing period. The animal performance demonstrates feeding value of corn residue does not differ between genetically enhanced corn hybrids and their non-genetically enhanced parent hybrid. Similar research at the University of Nebraska also showed no difference in steer performance due to the incorporation of the Bt trait for corn borer protection (2001 Nebraska Beef Report, pp 39-41). There was also no preference between Bt and nonBt hybrids. During the grazing period, 47.5% of the steers were observed grazing Bt residue, and 52.5% of the steers were observed grazing nonBt residue.

A review study published in the journal Livestock Production Science also found:

In none of these experiments was animal performance, whether measured as growth rate, feed efficiency and carcass merit in beef cattle, egg mass in laying hens, milk production, composition and quality in dairy cows or digestibility in rabbits, affected by feeding transformed plants compared to animals fed control or isogenic plants.

In general, when one reads stories like the one at Huffington Post, it is important to step back and ask: why it is that most commercial animal operations have no problem feeding biotech corn or soy?  If biotech was really causing Tyson or Cargill or JBS to lose money because of reduced animal performance, don't you think they'd do something about it?  The fact that they have no qualms feeding biotech corn and soy probably tells you as much as any of the published scientific studies on the topic.

Assorted Links

Small, organic farming isn't easy 

A new report from USDA-ERS on biotechnology (the summary: Genetically engineered (GE) crops (mainly corn, cotton, and soybeans) were planted on 169 million acres in 2013, about half of U.S. land used for crops. Their adoption has saved farmers time, reduced insecticide use, and enabled the use of less toxic herbicides. Research and development of new GE varieties continues to expand farmer choices.)

SB1000 would require all drinks sold in California stores made with added sweeteners equal to 75 or more calories per 12 ounces to carry warning labels on the front of cans and bottles.

Is it really possible that soda taxes have no dead weight loss.  This study seems to suggest so

State Egg Battles

The New York Times ran an article yesterday about the egg battle going on in California.

Here's the issue:

California voters set new standards for hen housing in 2008 when they approved a ballot measure that imposed more generous living conditions for egg layers in their state. When producers complained that the measure created a competitive disadvantage, the Legislature tacked on a law that mandated imported eggs be produced under the same standards.

It's the second action - the legislative prohibition against certain types of eggs coming into California - that has the attorney general of Missouri complaining about an interstate commerce clause violation.  California imports a little less than half the eggs it consumes from other states.  Missouri, in particular, supplies about 540 million eggs a year to California. Thus:

The Missouri attorney general has filed a lawsuit to block the California egg rules, and at least three other states are considering doing the same. The beef and pork lobbies are also lining up against the California rules in an effort to prevent any new restrictions on raising livestock.

The attorney general says: 

“I recognize that the California district courts and the Ninth Circuit have not been particularly friendly to this sort of assertion we’re making here, but I also have confidence that will not be the last word on this analysis,” he said. “The U.S. Supreme Court is unlikely to allow a state to put this type of trade barrier in place in the agricultural arena or any other arena.” 

The briefly article discussed the potential price impacts of the new standards for California citizens.  I wished it would have spend a bit more time talking about consumer demand for "cage free" eggs and the interplay between market outcomes and regulated outcomes.  

The market share for cage free eggs in California was only about 10% and yet Prop 2 (which essentially banned the cages) passed with 63% of the vote.  If the population of shoppers is the same as the population of voters (which it isn't), this would mean about 53% of Californians voted to ban a product they regularly buy.  This "vote-buy" gap is not well understood, and we're working on research now to get a better handle on why and under what conditions it emerges.  

What has caused the recent rise in commodity prices?

Brian Wright from UC Berkeley attempts to answer that question in a recent review article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives.  His provocative answer:

The rises in food prices since 2004 have generated huge wealth transfers to global landholders, agricultural input suppliers, and biofuels producers. The losers have been net consumers of food, including the large numbers of the world's poorest peoples.  The cause of this large global redistribution was no perfect storm.  Farm from being a natural catastrophe, it was the result of new policies to allow and require increased use of grain and oilseed for production of biofuels.  Leading this trend were wealthy countries, initially misinformed about the true global environmental and distributional implications. 

More on the dust bowl

I received several comments from folks about my post yesterday on the dust bowl - mostly with family stories about that time.  It is almost unfathomable what some of our grandparents went through.  How very lucky we are to live in today's day and age!

My colleague, Francis Epplin, followed up with a few additional insights that are worth sharing.  First, if you look at acres planted to all crops in Oklahoma (not just wheat in Cimarron County, which I showed in the previous post), it becomes clear that the early 1930s really was an extraordinary time in terms of land in production.

Oklahoma acres planted to crops, 1900-2012, USDA-NASS

Francis also elaborated on changes in production practices and weed management.  He graciously agreed to let me share his thoughts:

Prior to WW II (and the development of chemical herbicides), crop production required tillage to prepare a seedbed and to manage weeds. Tillage occurred prior to planting in an attempt to control competition for water and other nutrients.  For summer crops such as cotton and corn, tillage occurred during the growing season. This wasn’t done for enjoyment.  These production practices were brought to the Midwest from Europe and to the Western Plains from Europe and the Midwest. 

A chart of OK crop acres from 1900 to 2012 [is above].  A lot more OK land was cropped (exposed to wind erosion) in 1930 than in 1900.  And, a lot more was exposed to erosion in 1935 than currently.  The corn and oats acres (in the early 1900s) were used to produce biofuel – feed for the horses.

Based on this chart, one of the culprits was probably cotton.  Cotton doesn't produce much residue.  The change in cotton acres prior to the dust bowl was to some extent price induced.  Nominal cotton prices increased from $0.074/lb in 1914 to $0.354/lb in 1919.  Wars mattered.  By 1931 it was less than $0.06/lb. (Of course, I cherry picked the years, but farmers did respond to incentives.) This level of commodity price variability predated public policy involvement in commodity prices. 

In the more arid regions wheat, also played a role because of the wheat-fallow system- one crop every two years.  After wheat was harvested in June the fields were tilled in an attempt to capture moisture for the next wheat crop which was planted 17 months later.  During these 17 months of fallow, tillage was conducted in an attempt to prevent weeds from becoming established and stealing moisture.  During this period the soil was extremely vulnerable to wind and water erosion. Note that the chart does not include these fallow acres.  We don’t have records as to how many acres were in fallow by year. In the late 20s early 30s, it could have been a million acres.   

As to why not a repeat of the dust bowl in 2011-2012? 

1.  In OK, many fewer acres are in crop production than was the case in 1930.  Millions of acres have been returned to grass (and/er Eastern red cedar).  Land owners discovered that a few $/ac from pasture was better than negative income from trying to grow crops on fragile land. 

2. We don’t have records, but few continue to practice the wheat-fallow system.  And, if they do, they don't till it, they would use chemical herbicides.

3.  Chemical herbicides have reduced the need for preplant and in-season tillage, enabling much more surface residue throughout the year.