On Sun, 31 Aug 2003 01:21:55 GMT, "Gordon Couger"
wrote:

http://www.bioportfolio.com/pdf/Farm...aniafinalrepor
t.pdf

Quote from the report:
"The reader should note that the cost analysis presented relates to
farmers that are applying the full conventional technology (ie, using
3-4 spray runs). Where farmers are not applying full conventional
technology, the cost saving potential is lower (or could represent a
cost increase)."

So for the purposes of the comparison, non-RR soybean farmer herbicide
cost is put in as the theoretical figure representing conditions under
full use of conventional herbicide technology.

While the -yield- estimates that are put in supposedly represent
the actual conditions of whatever reduced herbicide use for weed
management the non-RR farmers actually get along with. Sic.

This method is rather likely to exaggerate the calculated benefits
of RR soybeans.

..

The author pointed out that the benefits were to the fields with the most
weed problems. snip

Don't tell me you don't see a problem with this method :-) Effectively
it means burdening down the gross margin of non-RR farming with
herbicide costs it does not have, and does not enjoy the yield
improvements of on the plus side.

As I read the study it is compares actual costs snip

Oh,so. How come, then, that the author is apparently not in a position
to calculate true average actual costs, seeing he uses midpoints
in his cost ranges as stand-ins? (indeed without making a note of it)

.. the author gives the example
of one farmer interviewed, who was having a yield of 3.8 tons/ha
using non-RR crop, increasing it to 4.2 t/ha using RR. However in his
findings (Appendix 1) the author says he found non-RR yields to fall
in the range 2.0-3.2 t/ha, and RR yields in the range 3.0-3.6.


I will see if there is an more detailed information on this report.
Taking one figure in a study has little meaning in a study that covers many
farms. The ranges of savings, yield increases and margin increases were
rather wide.

It's such a sick excuse to say that ranges reported by the author
are rather wide, when the matter seems to be, that ranges would
have been reported even wider if he had not discarded data points.

Perhaps it's just me, but you do not seem to be particularly
concerned, if this author has discarded data that is in
disagreement with his findings. It's almost like you don't care. ;^)