If this really is due to pollen from GM crops, 1) how does one prove the connection
Field Biology research requires a large enough statistical universe over a broad range of climatic, weather, soils, moisture, & etc conditions. This takes 3 to 5 years. If you're lucky. If a research crop gets a Eatus Muchas pest infestation then you're screwed for that year and the whole data set from that location maybe hosed as you've lost the time series correlation to other sites. Then you start eliminating and, hopefully, come-up with a systemic constant with a high (97%+) confidence factor.
2) how does one get the GM industry and the governments to acknowledge it?
Forget convincing the GM industry. They have billions riding on their stuff and they could give a flying fart. Reducing to a previous solution we start screaming at our elected representatives, I guess.
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What is maddening is I did a study in 1991/2 comparing open field pollenated corn with commercial seed corn. Although the initial yield was lower (as much as 60% of the best commercial seed,) the cost/benefit was obvious for the open field corn. First, the cost of seed was less. Second, didn't have to purchase any more seed. Third, the corn, over time, adapted to the specific farm's soil types increasing yield over time. Fourth, the open pollenated corn was hardier to pests, diseases, fungi -- 'stress.' (Thus) Fifth, the need for additional inputs (pesticides, herbicides, & etc) was reduced to as little as 25% of previous requirements, depending on the farming practices.
The GM corn is only needed because the stupid f*ckers keep planting the same g*dd*mned cultivar which was bred solely for yield dropping dead when a bird craps on it in a field that has never been rotated to another crop long enough for pests and diseases to die off, predators on those pests are eliminated by the hundred million tons of chemicals dumped on the field, and without another hundred tons of fertilizer the damn things wouldn't grow anyway as the soil minerals were leeched out in 1957 and the last micro-organism attempting to live in the topsoil was killed in 1963.
(Only my opinion, of course.)
</rant>
If it's any consolation, mine too.
The argument, btw, of the "Green Revolution" sparked by hybrid corn from the 1950s on is being used to great effect here in France to persuade farmers that, with GM varieties, they are on the brink of a second such revolution. On the basis, of course, of yields alone.
