FARMERS ABANDONING GMO SEEDS… NOW WAIT FOR IT: A NEW GOVERNMENT ...
While we're on the subject of GMOs once again, there has been another quiet story unfolding, one that you obviously won't see on Faux News, SeeB.S., SeeNoNews(CNN), and the media network shills for mercantilist America: farmers, it seems, are abandoning GMOs in growing numbers, and the reason is rather interesting:
Farmers Abandoning GMO Seeds and the Reason Will Surprise You
In case you missed it: here's the core of the reason, or rather, core reasons(Note the plural):
"A growing number of farmers are abandoning genetically modified seeds, but it’s not because they are ideologically opposed to the industry.
"Simply put, they say non-GMO crops are more productive and profitable.
"Modern Farmer magazine discovered that there is a movement among farmers abandoning genetically modified organisms (GMO) because of simple economics.
“'We get the same or better yields, and we save money up front,' crop consultant and farmer Aaron Bloom said of non-GMO seeds. Bloom has been experimenting with non-GMO seeds for five years and he has discovered that non-GMO is more profitable.
"The re-converts to non-GMO seeds are not hippies but conservative Midwestern farmers who are making a business decision, Modern Farmer discovered. They are switching back to natural seed because it is more profitable — not because of any ideology."
“Five years ago the [GMO seeds] worked,” said farmer Christ Huegerich, who along with his father planted GMO seeds. “I didn’t have corn rootworm because of the Bt gene, and I used less pesticide. Now, the worms are adjusting, and the weeds are resistant. Mother Nature adapts.”
Now there are a number of hit-the-palm-on-the-forehead-and-exclaim-"Doh!"-Homer-Simpson moments here.
Homer Simpson moment number one: Nature appears to adapt faster than agribusiness corporations can adapt their GMOs, and hence
(Homer Simpson moment number two) while in the short run GMOs appear to increase profits and productivity, in the long run productivity declines, expenses rise as farmers have to purchase additional pest controls in addition to the already-more-costly GMOs, and hence
(Homer Simpson moment number three) production and profitability decline and hence
(Homer Simpson moment number four) it's more profitable and productive to plant the non-GMO seeds over the long run.
Or to put it corn-and-country simple:
"The Modern Farmer article, called The Post GMO-Economy, makes an excellent case for farmers dumping GMO. Some of the interesting facts the magazine uncovered include:
- "The cost of growing one acre of non-GMO corn was $680.95, the cost of growing an acre of GMO corn was $761.80 according to Aaron Bloom. That means it costs $80.85 more an acre to raise GMO corn.
- "GMO seeds can cost up to $150 a bag more than regular seeds.
- "The market for non-GMO foods has grown from $1.3 billion in 2011 to $3.1 billion in 2013, partially because some Asian and European countries don’t want GMO seeds.
- "Grain dealer Clarkson Grain pays farmers an extra $2 a bushel for non-GMO soybeans and an additional $1 a bushel for non-GMO corn.
- "The market for non-GMO seed is growing. Sales at Spectrum Seed Solutions, which sells non-GMO seed, have doubled every year for the last four years. Sales at another company that markets non-GMO seeds, eMerge Genetics of West Des Moines, Iowa, have increased by 30 percent a year for five years.
- "Spectrum Seed Solutions president Scott Odle thinks that non-GMO corn could be 20 percent of the market in five years."
What this means, if you've been following the GMO story, is something significant. In our book Transhumanism: A Grimoire of Alchemical Agendas, my co-author Dr Scott D deHart and I reviewed the research of GMO followers such as F. William Engdahl, whose work Seeds of Destruction is a must-have for anyone interested in the issue. Therem Engdahl highlighted the corporate use of a scarcely disguised mercantilist "policy" or "principle" they were calling "substantial equvalence," a principle based on the "if it looks like corn and tastes like corn it's corn" and therefore "we don't need extensive scientific testing of its long-term health effects." Thus, the agribusiness giants attempted (successfully as it turns out) to short circuit scientific concerns and to bring their products quickly to market. In the meantime, of course, substantial equivalence flew right out the window when it came to protecting licensing and usage fees for the same products under patent law.
But if Modern Farmer magazine is correct, then the products are not substantially equivalent on the two crucial points of profitability and producivity for the local farmer.
This is probably not the sort of news those shareholders of Mon(ster)santo were hoping to hear.
We can predict the sort of mercantilist response already: agribusiness will lobby for "stricter regulation" of farm products, and that will be code for more regulation imposed on non-GMO products while "substantial equivalence" will continue to be the order of the day for goobernment agencies. Such calls will, of course, be tucked into "farm subsidy bills" (want a subsidy? plant GMOs! don't ask questions!) and the pockets of corrupt politicians in the large agriculture states will be lined with agribusiness money, and of course, for the recalcitrant, middle-of-the night phone calls and threatened blackmail. (And if you think I'm joking, read Engdahl's book!)
And that's the lie of course, of modern corporate America, for it isn't about markets, it's about mercantilism and corporate protection from the markets, for the farmers mentioned in the Modern Farmer article have already made the appropriate market-based decision.
See you on the flip side.
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Perhaps the honeybees are not entirely doomed in the USA after all.
“They” will probably do a few little nostalgic Nazi-tap-dance of the “red-tape-bureaucracy tango” on a few selected groups of good old American small farmers, as an example, to what happens to those who practice freedom of choice in the market place, without the appropriate corrupted stamps of approval & the authenticated certificates of seedy farming practices.
(Homer Simpson moment # 5) WTF
Portfolio before Integrity!
As Art Bell used to say, “we’re in for a hell of a ride folks.”
I am sorry that you feel that making a profit is a terrible thing. Capitalism isn’t bad, in fact, more times than not the market will (could) sort out the product or service with integrity, leaving the scoundrels with empty pockets. The problem is not capitalism, it is cronyism, political meddling, illegal back room deals, purchased justice, and absolutely NO free and honest journalism to ferret out the poor products/services and the just plain evil. It is the THEY that Dr. Farrell and others are slowly exposing behind much of this. The problem is a complacent public, too dumbed down, too apathetic, or too focused on trying to eek by; a public that doesn’t insist on truth and morality; (and possibly, a public that has lost both truth and morality).
Max Keiser is like Noam the Foam Chomsky in that regard. As you remember Chamsky said of Western democracy that it sounded like a good idea. And Max Keiser believes firmly in capitalism; if only it were truly practiced(which it is not).
Anyone watching
http://maxkeiser.com/
can hear Stacy & Max preach the real capitalism/economy over that which is currently being practiced in today’s neoliberal globalized three-card-monte economy.
Your right justawoman, for instance in crony capitalism the problem is that income used to pay debts cannot simultaneously be used to buy goods ane services that labor produces. So when wages and living standarsds do not rise, how are producers to sell-unless they find new markets abroad? The gains have been siphoned off by finance. And the financial dynamic ends up in austerity.
To make matters worse, it is not the fat that is cut. The fat is the financial sector. What is cut is the bone: the industrial sector. So when writers refer to a post-industrial economy lead by banks, they imply deindustrialization. And for you(America & other Bankster Occupied Territories), it means unemployment and lower wages.
Geesh. This IS capitalism at work, isn’t it? Pushing the GMO crapola is crony (pseudo) capitalism. You can only push independent businessmen (especially farmers) so far before they do what is right on their own. It is simply amazing, however, that they can even FIND non-GMO commercial seed. Monstersanto put the majority of seed producers out of business a decade ago. The politicians were able to help do it because despite farmers organizations, small to mid-sized operations are very independent and had no muscle against the government supported mega-corporation and the no-justice (bought outright) court system. The large corporate farms went along with Monstersanto because it looked like GMO’s were in their best interest.
I agree with you, Dr. Farrell, as you imply in the title that we have yet to hear from the tyrants in their response to this change. I think there will be a different outcome this time, however, as larger corporate farms have a much closer eye on the bottom line. They are apt to stick to their guns (so to speak). The fact that there is international support for this shift away from GMO’s should put the end to this phase of genetic ownership. May this be the beginning.
Agribusiness is the hands of Rube Goldberg idiots drug pushers really. They live in their own fantasy islands knowing and caring about only money is all there is. The irony is that capitalism have sunk their dreams but then capitalism is only a mantra to them. And the farmers have discovered that weeds build up resistance to chemicals they know real biology and how nature fight back you have to live with a weed is only a plant that we’ve not found a use for them and don’t know the part they play in nature.
Well good more Monarch butterflies will likely start to come out of cocoons in Iowa and fly to Mexico for the winter.
Not surprising that the conventional seeds are much less expensive to work with in total.
Why posit this speculation:
“We can predict the sort of mercantilist response already: agribusiness will lobby for “stricter regulation” of farm products, and that will be code for more regulation imposed on non-GMO products while “substantial equivalence” will continue to be the order of the day for goobernment agencies.”
Wait for it to happen.
This is wonderful news! For large commercial farmers, those costs per acre and riding the turning tide of the market are enormous incentives to dump GMOs. That’s it for Monsanto’s GMOs–there’s no way they can fight both economics and market sentiment, even with the politicians in their pockets.
And I for one am delighted at the prospect of that monster’s decline–may it be brutal and extremely expensive, and end with non-GMO garlic and a wooden stake.