soundoff (774 Responses)

1. cof
   

   hello!,I really like your writing very so much! percentage we communicate extra approximately your post on AOL? I need a specialist in this house to solve my problem. May be that is you! Looking ahead to see you.

   June 5, 2013 at 3:07 pm | Reply
2. Denise
   

   City gal here. Generally, I have no issue with GMOs. Some of my social sites exploded over Monsanto, probably because of the recent court decision, and I needed a farmer's voice to help sort and balance out the yelling. Thank you Mr. Scott for taking the time to write.

   May 16, 2013 at 2:00 am | Reply
3. CL
   

   Nice read, I just passed this onto a friend who was doing some research on that. And he just bought me lunch as I found it for him smile Thus let me rephrase that: Thank you for lunch! "We have two ears and only one tongue in order that we may hear more and speak less." by Laertius Diogenes. CL http://jerseybeerscene.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=269143

   May 10, 2013 at 11:14 am | Reply
4. Interesting
   

   Google Farmers Against Monstanto and you see other sides to the story. From https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/08-11:

   A group of family farmers is headed to a federal appeals court on Thursday in their ongoing battle against genetically modified seed giant Monsanto.

   The group's suit, first filed by lead plaintiff Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA) in March 2011, argues (.pdf) that farmers who want nothing to do with genetically modified (transgenic) seed could have their crops unwillingly contaminated by it and "could quite perversely also be accused of patent infringement by the company responsible for the transgenic seed that contaminates them."

   The was dismissed in February 2012 by Federal Judge Naomi Buchwald, but attorney Dan Ravicher of the not-for-profit Public Patent Foundation said, "The District Court erred when it denied the organic seed plaintiffs the right to seek protection from Monsanto's patents."

   In July of 2012 the group filed an appeal to reverse the lower court's decision, and on Thursday the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will hear that appeal.

   "It's time to end Monsanto's campaign of fear against America's farmers and stand up for farmers' right to grow our food without legal threats and intimidation," said Dave Murphy, founder and executive director of Food Democracy Now!.

   Murphy states that Monsanto, which has a history of lawsuits against family farmers, has waged a "campaign of fear against America's farmers."

   Jim Gerritsen, President of OSGATA adds, "We are not customers of Monsanto. We don't want their seed. We don't want their gene-spliced technology. We don't want their trespass onto our farms. We don't want their contamination of our crops. We don't want to have to defend ourselves from aggressive assertions of patent infringement because Monsanto refuses to keep their pollution on their side of the fence. We want justice."

   January 25, 2013 at 11:31 am | Reply
   • Wolf
     

     I hope GMO technology is destroyed! Furthermore, those who have developed and promote this destructive technology need to bare the negative consequences that this technology has had on so many people around the world. However, I don't believe the legal system will be of any long term benefit because large companies have the power to buy off politicians or financially drag out the legal process. Large companies have turned democratic countries into a new type of dictatorship. Our forefathers fled Europe for freedom. Yes, we have freedom. We are free to do what large the corporations desire. Welcome to the new reality America! No Freedom without Force!

     January 25, 2013 at 9:19 pm | Reply
5. Jimbo
   

   Every year farmers have a choice of what seed to buy and plant. Nobody forces them to grow GM varieites. They do so based on a simple calculation of input vs. output: How many resources do I have to put into the land (time, fertilizer, pesticides, fuel etc...and thus money) vs. how many bushels per acre (and thus money) do I get back? Every year more and more farmers decide GM crops offer a better ratio of output. It's called math. But again, ultimately it's their choice. My wife's family has farmed for generations and her Uncle once told me point-blank that if weren't for GM seeds, he would've gone out of business years ago.

   Organic farming has it's place in Agriculture for those who can afford the higher prices, but as others have stated here, the reality is it does not and will not produce enough food to feed the earth's gorwing population, especially in the poorest regions of the world. Most people in the US have not experienced a serious food shortage so we don't really appreciate the life or death struggle that is already occurring in other parts of the world due to lack of agrigultural production. When that struggle finally finds its way to our doorsteps (not IF, but WHEN), I trust that all those who oppose GM crops today will gaciously volunteer to starve to death and leave your portions to the rest of us, right?

   January 23, 2013 at 5:38 pm | Reply
   • jayeferguson
     

     Kindly point those of us that will happily starve to death, as opposed ingesting an unproven/untested/unsafe science experiment, to the hard data that scientifically proves your sweeping statement: " it [organic] does not and will not produce enough food to feed the earth's growing population". I see this all the time, yet I never see any hard science to back up the claim. That grandiose statement can't just be a hunch or a notion if it is to be taken seriously.

     A lot of us in the tinfoil hat crowd – in the absence of transparent labeling laws –would be happy if we went back to good ‘ol days of 1995 when there was no GMO seed yet planted. It seems we have always had surpluses of corn. GM crops were not planted until 1995. According to "Ethanol Producer Magazine" in a recent article regarding the 2012 drought:

     "USDA is now projecting the national average corn yield will be 123.4 bushels per acre, in the range that was expected by the trade. That is a 22.6 bushel per acre reduction from last month's supply/demand report. In July, USDA also dropped the national average yield by 20 bushels. This summer's deepening drought totally wipe out USDA's spring predictions of a record corn crop. As currently forecast, the 2012-'13 corn yield would be the lowest since 1995-'96."

     So if the 2012 corn yield matched the 1995 yield when relatively no GMO seed was planted, clearly higher yield is not an advantage of GMO seed, correct? So why again are we planting GMO seed? So BIG Chem/BioTech can sell more chemicals? So BIG Chem/BioTech can perpetuate its control over and monopoly of global agriculture? I mean we aren't getting higher yields. And the corn surplus continues to grow at a record rate…

     According to the Des Moines Register: "The U.S. Department of Agriculture Thursday said that the corn surplus in the U.S. would double to almost 1.9 billion bushels after the 2012 harvest."

     So why do we need to plant so much GMO corn again? It seems like we have a bit too much already, no? Maybe some of that extra land could be converted to organic farming for the benefit of us elitist, tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorists that prefer clean food over toxic food...just a thought…

     OR – JUST LABEL IT!!!

     January 23, 2013 at 10:28 pm | Reply
     • Jim
       

       ""USDA is now projecting the national average corn yield will be 123.4 bushels per acre, in the range that was expected by the trade. That is a 22.6 bushel per acre reduction from last month's supply/demand report. In July, USDA also dropped the national average yield by 20 bushels. This summer's deepening drought totally wipe out USDA's spring predictions of a record corn crop. As currently forecast, the 2012-'13 corn yield would be the lowest since 1995-'96."

       "So if the 2012 corn yield matched the 1995 yield when relatively no GMO seed was planted, clearly higher yield is not an advantage of GMO seed, correct? "

       No, that's grossly incorrect. The yields being similar to those found in the mid 90's was caused by the most severe drought since the 1930's. Had farmers not had access to the improved genetics and technology the 2012 yields would likely have been similar to those found during the droughts of 1934-36 or about 20-25 bu/ac. Should that have happened we would be dealing to market chaos and hungry people.

       So why again are we planting GMO seed?

       Because they provide farmers the opportunity to produce better crops more economically.

       January 24, 2013 at 7:49 am | Reply
     • Jimbo
       

       @jayeferguson
       Wow, talk about grandiose claims: "unproven/untested/unsafe"?? There is a large body of documented scientific testing showing currently authorized GM crops are safe: See http://cera-gmc.org/index.php?action=gm_crop_database. It's a pretty comprehensive review and a fairly straight forward process of navigating to the various studies if you bother to take the time to do so ...I doubt you will, you seem to act as if stupidity were a virtue. As for issues like food production, I know I probably can't persuade you but luckily you don't have to take my word for it. Mark Lynas is a leading environmental activist, and until recently, a staunch GMO opponent. He recently gave a speech at the Oxford Farming Conference about how his opinions have evolved. There's an article about it here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-tercek/mark-lynas-gmo_b_2424493.html. You can see the whole speech on youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pl3vVfhslc. I've also included a full transcript for your convenience below. I recommend you follow his lead by doing a little homework and informing yourself before you make ignorant comments about something you clearly know nothing about. Oh, and the other guy that replied to you- "Jim", about the stats you used on last year's yield...He's right. You did hear about the drought didn't you? Do some homework and get back to us.

       Here's that transcript:

       Mark Lynas – Oxford Farming Conference -1-3-13
       I want to start with some apologies. For the record, here and upfront, I apologise for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonising an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment.

       As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counter-productive path. I now regret it completely.

       So I guess you’ll be wondering – what happened between 1995 and now that made me not only change my mind but come here and admit it? Well, the answer is fairly simple: I discovered science, and in the process I hope I became a better environmentalist.

       When I first heard about Monsanto’s GM soya I knew exactly what I thought. Here was a big American corporation with a nasty track record, putting something new and experimental into our food without telling us. Mixing genes between species seemed to be about as unnatural as you can get – here was humankind acquiring too much technological power; something was bound to go horribly wrong. These genes would spread like some kind of living pollution. It was the stuff of nightmares.

       These fears spread like wildfire, and within a few years GM was essentially banned in Europe, and our worries were exported by NGOs like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth to Africa, India and the rest of Asia, where GM is still banned today. This was the most successful campaign I have ever been involved with.

       This was also explicitly an anti-science movement. We employed a lot of imagery about scientists in their labs cackling demonically as they tinkered with the very building blocks of life. Hence the Frankenstein food tag – this absolutely was about deep-seated fears of scientific powers being used secretly for unnatural ends. What we didn’t realise at the time was that the real Frankenstein’s monster was not GM technology, but our reaction against it.

       For me this anti-science environmentalism became increasingly inconsistent with my pro-science environmentalism with regard to climate change. I published my first book on global warming in 2004, and I was determined to make it scientifically credible rather than just a collection of anecdotes.

       So I had to back up the story of my trip to Alaska with satellite data on sea ice, and I had to justify my pictures of disappearing glaciers in the Andes with long-term records of mass balance of mountain glaciers. That meant I had to learn how to read scientific papers, understand basic statistics and become literate in very different fields from oceanography to paleoclimate, none of which my degree in politics and modern history helped me with a great deal.

       I found myself arguing constantly with people who I considered to be incorrigibly anti-science, because they wouldn’t listen to the climatologists and denied the scientific reality of climate change. So I lectured them about the value of peer-review, about the importance of scientific consensus and how the only facts that mattered were the ones published in the most distinguished scholarly journals.

       My second climate book, Six Degrees, was so sciency that it even won the Royal Society science books prize, and climate scientists I had become friendly with would joke that I knew more about the subject than them. And yet, incredibly, at this time in 2008 I was still penning screeds in the Guardian attacking the science of GM – even though I had done no academic research on the topic, and had a pretty limited personal understanding. I don’t think I’d ever read a peer-reviewed paper on biotechnology or plant science even at this late stage.

       Obviously this contradiction was untenable. What really threw me were some of the comments underneath my final anti-GM Guardian article. In particular one critic said to me: so you’re opposed to GM on the basis that it is marketed by big corporations. Are you also opposed to the wheel because because it is marketed by the big auto companies?

       So I did some reading. And I discovered that one by one my cherished beliefs about GM turned out to be little more than green urban myths.

       I’d assumed that it would increase the use of chemicals. It turned out that pest-resistant cotton and maize needed less insecticide.

       I’d assumed that GM benefited only the big companies. It turned out that billions of dollars of benefits were accruing to farmers needing fewer inputs.

       I’d assumed that Terminator Technology was robbing farmers of the right to save seed. It turned out that hybrids did that long ago, and that Terminator never happened.

       I’d assumed that no-one wanted GM. Actually what happened was that Bt cotton was pirated into India and roundup ready soya into Brazil because farmers were so eager to use them.

       I’d assumed that GM was dangerous. It turned out that it was safer and more precise than conventional breeding using mutagenesis for example; GM just moves a couple of genes, whereas conventional breeding mucks about with the entire genome in a trial and error way.

       But what about mixing genes between unrelated species? The fish and the tomato? Turns out viruses do that all the time, as do plants and insects and even us – it’s called gene flow.

       But this was still only the beginning. So in my third book The God Species I junked all the environmentalist orthodoxy at the outset and tried to look at the bigger picture on a planetary scale.

       And this is the challenge that faces us today: we are going to have to feed 9.5 billion hopefully much less poor people by 2050 on about the same land area as we use today, using limited fertiliser, water and pesticides and in the context of a rapidly-changing climate.

       Let’s unpack this a bit. I know in a previous year’s lecture in this conference there was the topic of population growth. This area too is beset by myths. People think that high rates of fertility in the developing world are the big issue – in other words, poor people are having too many children, and we therefore need either family planning or even something drastic like mass one-child policies.

       The reality is that global average fertility is down to about 2.5 – and if you consider that natural replacement is 2.2, this figure is not much above that. So where is the massive population growth coming from? It is coming because of declining infant mortality – more of today’s youngsters are growing up to have their own children rather than dying of preventable diseases in early childhood.

       The rapid decline in infant mortality rates is one of the best news stories of our decade and the heartland of this great success story is sub-Saharan Africa. It’s not that there are legions more children being born – in fact, in the words of Hans Rosling, we are already at ‘peak child’. That is, about 2 billion children are alive today, and there will never be more than that because of declining fertility.

       But so many more of these 2 billion children will survive into adulthood today to have their own children. They are the parents of the young adults of 2050. That’s the source of the 9.5 billion population projection for 2050. You don’t have to have lost a child, God forbid, or even be a parent, to know that declining infant mortality is a good thing.

       So how much food will all these people need? According to the latest projections, published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we are looking at a global demand increase of well over 100% by mid-century. This is almost entirely down to GDP growth, especially in developing countries.

       In other words, we need to produce more food not just to keep up with population but because poverty is gradually being eradicated, along with the widespread malnutrition that still today means close to 800 million people go to bed hungry each night. And I would challenge anyone in a rich country to say that this GDP growth in poor countries is a bad thing.

       But as a result of this growth we have very serious environmental challenges to tackle. Land conversion is a large source of greenhouse gases, and perhaps the greatest source of biodiversity loss. This is another reason why intensification is essential – we have to grow more on limited land in order to save the rainforests and remaining natural habitats from the plough.

       We also have to deal with limited water – not just depleting aquifers but also droughts that are expected to strike with increasing intensity in the agricultural heartlands of continents thanks to climate change. If we take more water from rivers we accelerate biodiversity loss in these fragile habitats.

       We also need to better manage nitrogen use: artificial fertiliser is essential to feed humanity, but its inefficient use means dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and many coastal areas around the world, as well as eutrophication in fresh water ecosystems.

       It is not enough to sit back and hope that technological innovation will solve our problems. We have to be much more activist and strategic than that. We have to ensure that technological innovation moves much more rapidly, and in the right direction for those who most need it.

       In a sense we’ve been here before. When Paul Ehrlich published the Population Bomb in 1968, he wrote: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.” The advice was explicit – in basket-case countries like India, people might as well starve sooner rather than later, and therefore food aid to them should be eliminated to reduce population growth.

       It was not pre-ordained that Ehrlich would be wrong. In fact, if everyone had heeded his advice hundreds of millions of people might well have died needlessly. But in the event, malnutrition was cut dramatically, and India became food self-sufficient, thanks to Norman Borlaug and his Green Revolution.

       It is important to recall that Borlaug was equally as worried about population growth as Ehrlich. He just thought it was worth trying to do something about it. He was a pragmatist because he believed in doing what was possible, but he was also an idealist because he believed that people everywhere deserved to have enough to eat.

       So what did Norman Borlaug do? He turned to science and technology. Humans are a tool-making species – from clothes to ploughs, technology is primarily what distinguishes us from other apes. And much of this work was focused on the genome of major domesticated crops – if wheat, for example, could be shorter and put more effort into seed-making rather than stalks, then yields would improve and grain loss due to lodging would be minimised.

       Before Borlaug died in 2009 he spent many years campaigning against those who for political and ideological reasons oppose modern innovation in agriculture. To quote: “If the naysayers do manage to stop agricultural biotechnology, they might actually precipitate the famines and the crisis of global biodiversity they have been predicting for nearly 40 years.”

       And, thanks to supposedly environmental campaigns spread from affluent countries, we are perilously close to this position now. Biotechnology has not been stopped, but it has been made prohibitively expensive to all but the very biggest corporations.

       It now costs tens of millions to get a crop through the regulatory systems in different countries. In fact the latest figures I’ve just seen from CropLife suggest it costs $139 million to move from discovering a new crop trait to full commercialisation, so open-source or public sector biotech really does not stand a chance.

       There is a depressing irony here that the anti-biotech campaigners complain about GM crops only being marketed by big corporations when this is a situation they have done more than anyone to help bring about.

       In the EU the system is at a standstill, and many GM crops have been waiting a decade or more for approval but are permanently held up by the twisted domestic politics of anti-biotech countries like France and Austria. Around the whole world the regulatory delay has increased to more than 5 and a half years now, from 3.7 years back in 2002. The bureaucratic burden is getting worse.

       France, remember, long refused to accept the potato because it was an American import. As one commentator put it recently, Europe is on the verge of becoming a food museum. We well-fed consumers are blinded by romantic nostalgia for the traditional farming of the past. Because we have enough to eat, we can afford to indulge our aesthetic illusions.

       But at the same time the growth of yields worldwide has stagnated for many major food crops, as research published only last month by Jonathan Foley and others in the journal Nature Communications showed. If we don’t get yield growth back on track we are indeed going to have trouble keeping up with population growth and resulting demand, and prices will rise as well as more land being converted from nature to agriculture.

       To quote Norman Borlaug again: “I now say that the world has the technology — either available or well advanced in the research pipeline — to feed on a sustainable basis a population of 10 billion people. The more pertinent question today is whether farmers and ranchers will be permitted to use this new technology? While the affluent nations can certainly afford to adopt ultra low-risk positions, and pay more for food produced by the so-called ‘organic’ methods, the one billion chronically undernourished people of the low income, food-deficit nations cannot.”

       As Borlaug was saying, perhaps the most pernicious myth of all is that organic production is better, either for people or the environment. The idea that it is healthier has been repeatedly disproved in the scientific literature. We also know from many studies that organic is much less productive, with up to 40-50% lower yields in terms of land area. The Soil Association went to great lengths in a recent report on feeding the world with organic not to mention this productivity gap.

       Nor did it mention that overall, if you take into account land displacement effects, organic is also likely worse for biodiversity. Instead they talk about an ideal world where people in the west eat less meat and fewer calories overall so that people in developing countries can have more. This is simplistic nonsense.

       If you think about it, the organic movement is at its heart a rejectionist one. It doesn’t accept many modern technologies on principle. Like the Amish in Pennsylvania, who froze their technology with the horse and cart in 1850, the organic movement essentially freezes its technology in somewhere around 1950, and for no better reason.

       It doesn’t even apply this idea consistently however. I was reading in a recent Soil Association magazine that it is OK to blast weeds with flamethrowers or fry them with electric currents, but benign herbicides like glyphosate are still a no-no because they are ‘artificial chemicals’.

       In reality there is no reason at all why avoiding chemicals should be better for the environment – quite the opposite in fact. Recent research by Jesse Ausubel and colleagues at Rockefeller University looked at how much extra farmland Indian farmers would have had to cultivate today using the technologies of 1961 to get today’s overall yield. The answer is 65 million hectares, an area the size of France.

       In China, maize farmers spared 120 million hectares, an area twice the size of France, thanks to modern technologies getting higher yields. On a global scale, between 1961 and 2010 the area farmed grew by only 12%, whilst kilocalories per person rose from 2200 to 2800. So even with three billion more people, everyone still had more to eat thanks to a production increase of 300% in the same period.

       So how much land worldwide was spared in the process thanks to these dramatic yield improvements, for which chemical inputs played a crucial role? The answer is 3 billion hectares, or the equivalent of two South Americas. There would have been no Amazon rainforest left today without this improvement in yields. Nor would there be any tigers in India or orang utans in Indonesia. That is why I don’t know why so many of those opposing the use of technology in agriculture call themselves environmentalists.

       So where does this opposition come from? There seems to be a widespread assumption that modern technology equals more risk. Actually there are many very natural and organic ways to face illness and early death, as the debacle with Germany’s organic beansprouts proved in 2011. This was a public health catastrophe, with the same number of deaths and injuries as were caused by Chernobyl, because E.-coli probably from animal manure infected organic beansprout seeds imported from Egypt.

       In total 53 people died and 3,500 suffered serious kidney failure. And why were these consumers choosing organic? Because they thought it was safer and healthier, and they were more scared of entirely trivial risks from highly-regulated chemical pesticides and fertilisers.

       If you look at the situation without prejudice, much of the debate, both in terms of anti-biotech and organic, is simply based on the naturalistic fallacy – the belief that natural is good, and artificial is bad. This is a fallacy because there are plenty of entirely natural poisons and ways to die, as the relatives of those who died from E.-coli poisoning would tell you.

       For organic, the naturalistic fallacy is elevated into the central guiding principle for an entire movement. This is irrational and we owe it to the Earth and to our children to do better.

       This is not to say that organic farming has nothing to offer – there are many good techniques which have been developed, such as intercropping and companion planting, which can be environmentally very effective, even it they do tend to be highly labour-intensive. Principles of agro-ecology such as recyling nutrients and promoting on-farm diversity should also be taken more seriously everywhere.

       But organic is in the way of progress when it refuses to allow innovation. Again using GM as the most obvious example, many third-generation GM crops allow us not to use environmentally-damaging chemicals because the genome of the crop in question has been altered so the plant can protect itself from pests. Why is that not organic?

       Organic is also in the way when it is used to take away choice from others. One of the commonest arguments against GM is that organic farmers will be ‘contaminated’ with GM pollen, and therefore no-one should be allowed to use it. So the rights of a well-heeled minority, which come down ultimately to a consumer preference based on aesthetics, trump the rights of everyone else to use improved crops which would benefit the environment.

       I am all for a world of diversity, but that means one farming system cannot claim to have a monopoly of virtue and aim at excluding all other options. Why can’t we have peaceful co-existence? This is particularly the case when it shackles us to old technologies which have higher inherent risks than the new.

       It seems like almost everyone has to pay homage to ‘organic’ and to question this orthodoxy is unthinkable. Well I am here to question it today.

       The biggest risk of all is that we do not take advantage of all sorts of opportunities for innovation because of what is in reality little more than blind prejudice. Let me give you two examples, both regrettably involving Greenpeace.

       Last year Greenpeace destroyed a GM wheat crop in Australia, for all the traditional reasons, which I am very familiar with having done it myself. This was publicly funded research carried out by the Commonwealth Scientific Research institute, but no matter. They were against it because it was GM and unnatural.

       What few people have since heard is that one of the other trials being undertaken, which Greenpeace activists with their strimmers luckily did not manage to destroy, accidentally found a wheat yield increase of an extraordinary 30%. Just think. This knowledge might never have been produced at all, if Greenpeace had succeeded in destroying this innovation. As the president of the NFU Peter Kendall recently suggeseted, this is analogous to burning books in a library before anyone has been able to read them.

       The second example comes from China, where Greenpeace managed to trigger a national media panic by claiming that two dozen children had been used as human guinea pigs in a trial of GM golden rice. They gave no consideration to the fact that this rice is healthier, and could save thousands of children from vitamin A deficiency-related blindness and death each year.

       What happened was that the three Chinese scientists named in the Greenpeace press release were publicly hounded and have since lost their jobs, and in an autocratic country like China they are at serious personal risk. Internationally because of over-regulation golden rice has already been on the shelf for over a decade, and thanks to the activities of groups like Greenpeace it may never become available to vitamin-deficient poor people.

       This to my mind is immoral and inhumane, depriving the needy of something that would help them and their children because of the aesthetic preferences of rich people far away who are in no danger from Vitamin A shortage. Greenpeace is a $100-million a year multinational, and as such it has moral responsibilities just like any other large company.

       The fact that golden rice was developed in the public sector and for public benefit cuts no ice with the antis. Take Rothamsted Research, whose director Maurice Moloney is speaking tomorrow. Last year Rothamsted began a trial of an aphid-resistant GM wheat which would need no pesticides to combat this serious pest.

       Because it is GM the antis were determined to destroy it. They failed because of the courage of Professor John Pickett and his team, who took to YouTube and the media to tell the important story of why their research mattered and why it should not be trashed. They gathered thousands of signatures on a petition when the antis could only manage a couple of hundred, and the attempted destruction was a damp squib.

       One intruder did manage to scale the fence, however, who turned out to be the perfect stereotypical anti-GM protestor – an old Etonian aristocrat whose colourful past makes our Oxford local Marquess of Blandford look like the model of responsible citizenry.

       This high-born activist scattered organic wheat seeds around the trial site in what was presumably a symbolic statement of naturalness. Professor Pickett’s team tell me they had a very low-tech solution to getting rid of it – they went round with a cordless portable hoover to clear it up.

       This year, as well as repeating the wheat trial, Rothamsted is working on an omega 3 oilseed that could replace wild fish in food for farmed salmon. So this could help reduce overfishing by allowing land-based feedstocks to be used in aquaculture. Yes it’s GM, so expect the antis to oppose this one too, despite the obvious potential environmental benefits in terms of marine biodiversity.

       I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough. So my conclusion here today is very clear: the GM debate is over. It is finished. We no longer need to discuss whether or not it is safe – over a decade and a half with three trillion GM meals eaten there has never been a single substantiated case of harm. You are more likely to get hit by an asteroid than to get hurt by GM food. More to the point, people have died from choosing organic, but no-one has died from eating GM.

       Just as I did 10 years ago, Greenpeace and the Soil Association claim to be guided by consensus science, as on climate change. Yet on GM there is a rock-solid scientific consensus, backed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Society, health institutes and national science academies around the world. Yet this inconvenient truth is ignored because it conflicts with their ideology.

       One final example is the sad story of the GM blight-resistant potato. This was being developed by both the Sainsbury Lab and Teagasc, a publicly-funded institute in Ireland – but the Irish Green Party, whose leader often attends this very conference, was so opposed that they even took out a court case against it.

       This is despite the fact that the blight-resistant potato would save farmers from doing 15 fungicide sprays per season, that pollen transfer is not an issue because potatoes are clonally propagated and that the offending gene came from a wild relative of the potato.

       There would have been a nice historical resonance to having a blight-resistant potato developed in Ireland, given the million or more who died due to the potato famine in the mid 19th century. It would have been a wonderful thing for Ireland to be the country that defeated blight. But thanks to the Irish Green Party, this is not to be.

       And unfortunately the antis now have the bureaucrats on their side. Wales and Scotland are officially GM free, taking medieval superstition as a strategic imperative for devolved governments supposedly guided by science.

       It is unfortunately much the same in much of Africa and Asia. India has rejected Bt brinjal, even though it would reduce insecticide applications in the field, and residues on the fruit. The government in India is increasingly in thrall to backward-looking ideologues like Vandana Shiva, who idealise pre-industrial village agriculture despite the historical fact that it was an age of repeated famines and structural insecurity.

       In Africa, ‘no GM’ is still the motto for many governments. Kenya for example has actually banned GM foods because of the supposed “health risks” despite the fact that they could help reduce the malnutrition that is still rampant in the country – and malnutrition is by the way a proven health risk, with no further evidence needed. In Kenya if you develop a GM crop which has better nutrition or a higher yield to help poorer farmers then you will go to jail for 10 years.

       Thus desperately-needed agricultural innovation is being strangled by a suffocating avalanche of regulations which are not based on any rational scientific assessment of risk. The risk today is not that anyone will be harmed by GM food, but that millions will be harmed by not having enough food, because a vocal minority of people in rich countries want their meals to be what they consider natural.

       I hope now things are changing. The wonderful Bill and Melinda Gates foundation recently gave $10 million to the John Innes Centre to begin efforts to integrate nitrogen fixing capabilities into major food crops, starting with maize. Yes, Greenpeace, this will be GM. Get over it. If we are going to reduce the global-scale problem of nitrogen pollution then having major crop plants fixing their own nitrogen is a worthy goal.

       I know it is politically incorrect to say all this, but we need a a major dose of both international myth-busting and de-regulation. The plant scientists I know hold their heads in their hands when I talk about this with them because governments and so many people have got their sense of risk so utterly wrong, and are foreclosing a vitally necessary technology.

       Norman Borlaug is dead now, but I think we honour his memory and his vision when we refuse to give in to politically correct orthodoxies when we know they are incorrect. The stakes are high. If we continue to get this wrong, the life prospects of billions of people will be harmed.

       So I challenge all of you today to question your beliefs in this area and to see whether they stand up to rational examination. Always ask for evidence, as the campaigning group Sense About Science advises, and make sure you go beyond the self-referential reports of campaigning NGOs.

       But most important of all, farmers should be free to choose what kind of technologies they want to adopt. If you think the old ways are the best, that’s fine. You have that right.

       What you don’t have the right to do is to stand in the way of others who hope and strive for ways of doing things differently, and hopefully better. Farmers who understand the pressures of a growing population and a warming world. Who understand that yields per hectare are the most important environmental metric. And who understand that technology never stops developing, and that even the fridge and the humble potato were new and scary once.

       So my message to the anti-GM lobby, from the ranks of the British aristocrats and celebrity chefs to the US foodies to the peasant groups of India is this. You are entitled to your views. But you must know by now that they are not supported by science. We are coming to a crunch point, and for the sake of both people and the planet, now is the time for you to get out of the way and let the rest of us get on with feeding the world sustainably.

       Thank you.

       January 24, 2013 at 3:28 pm | Reply
   • Mr. Scientist
     

     Mr Brian, I applaude you for trying to be honest about your farms decision to go GMO, so here is my honest discussion as to why it's a bad idea.......

     * JIMBO – "Wow, talk about grandiose claims: "unproven/untested/unsafe"?? There is a large body of documented scientific testing showing currently authorized GM crops are safe" – Who do you think did and paid for those studies Jimbo ???? Yes, that's right the Big AG companies ( Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, DuPont, etc. ). In case you haven't read, their animal feeding studies have never gone past 3 months......ever think to ask why ???? Why not have an INDEPENDENT group of scientists ( meaning not paid for by the companies, and no conflict-of-interest), do their studies if the technology is so safe......ever think to ask why ???? Why in the last few months have they spent 12 million dollars to fight off simply labeling that a product contains GMO ingredients ???? Because the people don't want to eat something that hasn't been tested properly ( and please don't give me the "it covered too many products" BS ). If you're not 100% sure that a product is safe, it's better to err on the side of caution until you KNOW it's 100% safe. Not plant it, and then hope that you were right, and not giving little children severe allergic reactions that could kill them, as I've seen 1st hand. Even the FDA's own scientists sounded the alarm that not every GMO product that goes to market could be properly tested for allergic reaction on the general population.
     -----------------------------------------------–
     * "Every year farmers have a choice of what seed to buy and plant. Nobody forces them to grow GM varieites. They do so based on a simple calculation of input vs. output: How many resources do I have to put into the land (time, fertilizer, pesticides, fuel etc...and thus money) vs. how many bushels per acre (and thus money) do I get back? Every year more and more farmers decide GM crops offer a better ratio of output. It's called math. But again, ultimately it's their choice. My wife's family has farmed for generations and her Uncle once told me point-blank that if weren't for GM seeds, he would've gone out of business years ago." – This is exactly why people say you're a slave to big AG. If you don't plant their "cheaper" seeds, you go out of business.
     ----------------------------------------
     Seriously if you haven't seen "The World According to Monsanto" then watch it here...
     http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-world-according-to-monsanto/
     and then tell me you don't see any problems with a Corporation who made DDT, PCB's, and Agent Orange ( which Monsanto STILL says didn't cause all the Vietnam vets cancer !! ), and said that all of them were safe, and 30-40 years later ALL being proven DANGEROUS and BANNED. Now they make GMO's and Glyphosate, they spray it on your food, and once again tell you it's SAFE.......sorry, but I for one don't believe this BS ( along with 49% of the US population according to the Label GMO Prop 37 campaign ). But Monsanto and the others hope that just like the PCB lawsuit, they'll make enought money before the truth is discovered, and that they've made much more $$$ then they pay out in lawsuits. And the only way that they could convince you farmers is by supplying the seeds cheaper. And to elimainate the seed price competition, they also decided to buy up most of the seed producing compaines.....If you don't see what's happening here, your a toolbox or you're living in a cave !!!

     I also hear you guys talking about how GMO's can feed the world and organic can't. Well, then just plant more organic farms in places where the "drought" won't happen. Organic farming has fed the world for 100 years, and no one has starved. I would think if you were about to starve-to-death you would plant your own garden !!!

     So, please watch my link, and then "get back to us after you've done your homework".

     February 1, 2013 at 10:35 am | Reply
     • What?
       

       "Organic farming has fed the world for 100 years, and no one has starved."

       That has to be the single most idiotic statement that has ever been made on one of these blogs, and I have seen quite a few "winners".

       February 1, 2013 at 12:14 pm | Reply
       • Mr. Scientist
         

         Sorry, my typo, I meant to say the U.S., not the world.

         February 1, 2013 at 1:18 pm |
     • Horta
       

       A little education on the problems with organic farming, why it can't feed the world. http://appliedmythology.blogspot.com/2013/03/no-cows-dont-make-fertilizer.html The premise that if I am going to starve, I will grow my own food is absurd! I do grow my own food for fun, organically, much of the time it is destroyed by insect pests or just poor growth. You suggest feeding the world with areas that can support organic growing, this would mean clear cutting land that natural ecosystems remain. This would be tragic. The locations on our planet that need GM crop innovations the most due to poor climate and soils, and lack of irrigation, do not have the luxuries that we do in America. A successful farming industry would solve so many problems in those regions, preventing starvation and providing an income.
       Safety has been proven internationally. Unless you believe the entire world is determined to destroy humans through a few crops that humans have been consuming for 20 years, in which case I suggest visiting a psychologist and quitting the internet, because you are far too gullible and paranoid to handle it.
       Educational links if you are capable of reading them, I understand that a pseudo-science mockumentary is much more entertaining and is excellent for alarming those primitive parts of our brains into action, but really, logic and science needs to be prioritized, this international hysteria from laypersons is getting quite embarrassing.
       http://www.bsbanet.org/en/publications/ (If you go to this link, there is a publication available to read, a ton of background information as well as the results of research on the safety of gm foods.)

       Or if you prefer a less anonymous source: http://doccamiryan.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/10-reasoned-responses-to-10-reasons-we-dont-need-gmos/
       This link is more layman friendly. If you peruse the blog, a lot of education can be obtained as well.... from a person who has been working in the field for 20 years and is currently a researcher and has a phd.
       If you deny the authority of someone with credentials, I hope that you have similar credentials.
       On an ending note, I was also anti-gm a few years ago. It is very difficult to sift through the garbage that most of the internet provides. I understand that, and the passion behind the anti-gm propagandists is very convincing as well as the organizations that have sprung up, but what really caught my attention once I swallowed my pride, was that NO peer reviewed scientific document supported the anti-gm viewpoint and there are numerous scientific organizations all over the world, who support gm. I can not logically believe that every one of these organizations have successfully been bribed by a company. Even if the possibility that there are that all of these scientists were so desperate and immoral, biotech companies have a huge overhead of expenses, shareholders, employees.... How would they be able to come up with THAT much money to bribe 1000s of scientists who are not hurting for money in the first place?

       May 15, 2013 at 3:14 pm | Reply
6. jayeferguson
   

   Can someone again point to the research done by the producers of GMO seed - and the accompanying chemicals - where the extensive safety testing was done on said compounds? Or point me to the peer-reviewed studies on the long-term safety of GMO foods; they have been around since 1996, there has to be some data, right? Can someone point me to the FDA food safety studies of GMO corn, soybeans, canola, cotton, papayas, sugar beets, that were not done by the producers of these products?

   Can someone point me to the studies on the safety of consuming Glyphosate (Round-Up), 2,4D (the "safe" half of Agent Orange), Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt-Toxin), or the studies where the effects of using all three on the same crop were closely examined?

   Can someone explain how according to the German journal Ithaka, every single urine sample collected from city dwellers around Berlin - that bastion of farming excellence – the Sully, Iowa of Germany - tested positive for Glyphosate (Round Up)? Can someone explain how Sherbrooke University Hospital in Quebec made the disturbing discovery that Bt-toxin from genetically engineered Bt corn in fact accumulates in the human body – contrary to industry assurances, and that the toxin was identified in 93 percent of pregnant women tested; 80 percent of umbilical blood in their babies; and 67 percent of non-pregnant women?

   Can anyone explain why Peru banned GM foods for 10 years, Russia and France suspended imports of Monsanto's GMO corn, Ireland has banned the growing of GMO crops since 2009, Japan and Egypt ban the cultivation of GMO crops and Switzerland extended a moratorium on genetically modified animals and plants, banning GMOs until 2013?

   And can someone PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE tell my why –if GMO foods are so amazing, and everyone is so proud of the GMO science - we as consumers just can't have a tiny label on the package that reads: "GMOs Inside" when: Mexico, Brazil, UK, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and 35 other countries have GMO labeling?

   January 23, 2013 at 3:24 pm | Reply
   • What?
     

     If you have any idea what an ELISA test is, or how it's conducted, or what it means – but, especially, what kind of CONTROLS should be used – then maybe somebody could explain to you at least the Bt work. Otherwise, they would just be wasting their time.

     January 23, 2013 at 5:13 pm | Reply
   • Jimbo
     

     GM crops have been studied extensively. I gave a really good resource for you to look at various studies in my comment above. You obviously know nothing about Bt. Its use is ubiquitous in organic farming...yes, USDA CERTIFIED organic farming. If you've even eaten organic food, you've probably consumed Bt. BTW its mode of action is innocous to humans, as it works on an enzyme in insects that we don't have. See http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05556.html

     Seriously, do some homework. So far your comments have only proven your own ignorance.

     January 24, 2013 at 4:21 pm | Reply
7. Nye
   

   I'm sure Brian is telling the truth about his experience. The real question is the safety of GMO, pesticides, etc. I am a science guy and realize that there has been very little credible evidence (if any) which proves GMOs to be dangerous or less healthy. I am also a healthy skeptic. I am even more skeptical of people and organizations with tremendous power. I mean after all: "Nicotine is not addictive," or "Asbestos has no adverse effects on the respiratory system," or "Intel says he has copious amounts of WMDs," or "Mortgage backed derivatives are safe and will always yield returns...forever," and so on.

   The problem is how do we know what is being reported as science is actually science? Who can we trust? And just because it is science does not mean it is infallible. That would go against what science is. Quoting research papers and other seemingly trustworthy sources is great, but are they telling the whole truth. History shows us that even the most "official" sources lie and distort because they have some agenda and/or bias. That is why I think it's necessary to constantly scrutinize, especially something as important as our basic need to eat.

   January 23, 2013 at 11:57 am | Reply
   • Jimbo
     

     This is one of the few intelligent comments on this article. Thank you. To quote Mark Tercek, CEO of the Nature Conservancy: "Of course we want passionate debate and discussion about different strategies; this can only move us forward. We do not seek nor could ever achieve lock-step agreement, but when the debate loses all connection to science, the environmental movement suffers badly in the long run."

     January 24, 2013 at 3:48 pm | Reply
8. AMD
   

   Everyone should take a close took at the comments here. Really take a close look. Look at what the people who oppose GMO's are saying. Look at what they are resorting to and what "truth" to they are speaking about. Posts filled with hate, wishes of death and cancer upon farmers and their family, completely made up and false statements, conspiracy theories, paranoia, and ignorance. This is the face of so called "truth speaking and educated" Anti-GMO movement. These are the kind of people the majority of their ranks are filled with. They are incapable of rational thinking and keeping an open mind. Everyone is out to get them, poison them, murder them and their families. They are anti-science.

   January 23, 2013 at 10:03 am | Reply
9. Lindsey
   

   I am convinced of one thing: Monsanto must pay him hefty bonuses to write these articles on his blog. What a joke!!!

   January 22, 2013 at 11:36 pm | Reply
   • Atari2600
     

     Perfect Lindsay. This 'blog' is ridiculous. So clearly a paid puff piece to assuage the fear of the masses into thinking everything is A-OK with GMO. So many holes can be poked in this it is crazy. If you read the Stewardship Agreement you can see it clearly contradicts everthing he says. I love it to when he says things like, "I want them to protect themselves...I am buying seed anyway ...and I can't say I am supper excited about inspections". No? You're not excited about a corporate mafia showing up on your farm and intimidating you? Why not?

     I also love where he basically says, "those darn conspiracy theorists think the agreement ropes us into using other "inputs" like pesticide and herbicide. Nooo it doesn't. Oh wait, yes it does....right there...first sentence on page two. Damn it! How do I cover that up? Ok, highlight the word OR in "or an authorzied non-selective herbicide..." Hopefully noone will notice that I didn't highlight the word "authorized" because then they would realize I can only use a pesticde if it is authorized by Monsonto and that the only way my crop is protected is if I use a Monsanto "input". People won't get it though....probably didn't read this far anyway and they surely didn't bother to click on that link. Thank goodness."

     January 23, 2013 at 1:38 am | Reply
     • Mike
       

       If I planted a Monsanto gm crop, I could spray whatever companies product on that crop that I wanted, and Monsanto cannot do anything about it. I could plant a gm corn crop and never spray it at all if I wanted. Again, Monsanto cannot do anything about it. And yes, I know this from experience. If you ever talk to a Monsanto seed rep, they will tell you that you can do exactly that. And they know that farmers are doing it. This baloney of farmers being forced to use Monsanto chemicals just because they planted their seed is a common farce.

       January 23, 2013 at 8:55 am | Reply
       • littledeersmusings
         

         Why on God's green Earth would you choose to pay MORE for Monsanto Patented seed and then choose not to spray anything at all on it? Seriously, do you think that ANYONE believes that you would make such a decision? The writer use the example of somehow intertwining Pioneer seed with Monsanto seed or some such, but even that doesn't make sense, you would plant them in paths or swaths or fields separately, without using the RR technology, it would be impossible to compare the yield or any other characteristic in an accurate manner.
         Even if you did 'choose' not to use Glyphosphate, you STILL have a seed that is NOT anything like hybridized. Never has any fungus or other species cross bred with corn in the fields. And for very good reason, because it isn't as God intended. You are no longer growing corn, but a corn-like substance. If you do 'choose' to apply Glyphosphate to the fields, then that is absorbed by the plant and becomes a part of it, just as water does. Even further from the food that God intended from us. But, over the top as well is the inclusion of the Bt genetics, making the so called 'corn' into it's very own pesticide. You are growing corn-like pesticides.
         The last issue on GMO's that wasn't addressed that should have been, somewhere in there about respecting your neighbors, is that GMO's CANNOT be undone, unlike the past DDT's and PCB's that could be halted and provide some hope of God's great Earth's ability to clense itself, GMO's have intercepted God's design for regeneration, they can reproduce themselves. Eradication, if needed, is not possible . You can't just 'stop planting them', soon, quite possibly, there will be no non affected seed left, we would have little choice but to continue to plant the seed or starve....a ban would be impossible. I do believe that with the current numbers, even at this point, a ban would be extremely difficult all ready. And whist you rave it up (and enjoy your profits), more GMO's are coming. Do we really want to be dependent upon them, to be unable to ban them if science did catch up on paper and you are wrong?
         I LOVE all of your colorful ways also of wording 'Farmers plant these pesticides because they make more money with less effort'. Bottom line is you, also, not just Monsanto PROFIT and you, also, like Monsanto are NOT willing to cut into YOUR profits do YOUR due diligence in informing the consumers of the truth.

         May 11, 2013 at 8:47 pm |
   • Mike
     

     What exactly is a "joke"? This is about the closest representation to what actually happens on today's farms that I have come across in a media story.

     January 23, 2013 at 9:00 am | Reply
   • NIck
     

     More statements that have no validity being heralded as truth by anti-GMOers. Had it ever crossed your mind maybe the guy believes in what he works so hard for?

     January 23, 2013 at 11:33 am | Reply
10. Dino
    

    There are a number of articles out there you may want to check out related to GMOs and population control. I can only imagine.

    Jeffrey Smith doesn't talk about this but has some interesting things to say in his own material. Like how fast food is mostly all GMO. If Monsanto ever went under the ripple effect would be enormous. Are they too big to fail? Support your organic food farmers.

    January 22, 2013 at 7:08 pm | Reply
    • Greenspider
      

      "There are none so blind as those who will not see."
      You corn holers are in bed with the Devil himself, and you wont realize i until corn is growing out of your ears, all so you can keep making money growing monoculture.

      January 23, 2013 at 1:51 pm | Reply
11. jayeferguson
    

    Would you like a fiar and balanced rebuttal to this blatant ad campaign? Check out the documentary "King Corn". THe YouTube trailer can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr5HQrgg9mM. The most telling moment of the film is as follows:

    Back "home" in Greene in October, they visit a local farmer, Don Klikeman, who inquires about their corn crop. Ian confesses that he is not particularly impressed with corn's social profile; after investigating where their corn goes, "none of our options seem particularly attractive." Klikeman laughs ruefully and says that, indeed, the only thing that should impress them is the "stupidity" of the system, because in fact "we are growing crap." His sense of disenchantment is reinforced in his following hyperbole: "the worst quality crap the world has ever seen."

    That honest assessment of this nations corn crop brought to you by life-long corn farmer: Don Klikeman

    January 22, 2013 at 7:00 pm | Reply
12. What?
    

    "Does Monsanto pay its interns well? Or are you toiling gratis strictly for the resume boost?"

    You'd best stay away from the poker table for awhile, unless you're planning on doing a lot of bluffing, because your ability to "read" people is seriously lacking right now.

    January 22, 2013 at 6:10 pm | Reply
    • A.S.Padmakar
      

      And your ability to read scientific papers understand them in their full context. BTW, what is you batting average now ?

      January 22, 2013 at 10:35 pm | Reply
      • What?
        

        It would be easier to reply to your first sentence if – well – it was really a sentence.

        As regards my 'batting average' – I am not keeping track, but I think it has dropped dramatically because a number of people who ACTUALLY FARM AND KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT have contributed.

        January 22, 2013 at 11:02 pm | Reply
        • A.S.Padmakar
          

          So you mean to say you cannot understand a minor sentence in the context it was said. Then I suggest PLEASE stay away from scientific publications. I guess just not farmers, a lot of other folks who are concerned about the issue have brought valid and relevant arguments to the table. How about that ?

          January 23, 2013 at 6:17 am |
        • What?
          

          @ A.S.P.

          Well, now, let's see . . .

          There needs to be a conjunction between the words "paper" and "understand". I can fill that with either 'and' or 'or'. Then the string becomes one long nonsensical clause because the entire thing is a subject noun, but there is no predicate verb. So I guess I have to insert my own, right? I'm supposed to "infer" what you should have typed, but didn't, so that this would be a complete sentence.

          So then, inserting my verb, the sentence becomes "And your ability to read scientific papers [and] understand them in their full context is remarkable". Is that about right?

          If I misunderstood your gibberish, I apologize. And I welcome you to go to any of the articles I have referenced and 'correct' what I have said about them. I will gladly retract any errors.

          January 23, 2013 at 11:14 am |
        • @What
          

          What, if you're going to quibble about writing (and by the way, you seem to be doing a lot of rather rude quibbling), you might want to check your punctuation. Your periods should be inside your quote marks. Also, you don't need single quote marks for "correct" at the end of your post. You don't need quote marks at all, but if you insist, use doubles. We all live in glass houses, don't we?

          January 24, 2013 at 12:31 pm |
        • A What? @ @What?
          

          I see what you did there. Heh-heh.

          January 24, 2013 at 12:42 pm |
13. Scott
    

    Google this guy...he runs blogs on a monsanto blog site....im not convinced this is on the up and up.

    January 22, 2013 at 5:24 pm | Reply
    • Brian
      

      Monsanto has chosen to link to some of my blog posts from their blog. I know this because I can see the incoming links in my statistics. I don't go to them with my posts. Please come over to see everything I've written on my site thefarmerslife.wordpress.com.

      January 23, 2013 at 12:11 am | Reply
      • Andy Scott
        

        Yes if the blog post is really beneficial anyone will link...Well i guess i always link to organic farming site..

        Know of a great Hydroponic related site. Check here http://www.advancednutrients.com/articles.php?articleID=35

        January 23, 2013 at 12:33 am | Reply
        • Brian
          

          I think hydroponics are pretty cool. I especially like systems where plants are getting their nutrients from fish waste will all the water being in a looped system.

          January 23, 2013 at 8:35 am |
14. Mike
    

    Thank you for this article. Is is refreshing to actually read a story where the farmers side of the story comes out and it isn't filled with bogus claims or opinion passed off as fact. We need more stories like these so the public can see how things really work. Then maybe the silly questions people ask me after I tell them what I do will die down a little bit.

    January 22, 2013 at 4:26 pm | Reply
15. Missing the point
    

    I feel like all of the dialogue about GMO's and how bad they are for us is a good conversation, and one that needs to be had. But still, most of that is all a reaction to something else. The whole reason we have started having GMO's and now why farmers by and large feel they have to use them (and all of the other Monsanto products) is b/c of our massive population that has to be fed. I mean this started under the Nixon Administration b/c of a problem with the food supply due of a turbo charged growing population. And it's only getting larger, I mean jesus christ we've got 7 billion people on earth right now, 7 BILLION. We only had 3 billion people world wide in 1960. And in the US, our population has gone from 180 million in 1960 to now slightly over 315 million. I mean think about all that unnecessary growth, wtf is going on. Oh I get it, couples that get married want a whole slew of kids, single people are even having children (something I'll never fucking understand), older people are living longer, and new medical technology has allowed all types of shit to go down that would have otherwise never taken place, like 50 year old women giving birth and the Ocotmom having 8 fucking children at once, not even including the 6 she already had.

    I am not saying everyone has to go be sterile but think about it really hard before you have children and until then put on a fucking condom. B/c let me tell you it's going to get way worse. The planet's population is estimated to be 10 billion by 2050. I can't even wrap my head around that. Oh I know I am going to piss off every right wing, bible thumping, baby factory conservative on here who couldn't be more pro-life if they tried... but seriously, somethings got to give. We just can't keep growing at this rate and expect nothing bad to happen. We've never had even close to this many people on the planet in the history of its existence. And now we have to feed them all, so there ya go, bravo guys. So... until we deal with the issue of adding people to the planet like we're playing a game of Sim City, you can kiss the idea of all organic crops good bye. B/c if the government, ours or any other nation's, has to choose between letting people starve and feeding them GMO's (not to mention factory farmed live stock), then the GMO's are going to win every time. And the government's policy already reflects that.

    January 22, 2013 at 3:59 pm | Reply
    • Atari2600
      

      You are making a classic mistake. You think the right-wing, bible-thumping, baby factories care about their food supply. They don't. They just want to stuff their fat faces with fast food and hit the local walmart on the way home from judging others...er...I mean going to "church" (aka god's tilt-up worship warehouse). What they are upset about is you calling them baby factories. There is nothing factory-like about reproduction...it is a gift from god don'tcha know? Factory food is OK though, and if we all die from it, well that is just part of god's plan. They are just wating for armegeddon anyway. The sooner the better as far as they are concerned.

      January 23, 2013 at 1:55 am | Reply
      • Jack
        

        Yes! You hit the nail on the head! Only fat, republican, bible thumping, baby factories, who-are-just-waiting-to-die-in-the Armageddon are the ones who eat GMO's. Everyone else who stay's away and refuses to eat GMO's are well educated, adjusted, and informed individuals as you just proved in your post. Absolutely brilliant.

        This guy is the face of the Anti-GMO movement America. Pretty much sums up the blatant hatred, misinformation, paranoia, and disrespect for other opinions and people.

        Anti-GMOists are no different than the Anti Climate Change crowd. They spit in the face of science and call themselves experts after watching a youtube video.

        January 23, 2013 at 9:04 am | Reply
        • Huh?
          

          Who are you talking about, Missing the point or Atari2600? B/c I don't think that's what Missing the point was saying at all. He/she is right and just stating the obvious (but for some reason overlooked) food supply aspect of this whole problem. And rightly so. We can't feed the planet with a population of it's current size with organize crops. It's just not mathematically possible. So in order to get back to a more organic food supply and a natural live stock supply where they aren't stuck in a tiny cage in the dark their whole life or on a feed lot eating corn, we've got to start slowly reducing the world population instead of increasing it. This planet isn't our own personal playground. It's a complicated ecosytem that we are a part of, we don't own it, and we shouldn't try to manipulate it at will just for our own personal gain. We're all in this together and we've got to really understand that. The food supply, feed lots, GMO's and how they came to such prominence, and the population both of the world, and of our country... are all interconnected and there is no getting around it.

          January 23, 2013 at 11:41 am |
16. bcharlesd
    

    And then there's the Gilles-Eric Seralini study (source: BBC)–

    "A furious row has erupted over a French study claiming to have found tumors and other problems in rats fed on genetically modified maize and exposed to a common, associated herbicide. The rodents ate the GM diet over a two-year period – a normal lifetime. The study's length made its results far more reliable than previous research, said team-leader Gilles-Eric Seralini. But independent scientists criticized the work for its statistical methods and for using the wrong type of rat. They said the albino Sprague-Dawley strain of animal had a tendency to develop cancers, especially the mammary tumors seen in some of the study subjects."

    HILARIOUS!!! Call into question the type of rat used. Seriously - like this article - can you take any of these BIG Chem companies seriously, seriously, I mean seriously?

    I guess they are using the wrong type of humans in the largest unauthorized genetics experiment in history of mankind that is taking place right here in the good old untested, unregulated, unlabeled USA under the "watchful" eye of FDA chairman, Michael Taylor (former Monsanto Vice President). In 1991 there were 1,100,000 new cases of Cancer; in 2012 there were 1,638,910 new cases of Cancer (source: US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health). With the yearly incidence of new Cancer cases (in humans, in this country) up 32.9% since 1991, it seems that those same findings from the French (albeit, wrong type of rat) study are playing out in real life in real humans eating a ton of real GMO corn. The first GMO food products hit the supermarket shelves in 1996 – coincidence? Probably, right?

    January 22, 2013 at 3:08 pm | Reply
    • What?
      

      And now you are just showing your ignorance – period.

      The strain of rat that was used is absolutely notorious for spontaneously developing malignant tumors. I'll bet you didn't know that one of the CONTROL groups in that test – not fed anything "out of the normal" – exhibited 30% mortality due to tumor growth, do you? 30%. That was higher than the rate in two of the "test" groups that were fed either glyphosphate or RR corn. Have you ever heard of a population of anything, anywhere that developed malignant tumors at a 30% rate without purposefully exposing them to a carcinogen? What do you make of that, genius?

      A very smart man once said "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt". You obviously didn't listen.

      January 22, 2013 at 4:10 pm | Reply
      • bcharlesd
        

        Does Monsanto pay its interns well? Or are you toiling gratis strictly for the resume boost?

        There's this (source: The Guardian UK)...

        "Despite the concerns over Séralini's methodological flaws, it looks as though the study will not be swept under the carpet. It is the longest study done on this variety of maize and many argue that it must be taken seriously by regulators and governments. French health and safety authorities now plan to investigate NK603 and the study's findings and the European Food Safety Agency has said it will assess the research. Séralini is now demanding that all the data be assessed by an independent international committee, arguing that experts involved in the authorisation of the maize should not be involved."

        Why??? Because all of the criticism of the study comes from entities either under direct control, or direct/indirect influence of Big Chem/BioTech. In other words, follow the $$$ – you'll always find one of the usual suspects (Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, Syngenta) at the end of the rainbow doling out doubloons from the big pot o' BioTech gold to any entity that will parrot their B.S.

        Here's a few of the criticisms of the study:

        This is not an innocent scientific publication. The study was designed to produce exactly what was observed," said Dr Bruce Chassy, professor emeritus of food science at the University of Illinois, who has worked as a consultant for GM companies and has been a member of the US Food and Drug Administration's Food Advisory Council which is fully behind GM.

        "This study appears to be without scientific merit," said Martina Newell-McGloughlin, director of the International Biotechnology Program at the University of California/Davis, which has close links to Monsanto and other GM companies.

        "Although this paper has been published in a peer-reviewed journal with an [Impact Factor] of about 3, there are anomalies throughout the paper that normally should have been corrected or resolved through the peer-review process," said Maurice Moloney, InsChief Executive of Rothamsted Research.

        "The control group is inadequate to make any deduction," said Anthony Trewavas, prominent champion of GM food and a former member of the governing council of Britain's leading plant biotech research organisation, the John Innes Centre.

        "We have to ask whether a diet with this level of maize is normal for rats. Another control with an alternative diet should have been included," said Dr Wendy Harwood, senior scientist at the John Innes Centre.

        Now this group clearly has no vested interest...no way, no how, nope!

        So point me to the peer-reviewed. long-term studies (not the 90-day'ers from good ol' Monsanto: Hammond, B., Dudek, R., Lemen, J. & Nemeth, M. Food Chem. Toxicol. 42, 1003 1014 (2004).) that demonstrate the safety of GM crops. I love to read them.

        Then there's this astute observation:

        "Equally, the study reopens questions about the regulation of GM crops. There has long been concern that these foods have been evaluated poorly and that the companies have taken advantage of lax regulation. The GM industry, which keeps its own research secret, has resisted investigation or any change."

        January 22, 2013 at 5:02 pm | Reply
        • Jack
          

          Of course! Everyone who has a different opinion than what you believe must be a corporate shill and paid hansomely by these Ag Businesses to spread their evil lies! CONSPIRACY! CONSPIRACY! CONSPIRACY! CONSPIRACY! May I offer you some tinfoil for your hat?

          January 22, 2013 at 5:52 pm |
        • What?
          

          Funny . . . I don't remember saying there was nothing wrong with GM – I suppose you can find that and quote it back to me, though, can't you? I said that piece of pseudo-science was junk, and it is.

          According to you "Because all of the criticism of the study comes from entities either under direct control, or direct/indirect influence of Big Chem/BioTech." Try going away from an anti-GMO site and finding a truly unbiased source that lists 'criticism' of that junk. I will assure you it is out there, but I'm willing to bet that as closed-minded as you appear to be that you won't make any effort at all. The study does raise very valid questions, but it is absolutely not the "smoking gun" that all of the anti-GMO crowd make it out to be. It is seriously, seriously flawed.

          January 22, 2013 at 6:04 pm |
        • bcharlesd
          

          Again, Jack...don't fall prey to the easy attack (my tinfoil hat collection). Give me something useful, research, studies, etc. If your gonna go all playground insult on me, at least come up with something better than the age-old "tinfoil hat" jab...

          January 22, 2013 at 6:21 pm |
    • Mike
      

      Maybe you should do some reading and find out why the Seralini paper has been DISCREDITED. Even the EFSA, which has been perhaps the toughest regulatory critic of gm crops, has dismissed it.

      January 22, 2013 at 4:21 pm | Reply
      • bcharlesd
        

        They [EFSA] didn't DISCREDIT this...

        A virus gene that could be poisonous to humans has been missed when GM food crops have been assessed for safety.

        GM crops such as corn and soya, which are being grown around the world for both human and farm animal consumption, include the gene.

        A new study by the EU's official food watchdog, the European Food Safety Authority(EFSA), has revealed that the international approval process for GM crops failed to identify the gene.

        As a result, watchdogs have not investigated its impact on human health and the plants themselves when assessing whether they were safe.

        The findings are particularly powerful because the work was carried out by independent experts, rather than GM critics.

        Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2266143/Uncovered-toxic-gene-hiding-GM-crops-Revelation-throws-new-doubt-safety-foods.html#ixzz2IkIWP4Yq

        January 22, 2013 at 5:26 pm | Reply
        • Mike
          

          I never said the EFSA had discredited it, I said it had dismissed it. The discrediting has been done by many others.

          As for the so called "virus gene", clearly you have not read the actual study. If you would have, you would see that the study says there is no such link. This latest story is simply a tabloid looking for a new hot story to sell.

          January 22, 2013 at 5:41 pm |
        • bcharlesd
          

          Mike -

          What "link"?

          At issue is the fact that GM crops contain altered genes (namely, Gene VI) that are not safe for human consumption. Why? It has already been shown in research to be active on it's own with the capacity to disable it's host in order to invite pathogen invasion.

          The viral gene achieves this by incapacitating specific anti-pathogen defenses. Therefore, incorporating these viral genes clearly leads to undesirable and unexpected outcomes in humans, animals and plants, such as allergies, asthma, tumors, toxicity, cancers, death, and crop failures.

          Furthermore, viruses that infect plants are often not that different from viruses that infect humans. For example, sometimes the genes of human and plant viruses are interchangeable, while on other occasions inserting plant viral fragments as transgenes has caused the genetically altered plant to become susceptible to an animal virus.

          And this from (independentsciencenews.com):
          http://independentsciencenews.org/commentaries/regulators-discover-a-hidden-viral-gene-in-commercial-gmo-crops/

          "Big Lessons for Biotechnology – It is perhaps the most basic assumption in all of risk assessment that the developer of a new product provides regulators with accurate information about what is being assessed. Perhaps the next most basic assumption is that regulators independently verify this information. We now know, however, that for over twenty years neither of those simple expectations have been met. Major public universities, biotech multinationals, and government regulators everywhere, seemingly did not appreciate the relatively simple possibility that the DNA constructs they were responsible for encoded a viral gene."

          January 22, 2013 at 6:19 pm |
        • Jay
          

          According to EFSA, Séralini himself admitted that his conclusions were unfounded. (http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/121128.htm)

          "In their ‘Answer to critics’ document, Séralini et al. stated the sample size of their treatment groups was too small to allow them to draw conclusions with regard to long-term carcinogenicity and mortality. EFSA noted this acknowledgement from the authors is inconsistent with the overall conclusions they made in the paper regarding the tumours and mortality."

          You are spreading misinformation that even its original source doesn't claim to believe in. Congratulations!

          January 22, 2013 at 6:24 pm |
17. Mouser
    

    PJWoods, well said.

    January 22, 2013 at 1:41 pm | Reply
18. Mouser
    

    I am by no means an expert and I am of limited means and education. However, I have read many books on the dangers and advantages of pesticide use. The dangers seem to outweigh the advantages. What stood out to me is that farmers and other manufacturing agents use an insecticide (available from Monsanto and Dow) that is a form of Agent Orange (2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid) and that is just the tip of the iceberg! Look it up. And somehow they say in small use this isn't harmful to anyone? It's very scary to me what is being passed by our government agencies as safe. It seems we are so uneducated and about what we use on our environment and the long lasting negative effects that will inevitably come to the surface. These guys are very, very smart who run these big ag corporations and find many ways to suppress important information that should be better distributed to the public. Read, Get educated on what's really going on. It's not a conspiracy it's all about following the money. Hopefully I'm wrong about my opinion but it just seems that going back to the basics of growing food and the way we consume it, is better all around. These toxic substances just aren't the way to go. Just my humble opinion.

    January 22, 2013 at 1:37 pm | Reply
    • What?
      

      You wrote "Read, Get educated on what's really going on." Perhaps you should read more carefully.

      2,4-D was one of the two herbicides used in "Agent Orange", that is true. However, it is not the one that was found to be causing the problems. The other herbicide – 2,4,5-T was contaminated with dioxin, the "bad actor", and was in reality the source of the problem. Blaming 2,4-D is like blaming the person sleeping in the passenger seat for the car wreck.

      January 22, 2013 at 3:52 pm | Reply
      • bcharlesd
        

        Seriously? Stop it!

        (source: EPA2,4-D Dichlorophenoxyacetic Acid (2,4-D) Chemical Summary)
        http://www.epa.gov/teach/chem_summ/24D_summary.pdf

        "Reports of health effects following 2,4-D exposure have focused primarily on adult occupational exposures, and experimental animal studies (1, 2). Exposure to 2,4-D has been reported to result in blood, liver, and kidney toxicity (1, 2, 4). Chronic oral exposure in experimental animals have resulted in adverse effects on the eye, thyroid, kidney, adrenals, and ovaries/testes (1). Experimental animal studies have demonstrated delayed neurobehavioral development and changes in neurotransmitter concentrations in offspring exposed during pregnancy or lactation (5-9)."

        That all sounds fabulous, can I please have some to sprinkle on my "Corn" Flakes?

        January 22, 2013 at 6:05 pm | Reply
        • What?
          

          Doing a little "cherry-picking", are we? Did you bother to read any of the 'source' documentation that EPA reference was based upon?

          Here's some selected excerpts from the VERY FIRST REFERENCE CITED in your citation:

          "Dietary Risk

          Acute and chronic dietary exposures for food and drinking water do not exceed the Agency’s
          level of concern; therefore, no mitigation is warranted at this time for any dietary exposure to 2,4-D."

          "Residential Risk

          In preliminary versions of the risk assessment, when considered alone, acute and short-term
          residential risks posed by the use of 2,4-D were not of concern to the Agency; however, when
          considered as part of an aggregate exposure with food and drinking water, exposures did exceed the
          Agency’s level of concern. As a result, 2,4-D registrants agreed to reduce the maximum application
          rate to turf and residential lawns from 2.0 lbs ae/A to 1.5 lbs ae/A. Chronic residential exposures to
          2,4-D are not expected due to its use pattern."

          "Occupational Risk

          With the exception of mixing/loading wettable powder, all of the short-term and intermediateterm
          MOEs exceed the target of 100 with baseline personal protective equipment (PPE) (i.e., longsleeved
          shirt, long pants, shoes plus socks, no respirator) or single layer PPE (i.e., long-sleeved shirt,
          long pants, shoes plus socks, gloves, no respirator) and are not of concern. The MOEs for handling
          wettable powder are above 100 with engineering controls (i.e., water soluble bags)."

          So . . . don't drink it while you're applying it and cover exposed skin. Those are some extraordinary protection measures, don't you agree? And this is from the same EPA you quoted from. Learn to do REAL research, not just regurgitate summary information.

          January 22, 2013 at 6:36 pm |
        • Atari2600
          

          Good news is that the moron farmers that are stupid enough to spray this crap on their fields should be dead of cancer in no time (and their kin). So there's that.

          January 23, 2013 at 2:26 am |
        • bcharlesd
          

          @ What?

          So, you are expecting rational individuals to consume substances that pose the aforementioned occupational (or otherwise) risks? Sure, jump into the hazzmat suit when you handle this material on the farm, BUT, no worries if you ingest a "safe" amount. I am EXTREMELY interested in the studies that BIG Chem conducted and handed to the FDA where the "safe" amount of 2,4-D was established.

          Let's just say you are consuming only the "safe" amount of 2,4-D (in everything derived from corn). And just the "safe" amount of Glyphosate (in everything derived from corn, soy, canola, cotton). And the "safe" amount of Bacillus Thuringiensis (in everything derived from corn, cotton). Now consider all of the factory-farmed animals that feast of these garbage grains – add in just the "safe" amount of 2,4-D, Glyphosate and Bacillus Thuringiensis consumed through factory-farmed meat.

          Considering how pervasive the aforementioned grains (and FF meat) are, do you truly believe anyone is consuming the "safe" amount of any of this crap? The average clueless American is probably consuming more 2,4-D, Glyphosate and Bacillus Thuringiensis on a daily basis that a farmer handles in an entire planting season.

          You are telling me that there is a "safe" amount of any of this crap–what?1

          January 25, 2013 at 8:58 pm |
      • What?
        

        @ bcharlesd

        I don't know who you are, what you do, what your educational or occupational background is, or anything else. What I "pick up" from your comments is that you are extremely risk-averse and that you think "Big Ag" is out to kill us all. Your latest comment here infers that no "rational" person would "consume" anything that is harmful for them. Your "extremist" points are 'strawman' at best, and border on the edge of ludicrous. Using your logic, nobody would consume salt, or Vitamin A (you can ingest so much it becomes toxic, you know?), or ethanol (cirrhosis and all that stuff), and I could go on and on. I'm sure you get the point. You write as if we should live in some utopia where everything is perfect and there's no way anything would ever harm us. Well, I'm sorry, welcome to the "real world", where everything's not perfect and bad things happen.

        I wasn't aware that long sleeves, long pants, gloves, and safety glasses constituted a "hazmat" suit. But then, I am not trying to hyperbolize everything I write, either. That "personal protective gear" sounds a whole lot like what I wear when I go out to mow my lawn . . . which isn't an exceptionally hazardous job. I believe you will find that this is the recommended PPE for nearly every "lawn and garden" chemical you find available to the general public that is applied in any fashion other than an aerosol can.

        Since you are so interested in the "research" – but you aren't willing to do anything to find it yourself, even when it's right in front of your face – I will give you this link: http://www.epa.gov/oppsrrd1/REDs/24d_red.pdf. This is the afore-mentioned "first" citation listed in 'your' reference. You will find that there are over 100 pages of references listed here, including not only the chemical makers, but research from the EPA itself, Wildlife International Ltd., refereed journals, and many others. Help yourself . . . and feel free to cherry-pick the points that support your intransigence from the 1,000+ references you find.

        As others have said – if you've read that far – Bt is very commonly used in organic farming. It must give you a real warm, fuzzy feeling inside to know that this hated "chemical" is also found in your favorite produce, along with the bacteria that produce it.

        I am very much on the "pro-farming" side of this debate, because it's in my blood. Am I blind to the issues? No, I'm not. Is everything "perfect"? Of course not. Are the unbelievably few doing almost miraculous things to feed the overwhelmingly many? Oh, yeah. And what do they get for it? Bashed, by a very large percentage of the snobbishly ungrateful population who would go hungry without them. It's a shame that so many people never learned "not to bite that hand that feeds them."

        What "you people" don't understand is that plants need nutrients to grow, just like animals, and that anything other than the "desired" plant that consumes those nutrients has a detrimental effect on the ultimate performance of the desired plant. This includes weeds, insect pests, microbiological pests, higher-order animal pests, and even the inadequacy of the soil itself. As a general rule, if one doesn't "intervene" in these areas, from adding nutrients to controlling weeds and animal pests, then the "harvest" from their labors is not going to be "all that it could be", and – in the end – that costs everybody in more ways than they realize.

        January 25, 2013 at 10:25 pm | Reply
        • bcharlesd
          

          Hello, What?

          I am a 40-year-old IT geek. I have a bachelors degree from UWEC in MIS. Here is a little story for you about how I became such an "extremist"...

          But, before I share...to your contention that: "nothing is perfect"...it [Big AG] could not be any further than perfect. Quite the opposite – everything I look at on the shelves of the garden variety supermarket makes me figuratively ill. If I actually took the time to eat it, I'd literally be ill.

          Here's my story...my evidence based diagnosis...

          In 2001, I begin a regimen of daily morning shakes. These shakes included:

          > 1.5 cups of Soy Milk
          > 1 cup of frozen yogurt
          > 1 handful of mixed berries
          > 1 serving soy protein powder

          I figured I was choosing a healthy alternative for breakfast, right? Good for me!

          I happily drank my morning shakes for five years. Life was great. In 2006, I began to notice that at times when I would go to the bathroom, nothing but a clear mucus-like substance would come out [of my ass]. There would be a certain degree of urgency to go, and all I would get was clear mucus; I would later learn with [really fun] testing, this was the lining of my intestines. This issue dissipated on weekends, when I would not drink my morning shake. I figured...not the end of the world, and I continued to drink my shakes. In 2007, the clear mucus incidents were daily occurrences. In addition, I was basically living in a state of constant digestive discomfort. By 2009, the problem was significantly affecting my quality of life. In addition to the multiple daily clear mucus incidents, I was getting pink mucus, reddish mucus, scarlet-red mucus and eventually...just a bunch of blood sans any mucus. If you have ever pulled up a pile of toilet paper drenched in blood, you know the kind of fear it can strike deep into every recess of your mind.

          I went to the doctor. He had no idea what to tell me, but he thought I should get tested for everything from Cancer to food allergies. I tested positive for neither Cancer nor food allergies. By this point, I had developed a case of Lichen Planus – an inflammatory disease marked by random rashes that appear throughout the body. Basically, anything I would put into my mouth would either case: bloody stool, severe cramping and gas or mucus in my stool. And every day I stepped out of the shower, I had a new rash (on my ass, foot, arm, shoulder, etc…) At the ripe old age of 37, I experienced the joy of my first colonoscopy. Result: my colon: "looked immaculate". I had a consultation with a gastroenterologist, and she told me there was really nothing that they could do for me.

          Like any other person in my situation, I hit the good ol' world wide web. It's amazing what you can find out there, right? All sorts of “extremists” like me…just waiting to throw the BIG Ag under the bus and starve everyone...

          It turns out the Soy Milk I was glugging for the better part of a decade was engineered to withstand as much Round-Up spraying as the farmer who planted it saw fit to spray. Over the course of nearly a decade, this toxic garbage had destroyed my digestive system. That is what it is – toxic garbage - you can hide behind all sorts of FDA “research”, but the garbage on the supermarket shelves today is not feeding anyone; quite the contrary, it’s slowly killing everyone.

          I stopped my morning shake, as the only relief I was getting was when I did not drink it. I switched to oatmeal, berries and Soy Milk. The problem got worse. I started to experiment wildly with what I ate to see if I could pinpoint the culprit. I took the soy milk out of the picture and I was still experiencing the problem using normal milk in my morning shake. So, I took out the berries and life got better…why???

          Well, when your stomach lining is destroyed by the chemicals that are sprayed on soy/corn/cotton/canola, the other stuff in your stomach leaks out into your body. That stuff – in my case, berries – is attacked like any foreign entity would be. My body has developed an immune reaction to berries thanks to the leaky gut I had from all those years of pounding my Round-Up-Ready soy cocktail every morning.

          To this day, if I eat a strawberry, blueberry, raspberry or black berry, I will shit blood for two weeks. And that ani’t it, there’s a list of other stuff (coffee, nuts, coconut, etc…) that I was eating heavily during my Round-Up-Ready soy cocktail era that I can no longer eat. I have now survived my first AND second colonoscopies that both showed: NO STRUCTURAL ISSUES AT ALL in my colon. The accompanying blood tests show no issues either. No: IBR, Diverticulitis, Chron’s, not a GOD DAMN THING!!! I HAVE AN IMMACULATE COLON–YAY!!!

          So how is it that I can’t eat 25 things I could eat up until I started drinking my Round-Up-Ready soy cocktail shake? How in the hell did that happen to me? Point me to the research that will allow me to once again enjoy a strawberry. I would love that.

          Today, I am a lunatic “extremist” tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy-theorist organic food snob. Guess how I feel? I am about to turn 41 in early March. My receding hairline is now proceeding back toward my forehead. I am 6’0”, 175 lbs. and I have washboard abs. People think I am 25 years old when they have to guess. My co-workers constantly ask me what my “secret” is – I tell them “extremist” organic food snobism, of course. Guess how many of my previous symptoms I have as I type this right now? I have exactly zero. Guess what happened to my Lichen Planus? It is gone, I no longer rub Clobetasol Propionate Ointment USP, 0.05% on myass, foot, shoulder, etc. when I exit the shower each day. Guess how much GMO food I allow my four-year-old son and six-year-old daughter to eat? They eat absolutely fucking none. They see McDonald's and tell me: "that is where crap is served", and I smile...widely...'casue that are 100% correct!

          I survived my personal battle with GMO poisoning, therein lies my credibility. I am now sitting on the happy end of a personal horror story that took four very productive years from me. I sat up nights praying that I would feel better, that something or someone would help me. I finally had to help myself, and thank god I did.

          I take great solace in the words of the immortal Don Klikeman from the movie “King Corn”:

          [in regards to corn growing in the US] Klikeman laughs ruefully and says that, indeed, the only thing that should impress them is the "stupidity" of the system, because in fact "we are growing crap." His sense of disenchantment is reinforced in his following hyperbole: "the worst quality crap the world has ever seen."

          I agree with Don, and he has farmed corn in Iowa all his life. I just sit in a cube all day...and eat only organic food :-)

          January 27, 2013 at 12:54 am |
        • What?
          

          @ bcharlesd

          You have obviously been through your own personal nightmare with that situation. It is unfortunate that anyone has to go through an experience like that. The "effects" of what you endured are quite obvious, but I wonder if you have accurately identified the "cause"?

          I am trying to be 100% objective here, so please "hear me out". A number of studies have indicated that GMO's can cause ill effects, and a number have not. It is my opinion that "the jury is still out" when it comes to the current technology. Soybeans, however – in and of themselves – contain a number of substances that have proven to be capable of having deleterious effects on human health. There is a distinct possibility that the problems you have attributed to the genetic modifications and Roundup(R) usage were, in reality, due to the soybean products themselves. Several sources – I can't vouch for their veracity – indicate that unfermented products (such as the soy milk and protein isolate you were using) are a much bigger problem than the "traditional" fermented products, especially when taken continuously over a long time period.

          January 28, 2013 at 9:03 pm |
19. bcharlesd
    

    Every country on earth has heavily regulated GMO crops except this one. Monsanto is working very diligently to protect their last (and most profitable) safe haven. This week, to add to the mountain of evidence of safety issues with GMO crops, there was this little gem from the European Food Safety Authority (the US could use such an organization...oh wait, we have one, the FDA–boo hoo ha ha ha)...

    In the course of analysis to identify potential allergens in GMO crops, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has belatedly discovered that the most common genetic regulatory sequence in commercial GMOs also encodes a significant fragment of a viral gene (Podevin and du Jardin 2012). This finding has serious ramifications for crop biotechnology and its regulation, but possibly even greater ones for consumers and farmers. This is because there are clear indications that this viral gene (called Gene VI) might not be safe for human consumption. It also may disturb the normal functioning of crops, including their natural pest resistance.

    January 22, 2013 at 1:08 pm | Reply
    • What?
      

      Once again, you show a pronounced tendency to quote a second- or third-hand "interpretation" of original research, and you plagiarized that.

      The abstract of the 'original' article can be found here: http://www.es.landesbioscience.com/journals/gmcrops/article/21406/?nocache=1759778285.

      The title of the article (my emphasis added) is: "POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES of the overlap between the CaMV 35S promoter regions in plant transformation vectors used and the viral gene VI in transgenic plants". An overwhelmingly damning title, if I've ever seen one.

      And, from the abstract itself (again, my emphasis added)t: "Multiple variants of the Cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter (P35S) are used to drive the expression of transgenes in genetically modified plants, for both research purposes and commercial applications. The genetic organization of the densely packed genome of this virus results in sequence overlap between P35S and viral gene VI, encoding the multifunctional P6 protein. The present paper investigates whether introduction of P35S variants by genetic transformation is likely to result in the expression of functional domains of the P6 protein and in potential impacts in transgenic plants. A bioinformatic analysis was performed to assess the safety for human and animal health of putative translation products of gene VI overlapping P35S. NO RELEVANT SIMILARITY WAS IDENTIFIED BETWEEN THE PUTATIVE (likely) PEPTIDES AND KNOWN ALLERGENS AND TOXINS, using different databases." I trust I don't need to interpret this for you.

      Do the words "critical thinking" mean anything to you?

      January 22, 2013 at 10:36 pm | Reply
20. Ready1
    

    I know that this will not be accepted by many but it is interesting.

    http://www.marklynas.org/2013/01/lecture-to-oxford-farming-conference-3-january-2013/?goback=%2Egde_68088_member_201024885

    January 22, 2013 at 12:50 pm | Reply
21. NIck
    

    You do understand that independent documentaries are in no way obligated to give truthful or meaningful information, right?

    January 22, 2013 at 12:14 pm | Reply
22. PJWoods
    

    I won't pretend to know alot about GMO's, I just think it is unnatural to be screwing with nature and expect there will be no consequenses. Is it not a fact that different diseases both in humans and animals have progressed and appeared since processed foods were so much more convenient to buy from corps. that are in it for proffit, than those foods that have been raised at home? I have always wanted to farm, but never was able to aquire the land to do so. I know and am friends with several farmers, no not these huge farmers, but local growers. I have learned and incorporated into my own raising of foods and animals a lot over the years. (been doing this for 30 years). My children were raised on home grown and home raised and I believe healthier for it.
    I also believe in putting back into the earth what you take out and not putting anything in that does not belong. I am not a tree hugger or animal activist but a person who believes we have to respect nature and the animals raised for food, ( as we so frequently hear of mis-treatment of livestock, and mis-handling of produce). Proffit is the driving source for co's like Monsanto and Dow in my opinion.
    But it was once said, "Man will Dominate Man to his own injury", and I for one belive that. I also believe that corp's, org's, and other companies who value proffit over human lives will pay in the end for the blood on their hands of the recipients who have contracted disease, illness or loss of life from a product that is not natural and the destruction of food sources that naturally sustain themselves in a proper enviroment that has not been polluted with biotechnology, which some day may prevent those crops that once grew naturally from taking root.

    January 22, 2013 at 12:10 pm | Reply
    • NIck
      

      So you admit to knowing nothing about it yet try to argue how bad it is? So you must have a problem with medicinal drug research as well, as they stop trying to prevent "natural" diseases with "unnatural" means? The same means that have nearly doubled the average human life span? GMO crops SAVE billions of lives by increasing yields and ensuring they can thrive in harsh climates.

      January 22, 2013 at 12:31 pm | Reply
      • NIck
        

        Apparently my anger at ignorance caused me to abandon proper sentence structure. I should have said, "So you must have a problem with medicinal drug research as well, as scientists are trying to prevent "natural" diseases with "unnatural" means

        January 22, 2013 at 1:09 pm | Reply
        • PJWoods
          

          No problem, as this is a opinion page you have a right to yours. No argument was just my opinion.

          January 22, 2013 at 1:22 pm |
    • Jack
      

      You should have stopped at "I won't pretend to know a lot about GMO's"

      January 22, 2013 at 12:51 pm | Reply
      • Erik
        

        The problem is that no one knows much about GM crops. They may turn out alright, but then again... Are we really willing to take such a risk with our health and the environment?
        Bees are in decline in North America, and this is in part to GM crops like what Monsanto makes. If the bees go, so do a third of our agriculture crops. That hurts the economy as well as the environment.

        January 22, 2013 at 1:23 pm | Reply
        • What?
          

          And you "know" the decline in bees is due to GM crops exactly how?

          You might try reading these:

          http://entomology.umd.edu/files/entm/documents/mhwg/bee_NTO_paper.pdf

          or this one:

          http://www.gmo-safety.eu/archive/441.maize-compatible-honey-bees.html

          January 22, 2013 at 1:31 pm |
23. David
    

    So many crops/food are GMO. Wine grapes and avacados are. WTF. No one, I mean NO ONE here has explained why GMO is bad. If science could GMO cancer out of our bodies, they would be hailed as heros....oh yea...they are working on that right now, and you same anti-GMO fools are sending money to those organization as I type. And as for the Corporation scare tactic, most ANY smart farmer that cared about his/her family and passing on the farm from generation to generation, would form a corporation that owns the farm....read some about estate taxes you fools.

    The scare tactics and bad/wrong information spread by the eco-anti organic what ever you are is mind numbing.

    January 22, 2013 at 11:46 am | Reply
24. NIck
    

    Do you people realize that if the world grew only organic crops we could only feed an estimated 3 billion people? Humanity has altered crops for thousands of years with selective breeding, today we are doing essentially the same thing, just on a genetic level. Why are higher yeilds and drought-resistance considered to be so evil if they are feeding hungry people? There is simply no LEGITIMATE science that has found any negative side-effects to GM crops, they undergo an enormous amount of testing before they are ever approved as a food crop. Don't turn a mistrust of big corporations into a mistrust of science. The real evil to me is when people and organizations like Greenpeace lie to starving African nations telling them the GM seed they've been given to thrive in their harsh environment is poison, and instead let those people starve. Until you and yours are starving, drop the "holier-than-thou" rhetoric and educate yourself wtih real science.

    January 22, 2013 at 11:24 am | Reply
    • bcharlesd
      

      Nick – selective breeding and genetic-modification are not essentially the same thing by any stretch of your wildest imagination. Inserting seaweed genes and Ocean Pout genes into wild Alaskan salmon is not selective breeding!!! Inserting the Bt bacteria into corn genes is not selective breeding. Seriously, cease with the false information!!!

      January 22, 2013 at 1:23 pm | Reply
      • Erik
        

        Totally agree! It's one thing to choose crops that grow best in a certain region, or resist a disease. That's still natural. But inserting genes from a totally different crop or species is playing with a science we are only in the infancy of understanding.

        January 22, 2013 at 1:26 pm | Reply
      • What?
        

        And just who put a "seaweed" gene into the salmon? Looks like you're making it up as you go.

        You do realize the ocean pout is a highly edible fish, don't you? (It's more commonly known as a 'burbot'.) And the other gene – it was from a chinook salmon, not a seaweed. Big stretch there, huh?

        January 22, 2013 at 1:34 pm | Reply
        • bcharlesd
          

          Thanks for the clarification, I mixed up the seaweed that is integrated with ice cream due to it's anti-freeze-like properties with the anti-freeze protein from the Ocean Pout used in the AquaBounty Frankenfish salmon experiment for which no consumer has asked or even wants. It's hard to keep all of the GMO experiments straight–phew! But your technique of attacking a portion of my post and not the main point is a very typical distractionary tactic of mis-informationists such as yourself. Please explain to me again how genetic modifications are the same as selective breeding. I am much more interested in that!

          January 22, 2013 at 2:45 pm |
        • What?
          

          @ bcharlesd

          You completely got it wrong, but I am the "mis-informationist"? Uh, yeah, sure.

          Selective breeding is "genetic modification". If there was no desire to improve 'genetics', then the selective breeding wouldn't be done in the first place. "Gene-splicing" is an attempt to compress decades or centuries of 'trial-and-error' selective breeding into a much, much shorter time span by making very specific and directed genetic changes. Mixing an animal gene and a plant gene is not something that would happen in nature, no, but that – for the most part – is not what is being done or has been done with GMO's.

          Back to the salmon – more "misinformation" from you. There was no 'anti-freeze' gene used. The gene from the ocean pout/burbot, which by the way is a highly edible fish, was a 'regulatory' gene used to control the "weight gain" gene from the chinook salmon that was introduced. The GM'ed Atlantic salmon eats more, has an increased feed efficiency, and gains weight more quickly. Oh, chinook salmon are edible, too.

          And, while you brought it up and we're on the subject – there's no "anti-freeze" agent integrated into ice cream, either. There is a 'gum' called carrageenan that is used as a stabilizer to help prevent the sugar from crystallizing out of the mix, and it is extracted from seaweed, but it is not an "anti-freeze" agent. Think about it – you have to hold ice cream at 0F or lower as it is to keep it from melting . . . why in the world would you put an "anti-freeze" agent in it? You would never be able to keep it from melting.

          But "I" am the one spreading misinformation?

          January 22, 2013 at 4:41 pm |
25. JK
    

    I was raised on my uncle's farm in the sixties and saw corporate control come into power then. Genetic engineering should be on the same plane as any other proprietary technology. Pharmaceutical companies eventually relinguish their drugs to generic production. Why should GE seed have an indefinate grip on price controls that span generations of family farms? This country can feed the world; but not with the extreme costs imposed on farmers. Monsanto and others are doing quite well.

    January 22, 2013 at 11:21 am | Reply
    • Farmer
      

      They are held to the same patent standards. RoundUp Ready 1 Soybeans are going off patent in 2014. The RoundUp Ready Corn will go off patent a few years after. It's really easy to pick out the people who have never been involved with agriculture in the comments. The amount of misinformation getting spewed is sickening. People complain that big businesses run the world, and yet they are the ones that are too stupid to realize they are the reason why.

      January 22, 2013 at 11:46 am | Reply
      • Brian
        

        That's correct. As I mentioned in the piece, I sold generic Roundup when I worked in town. Just like other industries these patents are not indefinite. Bringing new products to market can take these companies 10 years and billions of dollars. I think they ought to have a fair shake at making something off that investment.

        January 22, 2013 at 12:19 pm | Reply
26. Brittany L. Mountjoy
    

    It is often difficult to sift through the vast amount of information that is thrown at us, and more often than not, it is even more difficult to know who to trust and who to believe. While you may not agree with biotechnology and genetic engineering or trust organizations that produce biotech products, it is important to look at the science behind the product. Products, before reaching the farmer, are tested and regulated by three different agencies, including the FDA, USDA, and EPA.

    Most recently, a well-known anti-biotech activist in Europe, Mark Lynas apologized for his active career against biotechnology. Lynas was quoted , "I discovered science, and in the process I hope I became a better environmentalist." Whether or not you support biotechnology, organizations who produce it, or farmers who use it, it is important to remember the value of science.

    For more information about biotechnology, please visit foodinsight.org or to see the video of Mark Lynas, visit alliancetofeedthefuture.org.

    Brittany Mountjoy, Food Safety and Food Technology
    International Food Information Council Foundation

    January 22, 2013 at 10:46 am | Reply
27. Lauren
    

    I don't know ONE family that would feed their child(ren) GM corn and or soybeans! This farmer should consider doing what is right for our future & our children's future. Why GM over a regular seed? Is it really worth it?

    January 22, 2013 at 3:54 am | Reply
    • Pat
      

      Seriously, you don't know anyone with intelligence or an ability to understand science?

      January 22, 2013 at 9:40 am | Reply
      • frespech
        

        I'm 63 years old and just starting to really get educated on what I eat. I believe the trend is moving toward organic and free range production. From a health standpoint it is a far superior product in nutrional levels. Have never thought of farmers per say as evil. but the way factory farms are producing chickens pigs and cattle in confined pens where the animals are not free to graze naturally as they should is not a plus.

        January 22, 2013 at 12:49 pm | Reply
        • Matt Boucher
          

          I understand your concern about farmers raising animals indoors, but do you live outdoors? No? Huh.. I bet you live in a heater and cooled home, with clean running water (not water from a middy creek) and have a fridge full of food. I also bet your car isheated and cooled as well. So why do you expect animals to live out in the rain, snow, heat, cold, mud and so on if you aren't willing to? Now I would prefer if livestock were able to walk in and out of shelter and into pasture freely but that's not what you are suggesting.

          January 22, 2013 at 2:42 pm |
      • Lauren
        

        I love science Pat and have a lot of respect for it. I also know NOT to feed a developing child food with pesticides. I am surrounded by very intelligent people who would never agree GMO's are safe to consume. Most of the people who buy GMO's are uneducated and are the ones that will be effected in the long run. Good luck to you.

        January 22, 2013 at 11:51 pm | Reply
    • Jack
      

      Then you don't know anyone. Internet friends don't count. Go back to the rock you've been living under all your life.

      January 22, 2013 at 12:08 pm | Reply
28. Annoyed
    

    Just a question: who among the anti-GMO crowd here would like to explain to the people of India how evil 'dwarf wheat' is? You know, the GM crop developed to feed hundreds of millions of people? Kind of goes against the idea that GM crops are all bad, doesn't it?

    January 22, 2013 at 12:46 am | Reply
    • Erik
      

      Your example of dwarf wheat isn't a GMO, it's a bred crop variety. Selective breeding to produce a better crop for a region is hundreds of years old at least, and well tested and accepted. GMO is newer and much less tested.

      January 22, 2013 at 1:32 pm | Reply
29. Wolf
    

    GMO technology will severely harm our food source and damage the cells of both animals and humans. (please read Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette by Jeffrey M. Smith and as well watch and documentary THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MONSANTO) Governments, media and health representatives have been silenced or bought off. It is all about control and money for the companies and Governments while the people are being sacrificed on the alter of greed. We have been sold for slaughter. When will the populous realize that they are victims of a biotechnology that was unleashed twenty years ago? Whether we realize it are not, does not change the fact that a WAR is ragging and we are being targeted with toxic food in exchange for our money, health and lives. Politically our system of capitalism is in name only because in practice we operate like a dictatorship. The larger companies become, the more money they use to manipulate governments and the media. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." History proves that dictatorships are over thrown only by revolutions. I wonder how long the masses will continue to be drugged into complacency with materialism and entertainment?

    January 21, 2013 at 10:29 pm | Reply
30. Dale
    

    This advertisement brought to you by Monsanto. Now go eat your corn flakes...

    January 21, 2013 at 7:35 pm | Reply
    • Dood
      

      Exactly. I've seen too many independent films on Big Agriculture to believe this. Big Agri (Monsanto, Con-Agra, Tyson) are evil monsters trying to dominate the independent farmer. One on occasion, one of the seed manufacturers fields was across from an independent farmer. The test seed blew over into the independent farmer's field and the company sued the farmer and won! How crooked is that? It was clear that the plants growing from that blown seed were only on the side adjacent to the test field. Unbelievable.

      January 22, 2013 at 9:37 am | Reply
31. Steve
    

    Some farmers may be willing to work within these constraints. But this is not the real issue. The real issue is GMO itself. There is much to say – creation of resistant weeds, cross breeding of GMO crops with others, so many potential downsides for a minimal upside. If you want more information, go to the Center for Food Safety or the Union of Concerned Scientists websites.

    January 21, 2013 at 6:54 pm | Reply
32. Tyrone
    

    I perfectly agree but you don't have to get discriminate against race about it. Monsanto has found a loophole for putting patents on nature. I've read that it's because plants can be produced asexually. I don't know why this kind of patent is moral and legal but normal fertilization is not.

    January 21, 2013 at 2:04 pm | Reply
33. chip
    

    LOL. What a ridiculous article. What kind of kickback did you get from Mansanto on this??? The problem you point out is pretty inconsequential in most people's minds. Most people are not concerned with how farms operate, but the fact that you can spray deadly chemicals on these GMO crops and they are not effected. I mean, what could go wrong? Kool-aid drinker.

    January 21, 2013 at 1:53 pm | Reply
34. lillie
    

    you have been drinking too much round up. white man do not understand creation. you have sacrificed your integrity for monetary profit. you are giving the people chemicals instead of good quality food. shame on you.

    January 21, 2013 at 1:11 pm | Reply
    • John
      

      This is nothing but company spin. I wonder why big business controls us?

      January 21, 2013 at 1:37 pm | Reply
    • cropmaxx
      

      Lets look at the facts... Today farmers use 40% less chemical to grow crops then they did in 1995. The crops grown use 20% less water due to improved drought tolerance.(Fresh water will be the next commodity in demand). The regulatory board at the USDA that approves GMO crops has the most stringent tests and guidelines the seed companies have to follow prior to commercialization. Did you know that if broccholi, or common butter was to go through this test, they would fail???? Thats right, the food today is safer than it has ever been! It costs a biotech company upwards of 100 million to get a NEW product to market, and quite often it doesnt make it even after huge investment. Now lets look at our society. We live 15 years longer, and on average we are 3" taller than we were in turn of the last century. And we have more food choice than ever. If you think food production is so easy, I suggest you buy a farm and get at it.

      January 21, 2013 at 1:40 pm | Reply
      • Small farm Ken
        

        It all sounds good but, today a chicken can be raised in 6 weeks. Thats 42 days folks and it's ready for the table. We are told,"It's all ok. There is nothing bad in it."
        You think maybe that's why we are taller, fatter and less healthy? We eat what the chicken eats, chemicals and growth hormones.

        January 22, 2013 at 12:06 pm | Reply
      • KeepOurFreedoms
        

        I guess you have not checked. The GMO seeds now have the chemicals in them. Check it out for yourself Every time you eat GMO corn, GMO alfalfa, GMO papaya, GMO soy, GMO sugar beets or the animals that at those products, you are eating the chemicals that were placed in the seeds of those plants.

        January 22, 2013 at 12:08 pm | Reply
    • Tyrone
      

      I perfectly agree but you don't have to get racist about it. Monsanto has found a loophole for putting patents on nature. I've read that it's because plants can be produced asexually. I don't know why this kind of patent is moral and legal but normal fertilization is not.

      January 21, 2013 at 1:58 pm | Reply
35. Bugsy
    

    Why does the picture remind me of Jim Varney? Hey Vern!

    Whenever I hear Monsanto, I imagine independent farmers trying to use their own line of seeds and Monsanto sending inspectors out to come waltz around on their farms uninvited to inspect the seeds to see if they can be traced to Monsanto's design. Get off my property fools!

    At least someone is setting a high standards for our food supply. There was once a time when you could claim some land, build a home, commute with a horse to work and grow the seeds you wanted. Those days are increasingly disappearing for good.

    January 21, 2013 at 12:35 pm | Reply
36. GeoScba
    

    I grew up in rural Oklahoma in the panhandle. As far as I can remember (and my family for that matter) all the farmers went to the Co-op to buy whatever it was they need. Dekalb was a major brand I remember as well. I don't remember it being until recently that you had to start signing usage agreements with companies over seeds. It sounds very foreign to me. I'm also not a fan of Monsanto and GMOs. There is something not right about a plant you can fully coat in herbicide and it doesn't die. The medical studies coming out are also very ominous. Something just doesn't sit right with me that you have to sign a contract to grow something. I buy seeds and no one asks me to sign any agreement or hands me a usage manual. It just doesn't smell right to me.

    January 21, 2013 at 11:47 am | Reply
    • Mike
      

      These crops cannot "be coated in chemicals and not die". They are designed to be able to metabolize a small amount of chemical. Give them too much and they will die. Trust me, I have seen it myself. They are no different than humans and alcohol; have a little bit and you can metabolize it, have a lot and bad things will happen.

      January 22, 2013 at 4:13 pm | Reply
37. TomGI
    

    Looks to me like Monsanto publicity department wrote this for you.

    January 21, 2013 at 11:45 am | Reply
38. J
    

    You know, maybe you're not a corporate tool. Maybe you speak from your heart about your farm and Monsanto's seeds, but you are nothing but a fool in the end. :)

    January 21, 2013 at 11:22 am | Reply
39. BOb the Prairie Dog
    

    This isn't about Monsanto being "Evil", it;'s about me knowing what is in my food. Now, if Monsanto and the like need to spend $40 million to keep me from knowing, excuse me for being suspicious.

    January 21, 2013 at 10:38 am | Reply
40. djcubagoodingjr
    

    Thank you for the article, I appreciate the efforts of farmers. But I really think this article builds up a bit of a strawman argument.

    In my experience VERY few people are having issues with farmers themselves. I am a layman and like others, I consider most farmers to be in the position of simply working within the existing corporate system in whatever honest means they can.

    The common man's issue is rather with corporate greed and unethical practices. This exists. It is an unfortunate fact.

    Consider this: If GM food was labeled as such, it is possible that Monsanto would in fact *go out of business*. There is an overwhelming public opposition to GM foods. Do you suppose that Monsanto is somehow not aware of this?

    There is dishonesty and unethical practices taking place with regard to GM foods. This has nothing to do with the choices of farmers, as you said farmers are simply trying to make a living.

    January 20, 2013 at 9:30 pm | Reply
    • Brian
      

      I'm not going to disagree with most of what you said. This post wan't intended to do anything but say that farmers are free to do what they choose to do. Signing a contract like this is a choice. I don't have to sign it as I can go another direction if that's my choice. I just want to dispel the rumor that says farmers are nice people, but they just aren't savy enough to know what's happening when they sign these things.

      January 21, 2013 at 11:53 am | Reply
41. daveshroomer
    

    Very in depth article . Brian agrees that People should have a choice (freedom ,if you like ) to plant ,grow and consume what every they decide .One argument I have is : Why did these Corporation spend nearly $50 million to defeat proposition 37 in California ? Where is the Freedom of Choice here ? Brian also agrees that the Market should decide which products are preferred ,So He must agree also with Labeling as such so consumers are Not misled by False claims . If I had more time I would like to add Questions about the adverse Health from eating these G M O products , But I have to pick bugs out of MY little tiny Organic Garden .

    January 20, 2013 at 6:47 pm | Reply
    • Brian
      

      I think labeling will come. I just hope we can do it with solid info and input from all interests and come to a good solution. Prop 37 left too many loopholes ripe for unintended consequences in my opinion.

      January 20, 2013 at 8:14 pm | Reply
      • djcubagoodingjr
        

        Could you please elaborate on the loopholes? I am familiar with this proposition, it is very simple and straightforward and I really cannot see the loopholes that you mention, but I am open to being shown the error of my ways.

        January 20, 2013 at 9:36 pm | Reply
        • What?
          

          If you have actually read the full text of Proposition 37, you may want to read it again. There were glaring "exceptions" built into the proposal – no labeling required for any 1) meat (unless the animal itself was a "GMO, 2) alcoholic beverage made from a GMO source, 3) any commodity with only "enzymes" that were GMO [this exception likely would have excluded most, if not all, of Monsanto's RR crops, by the way], and, 4) food prepared for immediate consumption or for serving in a retail establishment. No restaurant would have had to inform customers if they were using foods containing GMO products. The proposal also would not have required identifying exactly what ingredients in the food were derived from GMO's, so there would not necessarily have been any way to know exactly "what" came from a GM source.

          January 20, 2013 at 10:19 pm |
        • Brian
          

          It depends on where you get the info on how big you think the loopholes are. They were exceptions for animals fed GMO. I think this is common in countries that already label though. Restaurant food wouldn't have to be labelled, which I can understand, but I would think that for some people that means the proposition didn't go far enough. Here's a link to some of the exceptions. Again, not saying I'm against labeling. Let's just make sure we are doing it carefully.
          http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/prop_37_opponents_have_holes_in_their_loopholes/

          January 21, 2013 at 11:35 am |
42. carol28
    

    Sorry, but if you submit to the government's subsidy programs, loan programs, and general controls, then you are not an independent farmer. The government is determinedly steering family farming towards a corporate and large fate.From the destructive loan restructuring to the assertive and uncostitutional abuse by the epa and the dept. of labor and of course the unholy alliance between big government and big corporations, the little guy is being fazed out.

    January 20, 2013 at 4:38 pm | Reply
    • trulythere
      

      You are kidding aren't you? Have you sat down and realistically figured the cost to acquire land and machinery to start a farm. I was not fortunate enough to inherit property or machinery from our family farm and have had to start from zero. The no down payment low interest loan we acquired from the FSA made it possible to continue farming. The FSA requires a realistic five year plan as a requirement for eligibility. Operating loans help to get the crop in the ground. It all has to be payed back. The subsidies you write about are probably a fraction of what you think they are. If a farmer is in any government program they are supposed to have a soil conservation plan and a soil nutrient plan that is approved by the Department of Natural Resources and that is usually a good thing. The money may not always go were you want, but it does help farming to continue, which in turn helps you to have food on your plate. And yes there are a lot of subsidies going to Organic farmers also, contrary to popular belief. The FSA does not care if you are no till, minimum till, conventional or Organic when you apply.

      January 20, 2013 at 8:35 pm | Reply
43. Ken
    

    As someoen who spent several summers working on a family farm I can tell you that 2,300 acres is not a small family farm.
    This article reads like it was written by a public relations office for some company or industry organization. It is not uncommonn for business these days to pay for articles to be run as "news" when in reality they are no more then propaganda pieces to try softening an industry image. It seems like it came out at about the right time to try counter the growing concern over GMO.

    January 20, 2013 at 2:01 pm | Reply
    • Rwee2000
      

      Hate to tell you but I grew up in the 60's and 70's and it was common for people to farm a section (2,600 acres) When people settled this area, a family would try to get a full section, sons and fathers each getting a homestead of 650 acres attached to each other.

      January 20, 2013 at 4:13 pm | Reply
      • Robb
        

        I don't know what part of the country you're from, or what units of measure they use, but a section has always been a square mile (640 acres) – at least in the Midwest.

        January 21, 2013 at 6:15 pm | Reply
    • MP
      

      2300 acres is a not a small farm in alabama, but in say.. the dakotas, 2300 acres is peanuts, I personally know farmers in canada farming 50-70,000 acres, ya.. you read right....

      January 20, 2013 at 4:18 pm | Reply
      • SB1790
        

        Depends on what you're farming and how much of that land is tillable. If you raise cows or sheep, you need lots of acreage. If you're raising soybeans, milo or rice, then 2,500 is sort of average in some areas with usually a father/son's families all making a living off that acreage. Some areas (Kentucky and Illinois) have lots of hills and can't be irrigated like delta farms with plenty of water and precision level ground, but in the delta area (Arkansas and Mississippi) you sometimes get flooding. Fertilizer bills depend on how much land you have which affects how much you can rotate crops. And in the South a lot of farm land grew cotton for generations and has sucked a lot of nutrients out of the soil. Or the land was precision leveled (sand hills) and you get 'bald spots' that need extra fertilizer. In the delta region you get to irrigate more but you have either high fuel or electric bills to pump the water, but you're not at the mercy of droughts.

        In short, the area you live and what you raise determine operating costs. If people were to actually pay at the grocery store for the cost of making a descent living from farming, you'd be glad of the subsidies.

        January 21, 2013 at 11:06 am | Reply
    • MP
      

      @Rwee2000 A section is 640 acres.

      January 20, 2013 at 4:21 pm | Reply
    • Alicia
      

      @ Ken... I, and I'm sure many others here, agree with you 1000%. The article and all the responses from the supposed author sound like they are coming from the mouths of the legal department at Monsanto. My intuition is usually correct and that's what it's telling me.

      January 20, 2013 at 4:31 pm | Reply
      • Brian
        

        Alicia, I can assure you I'm no lawyer or public relations professional. Come check me out at thefarmerslife.wordpress.com or facebook.com/thefarmerslife or twitter @thefarmerslife. Heck drop me an email at thefarmerslife@gmail.com. Like another comment said, I must have an incredibly elaborate ruse going to have been a fake farmer online for two years now. Shoot me a message if you're ever in Indiana, Alicia. I'd be more than happy to give you a farm tour.

        January 20, 2013 at 5:02 pm | Reply
    • Brian
      

      I never claimed to be a small farm, but we're definitely a family farm. Dad, Grandpa, one full time hired hand, and myself upstate this place. And I only came back to the farm four years ago. I have some neighbors much larger than me with only a few more hands on deck.

      January 20, 2013 at 4:54 pm | Reply
      • Brian
        

        Operate, not upstate!

        January 20, 2013 at 5:06 pm | Reply
        • Howard Schwartz
          

          Brian I enjoyed reading the article. I don't believe many folks know how hard it is to work a farm. You have my regards and respect. How do you spell farm? W O R K

          January 20, 2013 at 6:23 pm |
      • John Godwin
        

        it can actually lead to a brain abscess. This is what I have learned about GMOs and everything about Monsanto. The same company that created agent Orange.... a chemical I was exposed to many times in Vietnam. A chemical that is sprayed everyday pm crops that have been modified by Dowd, Monsanto and other Government approved corporations to poison the citizens of the United states.
        You Sir; are a puppet and I will not rest till you and all other " family farms" are held accountable along with Monsanto and others....

        January 20, 2013 at 10:48 pm | Reply
        • What?
          

          It is unclear from your response – or where it's located – as to exactly what 'chemical' you are referring.

          Glyphosate, the "active ingredient" in Roundup(R) was never used in "Agent Orange".

          The component of Agent Orange that has been proven to be the 'culprit' was 2,4,5-T. This was the herbicide that was contaminated with dioxin. It has been against the law in the U.S. to use 2,4,5-T on crops intended for human consumption for over 20 years.

          January 20, 2013 at 11:08 pm |
    • Dan
      

      I haven't read Brian's blog, I don't know if his family raises livestock, but if he is strictly a crop farmer 2300 acres is not very big. If you read the whole piece he mentions that his father and grandfather also operate these acres. That means 3 families are living on a little over 750 acres each. That is not very many acres to support a family.

      January 20, 2013 at 8:38 pm | Reply
      • Brian
        

        No livestock here. We got out of the hog business about six years ago while I was working off the farm.

        January 20, 2013 at 8:49 pm | Reply
      • oddlotfarm
        

        I have toured "farms" supporting families and households of just ONE acre in CA! The only soy I eat might be the diced tofu in my asian soup every other week or so...I have ALWAYS wondered wtf we do w/all that corn grown in the midwest? We grow white corn to eat...my gpa used to say "Yellow corn is for pigs!" haha I don't buy or eat meat anymore but was raised on grass fed animals from my gpa's THREE acre "farm in S CA. I would like the farm subsidies to STOP! I am sick of reading about millionaire "farmers" getting paid to grow this or NOT grow that! I believe in the family farm but NOT if that family farm is caught up in BIG AG/BIG Biz which anyone involved w/Monsanto – IS! Agriculture needs to get back to its roots and kick "factory farming" and BIG AG/BIG Biz to the manure pile or compost!

        January 20, 2013 at 11:41 pm | Reply
44. paulronco
    

    Seems civilization did fine long before all these contracts forcing you to do things some other business' way. If you want to grow connect-the-dot corn, go right ahead, that is, as long as we let you. Because when it comes right down to it, Americans don't want genetically modified food in their diets, and eventually we will get rid of all of it. First we will mandate labeling, and then we will really start to have the dialog as parents all over the country have to start answering their kids' questions about what the Surgeon General's warning means on the side of their box of Cheerios.

    January 20, 2013 at 12:55 pm | Reply
    • Rwee2000
      

      I don't know of ANY food stuff that you eat that hasn't been GM, in the past it was done with crossbreeding. But have you ever seen unmodified corn? Unmodified corn is very small, think about the size of your thumb, potatoes again very small, wheat couldn't survive in the wild anymore, because we modified it 100's of years ago.

      Also if we forced every farmer to grow organically, you'd have to kill about 1/2 the people on the planet, so go ahead pick which 50% of your family you want to die. Something to think about.

      January 20, 2013 at 4:19 pm | Reply
    • MP
      

      Almost all soft drinks, candies, soups, etc etc use corn based product called fructose.. Corn is in everything. Americans love corn, thats why obesity is a problem.

      January 20, 2013 at 4:26 pm | Reply
45. Brad Wilson
    

    This blog is a great data source for how people misunderstand each other. There are some great answers that can bring farmers and consumers/taxpayers (the food movement) together, especially since both sides oppose "cheap corn," for example. Farmers in general and especially younger farmers often don't know the history and context of corporate exploition, and the same is true about the food movement, where most sources are largely wrong about the history. The history provides a context for how this happened to farmers, and the situation we're now in. Typically neither farmers nor consumers know the history. But read Wenonah Hauter's new book Foodopoly. The mainstream farm press (well known to farmers) and mainstream media (well known to consumers/taxpayers) are quite weak on addressing these issues, contributing hugely to the misconceptions. Various public relations efforts by the big commodity groups and Farm Bureau are also fail to provide much helpful information. Check out the National Family Farm Coalition, the leading group trying to bring the two sides together.

    January 20, 2013 at 9:19 am | Reply
46. George
    

    The big problem is the capitalist system. All that matters to Corporations is profit. They don't care who they kill, poison, destroy. All that matters is profit. America is the capitalist mecca; and that's why it leads the world in crime and is at the bottom of the barrel in education; leads the world in healthcare costs, is at the bottom in actual health, and lowest on the totom pole in longevity of all industrial nations. But keep up the propaganda of how great these greedy corporations are and how we couldn't do without them, I'm sure there are suckers out there who believe, just like the Germans believed Hitler.

    January 20, 2013 at 5:14 am | Reply
47. A.S.Padmakar
    

    Brian,
    Great article. Several commentators have put forward great pro and anti comments to this article and many of them have raised several interesting points. However, I think your original article is about the agreement you and several other farmers like you sign with Monsanto and companies like it. The way you have explained the agreement it seems pretty one-sided to me with a money motivated corporate company like Monsanto controlling most and if not all the cards on an extremely critical issue of food safety, agricultural sustainability and long-term ecological stewardship. Specifically on the agreement, it says you cannot save seeds and you say the farmer also prefer it that way. The reason you said is that it is a division of labor issue and that Monsanto is good at generating better seeds and the farmer is good at turning that into a harvestable crop. However, I think there is enough overlap of technological know-how between the seed growing multinationals and the farmers that there should be cross-checking of each other’s practices. Specifically multinationals have been growing better and modified seeds using petro-chemical/bio-technology based modern technologies for at most the past 50 years whereas the farmers had been growing much more bio-diversified seeds for the past 1000 years. The way I see it is that Monsanto is putting their technology (in the form of their modified seed) in your hands and you are putting your faith and trust in their hands (hoping that they are better and safe). Remember that this is the same faith and trust that the consumers in the downstream of the food chain also depend on when they make their food choices. However, in the agreement with the farmer, Monsanto has covered itself on the front end and the back end by binding the farmer from reusing their seed and also having an option to inspect the farmer’s field and his records to ensure that their seed is used in a controlled manner. However, I have not seen anywhere in the agreement where the farmer or someone representing him in turn can freely inspect Monsanto’s research labs (and methods), production labs and manufacturing plants to ensure that they are delivering what they are promising in a very controlled environment in each and every batch with no uncertainties and unknowns. I guess you might say this is the job of the government but I have seen that in this country there is a high degree of skepticism on whatever the government says or does. I am sure it is not possible for any single farmer to keep tabs on big multinationals corporations but I am sure you folks have trade associations which can keep the corporations on their toes. If you folks are already doing such inspections then Monsanto should not hesitate to put it upfront in the agreement. This also leads into the biggest concern many have on overall food safety and long term environmental efficacy of these methods. Here again you (and in turn we) rely almost exclusively on corporate sponsored research studies (which are then validated by government approving authorities). If the farmers’ groups have their own research teams specifically batting on their side this might bring some counter-balance to what the corporate research studies have to say on these issues. I guess the only downside I see to this is that the farmers’ groups do not have any major financial incentive (and wherewithal) at least in the short term to actively question any of the findings of the corporate research and keep independently researching on these issues. Coming back to the agreement I also didn’t see anywhere in the agreement where Monsanto would compensate the farmer if the crop does not give the yield that they claim that these GM crops would give and the reason for the crop failure turns out to because of the seeds that were used. The reasoning for this goes back to the division of labor issue. If you grow your seeds and the crop fails you have yourself to blame. If you buy Monsanto seeds and the crop fails (because of their seed) Monsanto should cover the losses to the farmer. Are they willing to put that in their agreement they sign with the farmer. This is not a hypothetical issue; there are known cases of crop failure which could be traced back to the seeds provided by multi-national corporations. Given all these outstanding issues with GM crops in general and its potential enormous impacts on the farming economy, overall food safety and public health in general I think this agreement and by extension Monsanto and other agri-corporations are being unfair to the farmers and the general public in general.
    Padmakar

    January 20, 2013 at 1:26 am | Reply
    • stanley
      

      Buying seed for us is a lot like when you buy a car, you can't see and know everything the company does, however there are a lot of check and balance's and ultimately if we find the car or seed company does not produces a good product we don't buy it. End of company.

      January 20, 2013 at 7:36 am | Reply
      • A.S.Padmakar
        

        Stanley,
        Good points. If only it were that simple with regards to this issue. The strength of the checks and balances, the motives and the vested financial interests of the parties involved is one of the key concerns in this debate, I guess. As for machines such as cars, the effect and the cause are much more easily co-relatable and hence much easier to judge and thus have appropriate controls on them. But in this case the system involved is Mother Nature and we have seen several times in the past that the inter relation between the cause, effect and unintended consequences could be quite complex and often poorly understood and hence the need for additional vigilance on the part of all the stakeholders involved. Only issue I struggle with is what I mentioned in the note above that some of the key stakeholders such as the farmer (and maybe the consumer) in the short time frame (5-10 years) does not really have the financial incentive (and the purse) to really pay the level of attention needed to satisfy ourselves about the benefits and the risks of these methods. We have had to go back to the drawing board on some of our farming methods of 1950s and 60s precisely because we didn’t pay close attention what the ultimate consequences could be. Finally, I think we as consumers (of anything) tend to overestimate our ability to dictate or control the longevity of these multi-national corporations with our buying priorities. History has proved otherwise. Some of these companies have done some very bad things in the past to the consumers but many of them are still around to conduct business and generate ever more profits long after those issues have been swept away into oblivion by the winds of time.
        Padmakar

        January 20, 2013 at 9:03 am | Reply
        • stanley
          

          Very true.I was using a simple illustration. The truth is farmers are very educated . We learn from each other ( http://www.agphd.com/ ) and study the science,health and environmental effects of products.
          We don't just listen to the salesman, or pseudoscience. Also the State University Extension Service provides very good research-based information,and educational programs, on what will work on your farmland including the best seeds. Here in Mississippi ( http://msucares.com/crops/variety/index.html ) is a very useful site.

          January 20, 2013 at 11:10 am |
    • Brian
      

      I wish everybody could visit a farm like mine. Spend a few days there and see what goes on. We're just out there working everyday trying to raise, store, and deliver a quality crop. Farmers run their own test plots all the time. We want to know what performs best for us. I usually have a plot of four of five brands of corn side by side to see how they compare.

      I really don't see how garaunteeing the performace of a seed would be a good idea. Simply the fact that we rely on the weather more than anything else to produce a crop tells me no one could make a yield garauntee. Soils and weather patterns differ greatly from one state to the next. Actually even in smaller areas than that. I can have massive yield changes within a single field just do to soil type and elevation. I would never expect anyone to promise me X bushels of yield. Also I've never had any seed salesman quote me a yield number. Crop insurance covers some of that risk, but that's a topic worth a whole new blog post.

      If I grow a poor crop why should the seed company compensate me for that? There are just too many variables at play for that to be feasible.

      January 20, 2013 at 1:13 pm | Reply
    • Larry
      

      I personally will not purchase sweet corn at the grocery store if I know the ears of corn were grown from Roundup GMO traited seed. I would also prefer not to drink any Coca Cola or Pepsi product that contained any corn syrup produced from Roundup GMO traited corn grain. I would prefer to not eat or drink any product that has been tainted by GMO traited grain crops. I would prefer not to fill up my 2007 Trailblazer with any gasoline that contains ethonol produced in any plant where GMO traited corn seed was used to produce the ethanol. I would prefer to not pay a single dime of my money for any product that Monsanto has any connection too.

      January 20, 2013 at 1:15 pm | Reply
      • Brian
        

        Keep voting with your dollars, Larry! Even if you aren't voting for me, I'd prefer the system to work that way. Let the markets take us where they will.

        January 20, 2013 at 1:26 pm | Reply
    • ned
      

      You suggested that a farmer should be able to walk into monsanto lab and insptect it. Unfortunately the average farmer, or person on the street would not understand what has been done or how they achieve those goals. The science is way beyond the average persons ability. If you want to have an audit, you send in a scientist to audit them. Also most farmers dont have the time to harvest, clean and size the seeds for the next year. They are too busy trying to make a living so it costs less for the farmer to buy seeds for planting. Maybe you should try farming for a while. You would eventually buy your seed from Monsanto, or pioneer. It is cheaper, faster and cleaner, and you are really sure that what you plant will grow, if given a little water and sun. With your own seeds, you are not so sure if they will grow.

      January 20, 2013 at 2:41 pm | Reply
    • rh
      

      Oh no! A company out to make money!

      And isn't *any* breeding control of plants genetic modification? It's like dog breeds – look at the bulldog, the poor things suffer terribly because they were bred to have a short nose and other characteristics that lead to an early death. Genetically modifying plants is an advance, and you can use GM products or not.

      I have close friends who have been farming for over 50 years, and they deal with Monsanto etc. for their crop seed. They are MUCH more disturbed about the EPA, who they think know NOTHING about farming, and do nothing but try to destroy their business. GM seeds are the least of their worries.

      January 21, 2013 at 9:39 am | Reply
48. Brian
    

    Hey, everyone! Thanks for taking the time to read my article, and I hope you took the time to click over to link of the tech agreement so you can read word for word with your own eyes. I just wanted to take a second to say I'm really trying to respond to all your questions, but since we are approaching 600 comments it's a bit daunting to keep up with all the embedded replies to other comments. My wife is actually sifts through helping me try to find new comments. If you think I've missed something you'd like to hear more about directly from me know that I'll get notified if you reply directly to one of my comments. Or you can find me at http://www.facebook.com/thefarmerslife, http://www.thefarmerslife.wordpress.com, and on twitter @thefarmerslife. I think we are having a very important discussion here, and thank you again for checking this out!

    January 20, 2013 at 1:12 am | Reply
49. Jay
    

    This article reeks of 'corporate publicity stunt', and if its not, then this man is clearly the poster boy for the 'Whatever Makes Life Easier Brainwashed America".

    January 19, 2013 at 11:09 pm | Reply
    • Urbanmnfarmer
      

      Come on jay we have already gone through this line about 3 times already. He is real, the story is real, and the info is real. Do we really need to keep reposting things over and over.

      January 20, 2013 at 12:35 am | Reply
50. Dan
    

    I believe the point that "What" is trying to make is that if you cannot produce ALL of your food now, (when the majority or the population does not) how will you be able to produce ALL of your food when everyone else is also trying to produce all of their food using limited resources(land/physical space)?

    January 19, 2013 at 10:26 pm | Reply
    • Dan
      

      This was meant to be below-please delete if possible!

      January 19, 2013 at 10:29 pm | Reply
51. Julie MS
    

    Thank You for clarifying this. I have family that are farming and it's nice for city folk to know the whole truth!

    January 19, 2013 at 8:15 pm | Reply
52. JKlapper
    

    While YOU are of course free to plant any legal crop you wish on your property, my issue with Monsanto is their business practice of going after farmers that have not willingly chosen to grow their product and have had their chosen varieties contaminated with Monsanto's "patented/propitiatory genetics.

    January 19, 2013 at 5:33 pm | Reply
    • Meredith
      

      All those who criticize non-organic farmers, and want to put honest farmers who choose GMO and chemicals to manage insects, better roll up their sleeves to grow their own food because the organic farmers will not be able to keep up with the demand for food for our growing population, and you will not be able to afford to buy it yourself. So, get rid of your fancy designer clothes and cars, made possible because food is dirt cheap in the USA, and get your boots and gloves ready. Don't forget to arrange shifts to pick all the bugs off your food or you will wake up one morning with your food already eaten by your well protected invertebrate critters. I just cannot believe you people. .

      January 19, 2013 at 7:45 pm | Reply
      • Teeg
        

        Uncontrolled GMOs are contaminating and poisoning the food supply. They are killing us all. Designer products don't matter very much. I'm sure you'll be on the band wagon that GMOs aren't dangerous and to that I would respond, "If GMOs aren't bad for us, why won't the GMO producers label their products as GMOs"?

        January 19, 2013 at 8:10 pm | Reply
        • Boucher Farms
          

          Teeg, as a farmer myself I feel I need to clear up something here. The GMO producers DO label their products. Hear me out. When farmers like myself and Brian go to purchase our seeds for the coming crop year, we have choices. Some are GMO, some are non-GMO. They are labeled as such before we purchase them. When we plant the seeds, we know weather they are GMO or not, because they are labeled. When we grow our crops we and sell them to our customers (grain elevators) who we have to tell if our crops are GMO or not. Again, they are labeled. The grain elevator then distributes (sells) the crop to processors, again at the time of sale they are labeled as GMO or not. Throughout this entire time, the crop can be tested at any time to prove wether it is GMO or not. Yes, there are simple tests to determine that. Sadly this is where the labeling stops, at the processors. Most processors know how the crops they take in are labeled, however few label them after processing. Moral of the story, don't blame the GMO producers for not labeling GMO, they are already doing so. Talk to the processors instead.

          January 20, 2013 at 2:20 am |
      • Amy
        

        I gladly roll my sleeves up, get dirty and grow food. If more people did that and became self-sufficient, perhaps we wouldn't have a feeding the overpopulation problem.

        January 19, 2013 at 9:35 pm | Reply
      • ckraus
        

        You're missing something. Farmers have been producing food for thousands of years before GMO and pesticides came along. I'm not against cross-breeding of strains to produce improved varieties, but I don't trust sponsored research enough to go all out with GMO products.

        January 20, 2013 at 4:08 am | Reply
      • heliocracy
        

        So if you modify a vegetable so that it produces a toxin to kill bugs, what makes you think that same toxin is completely harmless to the people that eat that vegetable? It's not a big stretch to ask that question, and I'm not seeing a lot of research on the topic, mainly for the reason that these are proprietary modifications which the seed producers will not allow to be studied. So honestly, how do you know that toxic to bugs is not toxic to people?

        January 20, 2013 at 2:48 pm | Reply
        • Farm Girl
          

          Who said anything about plants that PRODUCE toxins to kill bugs? The plant doesn't MAKE anything. It's resistant to the herbicide sprayed on its fields that will kill the weeds. So when you spray it, the plant itself doesn't die, but the weeds do.

          January 21, 2013 at 2:02 pm |
        • Ginger
          

          The GMO you are referencing being toxic to bugs is the BT strain. BT is short for a micro organism that is found in nature and toxic to insects with an alkaline gut. BT has been in use for decades as a pesticide that is allowed for orgainic use because it is derived from an organic source. Science has been able to incorporate the gene for BT into the plant so we no longer have to spray it onto the crop, which means less chemical used. Unless you develop an alkaline gut the technology has no effect on you. I am a small farmer, 80 acres of corn, and am grateful for the advancements in seed science.

          January 21, 2013 at 5:15 pm |
      • MC
        

        I buy primarily organic (particularly meat as I do not believe in many of the practices of our meat production system) and it costs me a few tens of dollars extra a week. No big deal. Nor have I ever had to pick bugs off anything, although occasionally a good washing is needed.

        I've read two sides on the organic debate but there is plenty of evidence that organic agriculture can be as productive or more per acre than conventional agriculture, although labor inputs may be greater. So I'm not sure what statistics you are referencing.

        I think it comes down to our faith in what goes into the food. Some comments here talk about a harmful chemical that hasn't been allowed on food "for over 20 years." It makes me wonder what we use today that we will be saying the same thing about in 20 years – given that the EPA requires a chemical be proven harmful before it be taken off the market. (vs. requiring it be tested and deemed safe before approval).

        Europeans and Japan I know have much more low-input agriculture (if not organic) yet are able to feed themselves quite comfortable – I lived in Japan and the freshness and diversity of a local supermarket would put to shame all but the most "upscale" stores in the U.S. – and this is what the "normal" people ate if they cared about their health and didn't buy the junk food and fried foods being manufactured.

        January 21, 2013 at 1:29 pm | Reply
    • Meredith
      

      http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=organic-farming-yields-and-feeding-the-world-under-climate-change

      January 19, 2013 at 7:48 pm | Reply
    • Seabrook
      

      JKlapper pegged my concerns exactly. ***** While the American corn farmer is free to choose what seed to plant, he has no control over the genes that are propagated via bees, and the wind. ***** To give a corporation, or individual, or any other form of "warlord" the right of a "following" ownership, based on where those genes end up, is not only ludicrous, but unfair to the other farmers. ***** Where do you draw the line? ***** Let's say, for example a bacteria is patented for its amazing ability to synthesize oxygen, in a manner that far exceeds the natural ability of plants to do so. Would this entitle the corporate creator of the bacteria to be compensated for the extra oxygen breathed as a result?

      January 20, 2013 at 8:12 am | Reply
53. Austin
    

    So everyone who is so educated about agriculture please tell me something. What do you want us farmers to do?? Do you not want us to raise crops on our family farms anymore? If this is the case say goodbye to a lot of domestic products you use and consume every day. You blame us for trying to make a living producing more crops on an acre of land than we ever have; in turn you get the luxury of having plentiful groceries and products at much cheaper prices than the rest of the world. I get that not just farmers work hard to make a living, many folks outside of agriculture do, but do not chastise and blame us for problems that have not been proven for using GMO products on our farms. Many of you do not realize the consequences that would happen if every farm in America stopped using these products. Many more would go hungry because the price of food would skyrocket. I challenge you to find a local farm/farmer in your area and go visit it. Talk with the farmer about your concerns and try to have an intelligent civilized conversation. I am sure 90% of America's farmers would love the chance to show you around and explain how we make our living; I know I would. There are so many good things about production agriculture that affects each and every one of you every day, but you hear one rumor or watch a YouTube video and BAM you’re an instant expert on modern agriculture.
    As for the folks blaming Brian for driving around in a “new” air conditioned truck please explain how this is any different than you sitting in your office or local place of work with air conditioning and heat readily available. Of course the goal of anymore farm is to create a profit so that we can buy necessary things to live on and continually improve our businesses.
    BTW I farm 1,100 acres 2 hours south of Brian with my father. He works as a private business consultant in town and I am an agronomist at a local seed company. Truth be told our farm is a “Corporation” having our farm organized in this manner allows us to keep ownership lines distinct and split profits between myself and my parents much easier. Our corporation is owned by three people: I, my father, and my mother. We are not controlled by any other organization that we CHOSE to do business with. We put in many hard hours throughout the year during numerous things. I could quit farming tomorrow and have enough money from my job in town to support my family, but I have a passion for farming and for feeding folks in our great country. I am a patriot and law abiding citizen that cares for the land that feeds America. So please next before you spout off behind an anonymous name and hide behind a computer screen please, please educate yourself as to what we farmers do for YOU each and every day.

    January 19, 2013 at 12:34 pm | Reply
    • Dan
      

      Excellent post Austin! I too invite anyone to come to our farm and ask questions any day!!

      January 19, 2013 at 3:54 pm | Reply
    • MC
      

      I really have never heard anyone say farmers shouldn't produce food ... I'm really not sure where you're getting this. Indeed, there is a whole "back to the farm" movement trying to kickstart a new generation of farmers, and people trying to do intensive gardening as well ... yes many of us see subsidies as skewed towards certain types of products and away from others, and yes we want the USDA to stop dumping the lowest-quality meat into our schools, and yes I buy organic meats because I cannot support how large farms treat poultry workers, for example, but I see nothing anti-farmer in current discourse.

      January 21, 2013 at 1:34 pm | Reply
    • ulysses
      

      "The object of anymore farm is to turn a profit." Why? Is being able to feed oneself and provide enough for others, so that one can buy other necessary items not enough! To constantly grow and expand is not sustainable, science and mathematics show it to be so.

      May 29, 2013 at 2:34 pm | Reply
54. Amy @KyFarmersMatter
    

    I don't know much about GMOs. I haven't raised row crops since I was a youngster in the fields with my dad. I appreciate you taking the time to give us a glimpse in to your world and explaining how things work for you on your farm. I'm a little befuddled by the comments on this post. Why the hate for this farmer?

    January 19, 2013 at 11:25 am | Reply
    • Brian
      

      I don't fit their narrative.

      January 19, 2013 at 12:42 pm | Reply
      • Dennis
        

        Brian, If it helps some of us still have a great deal of respect for the farmers in this country.The work you do is far from easy and is a job done because it is something you love to do. Thank you for what you and the others do.

        Now for everyone screaming about what he grows being bad and should not be in stores...here is an option...Stay out of the stores and grow your own food. That way you will know what you are eating.

        The hatred of others who do not conform to your way is just funny. What happened to live and let live. If you don't like what the stores sell grow your own...raise your own meat. Don't like a tv show...here is a novel idea...don't watch it. Quit trying to force your view on the entire world. I grew up on a small farm as a kid and love gardening...not trying to put you out of business Brian but I also enjoy eating some of my own food I grow and hunt as well as I'm sure some of what you have grown.

        January 20, 2013 at 12:31 pm | Reply
        • Brian
          

          Thanks, Dennis. Just like I'm free to farm however I choose, people ought to be free to go buy or grow the food they want to eat. If the world does a 180 for some reason and doesn't like corn and soybeans anymore, I'll have to find something else to grow. Or I can keep growing them if I want too. Choice is what's important to me.

          January 20, 2013 at 12:48 pm |
55. Sun
    

    So, how much did you get to be a Monsanto shill, Mr. Farmer? You are a digrace and should be ashamed of yourself. Any farmer using Monsanto seed is a corporate whore, and is only in 'farming' for the government $$ they get for using Monsanto products. Break the cycle, stop buying GM crap and go back to farming where you are not poisoning everything your crap "food" touches.

    January 19, 2013 at 8:25 am | Reply
    • Dan
      

      You do realize that the gov't subsidizes organic farmers just as much as non-organic ones don't you?

      January 19, 2013 at 3:51 pm | Reply
    • vinny
      

      Plenty of farmers are for getting rid of subsidies. Wasnt aware we got a thank you check from the government for using Monsanto.

      Some GMOs we could go without but many we cannot. I am not a grain farmer, rather a dairy farmer. If you want all GMOs to go away, we are going to need our land back from everyone who built a house, and youll need to live in a large apartment complex.

      The reality is that the world is driven by efficiency. We improve efficiency with modern practices that sometimes include GMOs. These practices reduce fuel useage, land needed,labor costs and many other input costs.

      Sit down with some farmers and have them show you the books.

      There will always be a niche market for organic. However the organic community needs to start working better with the rest of the farming community as we all have one goal, to feed, fuel and cloth the world.

      I do not have anything against people who choose organic providing they are not under afalse impression.

      Much like people choose to drink micro-brews instead of Budweiser, Miller or Coors.

      January 19, 2013 at 9:53 pm | Reply
      • diburm
        

        I do not care that there are GMO's on the market...I just want it labeled!!! Other countries do this, why can't the USA? I want to choose for myself what I put in my or my family's mouths. WE should know whether it is GMO or not-it should be illegal for it not to be labeled.....of course this is for another discussion but you mentioned how GMO's are here to stay.....

        January 20, 2013 at 10:26 am | Reply
    • diburm
      

      I agree! Monsanto is EVIL and controls everything–I can't believe this farmer writes intelligently, yet lacks knowledge of what his food stand for–harmful and not healthy. If I choose to put food into my mouth that may be contaminated with poison from pesticides then that is my fault, but when this farmer writes this article giving me the reasons of why he does it- it does not make it right or just. He sounds like he's getting some sort of kickback from Monsanto: Posterboy...pathetic!

      January 20, 2013 at 10:22 am | Reply
56. Urada
    

    I worked for the USDA-Farm Service Agency for 30 years. I will address only issue mentioned in this article – corporate farming. In our county we have many "corporations" owning and operating farms. For example, "Jones Farms Inc." which could be 2 brothers farming together who formed a corporation so if they went belly-up, they wouldn't lose their homes and everything they own that wasn't part of the farming operation. These "corporations" could be one person who is the sole proprietor of the corporation and only farms 100 acres. It does NOT mean some big multi-million dollar corporation owns the farm and hires a farmer to grow crops on it. A common misconception, but a huge one.

    January 19, 2013 at 7:02 am | Reply
    • Dan
      

      Very good explanation!

      January 19, 2013 at 3:40 pm | Reply
    • Brad Wilson
      

      There's a lot of writing here, but neither side is very good at getting to the bottom of it, and each has a lot of misconceptions. It shows the failure of dialogue when so little is known from one side to the other. On corporate vs family farm, the 2 biggest factors are probably family-sized and the structure of owning your farm and farming it yourself. It's not a technical issue of incorporation, nor is it about family ownership, as is so often claimed.

      January 20, 2013 at 9:08 am | Reply
57. JB
    

    OK FIRST: Disclosure – I am not a farmer (I just have my own little home garden). SECOND: I have been invited by the writer of this article to give my thoughts, and am not interested in the comments of the previous insulting bloggers. I would like the thoughts of the person who invited me to comment and any other civilized posters.
    Mr Scott, thank you for your candid remarks and your invitation to comment. I deeply respect those that work hard to tend the land and provide food crops, and would like to understand some of the comments you make and your further thoughts on the following:
    1. You mention that “we are able to operate our farm in the manner Dad, Grandpa and I choose” and that you “understand the concern organic farms have with GMO crops in close proximity to their own. Those farmers have worked hard and shown patience in getting an organic certification, and they don't want to start over again”. You also state “you could also have drift from any corn field do damage to soybeans next door, so even guys like me are sympathetic to the practices of other farms”. While you don’t have any organic farmers next to you , at some point there will be adjacencies issues ,will there not? How can you effectively manage and control drift?
    2. You also mention “Keep a handle on the land” and discusses changes of ownership. If a farmer chooses to turn to GM crops and his neighbour wishes to remain organic, what are your thoughts on how marketable would the neighbour’s land would be to another organic farmer? How would GMO farming be able to be contained in a manner that organic farming can continue without threat of contamination? Do you think the neighbour might be forced to sell to another GM farmer? Would this in your view ultimately result in a reduction in the number of organic farms?
    3. You mention that Monsanto provides guidelines o how to use their products. How are they able to track that farmers are using them correctly, and not overspraying? Or spraying near wetlands” etc etc?
    4. You state that your “farm has agreed to only export and plant these crops in countries that allow them. That's kind of a no-brainer – not to mention we aren't the ones exporting anything”. Do you ever wonder why other countries don’t allow GMOs? If not an explanation please.
    5. What are your thoughts on the documented emergence and spread of 22 species of superweeds, and also the bugs now resistant to these GM crops? (I realise you may not have these on your farm).
    6. You state that “if we spray glyphosate on those acres, all the Pioneer corn will die!” but you seem to be a fan of glyphosate. Do you have any concerns that glyphosate normally kills food crops (or indeed plant it comes into contact with)? What are your thoughts on this article: http://cdn.intechweb.org/pdfs/25624.pdf
    7. What are your thoughts on Steven Webster’s post January 19, 2013 at 1:57 am?
    Thanks.

    January 19, 2013 at 5:50 am | Reply
    • Dan
      

      JB I would like to answer a few of your questions to the best of my knowledge. 1. There could be issues being next to an organic farm, it is a farmer's responsibility to control chemical drift which is accomplished by applying when conditions are right and using equipment that creates large course droplets that fall quickly unlike fine "mist"
      2. If an organic farmer has certified organic acres that land would be very desirable to another organic farmer, I believe an organic farmer near me has to separate the edge or fringe of a field that could be cross pollinated. I don't think GM crops would force an organic farmer to sell to only a GM farmer-this would be whatever the market would bear.
      3. Chemical application is regulated by the EPA more-so than any companies. Farmers must be licensed to legally buy and apply most chemicals. They are regulated just like someone driving a car on the highway and could be heavily fined when caught not following the regs.
      4. Perhaps misconception, fear of the unknown, I am not familiar with some of the perceptions of GMOs in those countries.
      I would like to skip to #7 and note that soybeans as mentioned below the comment are self pollinating.

      January 19, 2013 at 3:39 pm | Reply
      • JB
        

        Many thanks for your even and considered comments. It is very helpful to be able to have an even discussion on this issue.

        On drift and the organic farmer next door – would there also not need to be a reciprocal responsibility on the part of the GMO farmer to control their boundaries too – by say a minimum distance to a boundary? I have recently read that some GMO farmers believe that the organic farmer should pay for this distance out of their organic premium...? Comments?

        on chemical applications, I understand about licensing and regulation and being fined when caught – but it seems that there are so many factors which may force a farmer to spray etc in less than ideal conditions and the damage is not correct by the fines....I am learning about the importance of pesticides to conventional farmers, but it worries me that it does seem to be an escalating issue.....

        January 20, 2013 at 8:29 am | Reply
        • Dan
          

          I believe the "drift" you speak of is cross pollination of neighboring fields. Only certain species do this(corn) and it is limited by wind(which could be major) I an unaware of boundaries on both sides, this is because organic crops could be sold with GMO,(wouldn't get a premium) Ideally, good neighbors would plant different crops(organic plants corn, GMO neighbor grows soybeans next door) That can be hard to do with crop rotations, crop needs, maybe even uncooperative neighbors. To the last question-I am sure there are issues where each party wants the other to pay. I am not sure what the fair way to handle that situation would be(other than the different crops mentioned above.)
          As for chemical drift, yes there are situations where chemicals are applied in less than ideal conditions. My family recently upgraded to a larger sprayer just for this reason, to cover more acres when conditions are good. Remember when conditions are unfavorable, it not only affects the neighbor(if at all) but it could also mean poor control of the target pest, wasting the application, costing extra money. This is usually key to not applying when conditions are poor. There are more acres being covered by fewer farmers so yes that issue could be on the rise if not properly managed.

          January 20, 2013 at 3:53 pm |
      • John Godwin
        

        " Chemical application is regulated by the EPA more-so than any companies. Farmers must be licensed to legally buy and apply most chemicals. They are regulated just like someone driving a car on the highway and could be heavily fined when caught not following the regs."
        You can bet I am totally and completely satisfied with this explanation........

        January 20, 2013 at 11:31 pm | Reply
    • paul
      

      I'm a corn, soybean, few cattle, couple minor crop farmer in northern USA. Pretty small, but most statistics.

      1. Drift is a problem, as weather changes, person gets in a hurry, or there is a breakdown. I'm fortunate to have all my farmland close, and I can spray when the wind is favorable to prevent problems with my non-farming neighbors. Other farmers are not much problem, as I can typically spray within 30 inches of a different farm crop and not cause any problems. It's rarely much of an issue, but one needs to pay attention to wind. Actually drift is the worst with no wind at all, in hgigh temps. That's a bad time to spray.

      2. Pollen drift or weed issues are a 2 way street, and many times the organic person creates problems for their non-organic neighbors. We have good laws to hold real issues accountable, and keep the pointless lawsuits to a minimum. If no pollen drift at all wetre allowed, that would affect the organic farmers as well, when their pollen drifts too... I can see no issue at all with reduced land values or extraordinary problems for non-gmo growers? They produce a crop of special attributes for special prices premiums, and have to work out some of these issues to maintain their extra prices they get. Most understand this and are good neighbors.

      3. To use many pesticides, farmers need to go through a training course and need to show their licence before being sold many of the very same chemicals you can buy off the shelf for use on your lawn. In general it is not ecconomical to use too many chemicals. The state and county and fedral folks have various enforcement people that do spot check records, and will check out someone applying pesticides from trime to time. For hire applicators have much more rules and testing to follow through, I'm not personally familar with but there are regulations and people watching that the rules are followed.

      4. Many countries of the world heavily subsidise their own farmers more heavily than the USA does. Those subsidy programs are not popular, so these countries use made up issues such as gmo to control imports of grains, so their tax payers don't get upset with the heavy ag subsidies. That is how I see it – a political, ecconomic issue, not one of real merit. Certainly it is for each country to view and test and be concerned about their feed imports, but Europe for example has restricted imports for decades because of GMO concerns – yet when they need grains, they import a lot from Brazil. Brazil has used gmo crops for decades, tho they didn't officially regognise that. A little money wechanges hands between Brazil and Europe, and some paperwork is done, and magically everything is approved and ok. Brazil makes a bit more money, Europe can maintain it's ag subsidies, and wink, wink, everyone is happy... Their feed and food is gmo imports tho. Wink wink. That is how it is.

      5. Weeds and insect adapt and ajust to their surrondings. Totally organic farming has trouble with pests; totally chemical farming has trouble with pests; most farms which are somewhere in the middle have trouble with pests. They have been adapting since Native Americans started planting maize, and will continue to do so. We will find ways to adapt and change again, as wre have for 1000's of years. Different gmo products are within a year or 3 of being released to change what chemicals wea re using. And the old chemicals from the 1960's are still available, as well as different tillage options to always keep ahead of the ever changing weeds and insects.

      That is just a normal thing, some weeds developed resistance to what we are doing, as they have done in the 1970's, as they did in the 1950s, and so on. There is nothing super or odd or tragic about it.

      6. I believe the chemical glysphate (Roundup is a trade name...) is more tested, and far less dangrous than many of the common ag chemicals used in the past. This does not mean it has no risk at all, but it is far better than farming of the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s.... Many of the tests coming from small labs in Europe are throughly dismissed as poorly done, by people with a bias against pesticides, with the goal of gaining grant money and/or promoting local farmer subsidies. (Likewise, I don't put a lot of faith internal studies coming from the ag chemical makers either – they have strong bias as well.) Independent, scientifically based studies to date have not found any harm coming from the use of glyphosate. We are able to test things much better, and in much smaller parts than what we could back 50 years ago. I would hate to base the world foosd supplies on such questionable studies as you have linked to, with their obvious biases. Banning the current gmo crops and associated chemicals means we would be returning to the ag chemicals of the 1950s and 1960s, which are not as effective, last longer in the environment, and are more toxic (as we are able to study and determan) than the current lower dose chemicals we use with gmo.

      Everything has risk in it, and more study and finding new, even lower risk ways is a good thing, and I too want to learn more about what we do, and how we can improve upon it.

      But what we are doing now with gmo crops is, by every creadable study, worlds safer to us and our environment, than what we were doing 50 years ago. I am fearful of people who don't understand this asking us to return to the more risky ag chemicals of years ago brecause they do not understand where we were, where we are, and where we are headed.

      7. This site does not allow easy browsing to other messages while composing a message, so I don't know.

      Thank you for the questions, and I'm not supposing to know all the answers, or what is right or wrong for everyone. As someone on a farm for a 1.2 century, I've seen grain production evolve a whole lot, and I believe we are in a much better spot than we were 30 or 40 years ago. I care deeply about my farm, my land, and the environment – I am living in it and watching it evvery day. We need to continue to study and immrove and find new and better ways to make feed and food for ourselves. I don't believe going backwards is a good thing. I think that is dangerous. We need to continue to reduce risks, but also continue to find ways to innovate, and do more with less.

      Farming is bith a business and a way of life. It is not what you see on reruns of Green Acres. It is not what you hear on extreme anti-farming web sites. It is families just like yours, involved in making a living from doing their jobs – growing food and feed.

      We are in a better place than we were a few decades ago. We truely are. There are still things to improve, and move forward....

      January 19, 2013 at 4:52 pm | Reply
      • JB
        

        HI Paul,

        Thanks for your comments. As there is some overlap with your comments and Dan’s I’ll just focus my questions to your specific comment and won’t duplicate but if you have any further comments on my response to Dan I would be interested in hearing them.

        Can you please clarify your comment that the “organic person creates problems for their non-organic neighbors”. Is that because he is not spraying etc and just dealing/accepting the unwanted weeds etc., and this means they spread to the non organic neighbours land?

        Re other countries I am sure you are correct about subsidies, and I certainly agree that each country has the right to decide for itself the safety (or not ) of GMOs and to legislate accordingly. It Is unfortunate that, as you note, loopholes and ways are found around these positions to avoid compliance but I guess that’s the way of the world….Have you heard about the lawsuit Brazil bought against Monsanto for $2Billion Euros for the royalties they claim on the farmers profits? I know that tithes were due to landowners in medieval times but, if I was a farmer working hard to scrape by, I am not sure I would be too happy if someone breezed by to collect royalties off my blood sweat and tears….what are your thoughts on this?

        Re superweeds, if you did not spray the weeds at all, I am guessing they would not mutate/develop resistance so quickly, but you would need to deal with them some other way…..that is not something I have an answer to but I bet with all the wisdom/experience of farmers out there, there is a lot knowledge there…..I guess that large scale monoculture is not the easiest thing to accommodate in these terms….

        I share your cynicism about information on glyphosates, but tend to the more cautious side and am suspicious of anything that systematically kills plants….I also agree on the need for independent studies, but suspect that the opposition will always find something at fault with the information…..

        Like you I would not like to necessarily see a return to farming practices that have since been found to be faulty, but I do wonder it there is merit in going back far enough to where you farmers had a more direct link to the consumer and your crops did not travel so far. I do wonder if all those middle men did not have to get paid whether you might make more fair money out of your hard work. (I realise there are some on this blog who would ridicule that as an idea but I don’t mind that).It might be an interesting model to contemplate....

        Your pride in your work and your farming heritage is clear. It is great to also see posts by organic farmers here too.

        With healthy dialogue, seeking knowledge, I am confident that we can all work something out….

        January 20, 2013 at 2:33 pm | Reply
        • Daddio7
          

          Without herbicides, such as roundup, farmers control weeds by cultivation. You use chisels to up root them and dick to cover them up. This requires fuel to power the tractor pulling the cultivator and more importantly tears up the roots of the corn and allows stored moisture to escape. Most corn land is not irrigated and with the ongoing drought that is very important. The weeds in the drill are not controlled and they continue to grow and steal nutrients and moisture form the corn. These weeds can be pulled by hand when they are small. Are you going to volunteer to pull an acre or two? There are only about 80 million acres of corn grown in the US. Maybe we could let out schools for a month and have students do the weed pulling. Might make them appreciate their classes more. I have pulled weeds all day on a farm and know what I'm talking about.

          January 21, 2013 at 1:39 pm |
    • paul
      

      Ah;

      7. I am only aware of Big M going after people who do not follw the licence agreement and try to save seed.

      Or people who try to intentionally cross polinate their crops to create their own seed that is intentionally gmo.

      Both of those are not legal under curtrent law. I don't personally believe someone should own a patent on a living being; but that is the law and to change that we need to take it up with our govt and hate on them, not Big M. It is the govt that controls that.

      Anyhow, soybeans polinate themselves, so very very very little cross polination happens to that crop.

      For there to be more than a couple % of cross pollination to happen, someone would have had to manipulate their crop to encourage that to happen.

      Someone is a nursing home really cannot farm and raise over 200 acres of soybeans, they would have to rent the ground out? You can't drive a tractor from a nursing home, that really sounds suspicious?

      All together on what we are told, looking at current law, cases I know of, and how soybeans grow, it is not likely that story is quite how it is presented.

      Without a court document case, I think someone is trying to make a good story. I could be wrong, but look at the details, and doesn't it all fall apart on many different levels?

      That doesn't mean you need to like Big M, nor should you change your mind about the whole GMO deal.

      However, do you really need to support something as far fetched as that message? Just a thought.

      January 19, 2013 at 5:02 pm | Reply
    • Brian
      

      Hi, JB. I'll do my best to answer your questions.

      1. There may one day be an organic farm or senstive crops like tomatoes near me. There are a lot of tomatoes grown in Indiana. To clarify drift, I referring to herbicide drift. Drift can be avoided by first following label directions on the product being applied. Sprayer operators must be conscious of wind speed and direction as well as the temperature. During very hot parts of the day some herbicides should not be sprayed to avoid volatization causing off-target movement. Temperature inversions should be avoided as well. When properly operating one could run a 120' boom right next to my yard spraying Roundup and not kill one blade of grass. For better info on organic and conventional coesxiting you might check with my friends that farm organically in Minnesota at http://www.zweberfarms.com. They have neighbors who farm conventionally and I consider them all friends of mine.

      2. I don't have first hand experience with your first question here. Soil type ought to dictate much of the land price along with location, drainage, etc. Neighbors can work together if for example one has conventional corn and one organic. They could stagger planting dates and/or relative maturities of the varieties being planted so pollination is not occuring at the same time in both fields. The could also agree to some kind of setback or buffer area.

      3. In Indiana the State Chemist's office perfoms random inspections on applicators. They will watch for people going against the guidelines I mentioned in the first question. In the event something goes wrong records of the day's weather conditions can be found to determine what was happening at the time a drift incident occured. It would be hard I think for Monsanto itself to track since farmers could be buying herbicides from a number of different retail locations and not necessarily using Monsanto products. Fundamentally it's in the farmer's or custom applicator's own interest to do things right.

      4. They all have their reasons I suppose. You may see some people claim Europe bans GMO, but if you search you'll find the EU is approving more crops and traits on a fairly regular basis. I believe farmers in poor nations would love to get their hands of some of these crops in certain situations, but cost, poor infrastructure, and poor governments don't help them get a leg up over living in subsistence.

      5. Resistance is not exclusive to biotechnology. Resistance has been in play long before that. Proper stewardship is the key to mitigating resistance. Rotation, rotation, rotation. Crops should be rotated. That's why so many farms in the Midwest grow both corn and soybeans. They are not susceptible to the same diseases and pest pressures. Soybeans fix their own nitrogen and will provide some for the following crop. I see some resistant marestail on our farm, but not very much. Unfortunately Purdue has confirmed one of the toughest weeds in a few countiens directly North of me. Purdue believes it got up here so quickly, leapfrogging most of the state, in cotton seed feed to cattle as a feed supplement. The weed seed was spread in cattle manure. I'm talking about palmer amamranth. I will keeping close watch on my fields in the coming years and deal with it accordingly. LIke crops, modes of action should be rotated. Not all herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides work in the same way. There are several classes of each. It's very important to change these modes up so you aren't using one mode and exerting great selective pressure on weeds and pests.

      6. Since our waxy corn generally isn't Roundup Ready and there's no such thing as GMO popcorn, 1/3-1/2 of my acres can't be sprayed with glyphosate anyway. Same goes for the small amount of wheat I grow. This also helps me stay in that mode of rotating herbicides as I mentioned earlier. Glyphosate is a fantastic product, but I don't need to use it all the time. Do you have any specific questions from that article? I'd be happy to help out if I can. It's just a great deal of info to get into in a relatively short comment here.

      6. I really can't speak to Stephen's situation since I'm not involved. I can't possibly know what his father or Monsanto are up to if anything. If it was a Monsanto test plot that caused the alleged contamination, then I would think Monsanto would be involved, but if it was just a neighboring farmer they would have to figure that out themselves. I'm just guessing a bit there. I believe there are some open pollinated varieties of soybeans, but like the comments below his say the vast majority of soybeans pollinate themselves. I grow soybeans that are contracted to be grown for a couple seed companies. Those fields can be right next to another soybean field and there are no purity issues. Most important is being sure my planting, harvesting, storage, and trucking equipment is thoroughly cleaned before dealing with beans to be sold as seed. Same goes when I deal with waxy corn and popcorn. Finally, I don't know that a company has intentionally gone after farms that have had any cross pollination issues. I could see them going after someone like that who in turn decided to propagate that seed and save it for themselves. If you look up the details of the famous Percy Schmeiser case in Canada you'll find he did exactly that. After an accidental contamination he selected for Roundup Ready canolo is his field, harvested it, and planted it on most of his acres the following year. If memory serves, he was ordered to pay Monsanto's court fees and lost two or three appeals before Monsanto setlled and paid a few hundred dollars to have his field cleaned up.

      If you have any more questions please let me know. You can keep up with me on the farm at http://www.facebook.com/thefarmerlsife, http://www.therfarmerslife.wordpress.com, and on twitter by follwing @thefarmerslife.

      January 20, 2013 at 12:48 am | Reply
      • Seabrook
        

        Brian,

        I would suggest that you rent the movie, King Corn. Not only has Monsanto taken innocent farmers to court, but has also been busy buying up those amazing shucking machines from the 1930's that gave small growers the ability to clean their own corn.

        Seabrook Griffin, pecan grower in Oklahoma

        January 20, 2013 at 8:24 am | Reply
        • Brian
          

          I've seen some of King Corn, but I admit not all of it. Why can't farmers have grain cleaners? We have a couple antique cleaners in storage on our farm. There are plenty of companies that build new ones. No one is stopping people from cleaning grain. Almost every trade magazine I pick up has an advertisement for some brand of cleaner in the back. Do a Google search for "grain cleaner" and you'll find plenty of places to go buy one today.

          January 20, 2013 at 12:21 pm |
        • Dan
          

          Seabrook- I have not seen this movie, I will have to make an effort to view it. Can you explain the following? " but has also been busy buying up those amazing shucking machines from the 1930's that gave small growers the ability to clean their own corn." Are you referring to cleaning corn for seed? With hybrid corn, farmers do not keep it for seed, this has been going on for decades and long before GMO seed was introduced.

          January 20, 2013 at 3:11 pm |
58. stephen webster
    

    monsanto roundup ready beans cross polinated with my fathers nongmo soybeans in about 1% of the plants in the top pod in the plant one bean was a darker bean monsanto takes no resposiblty when cost other farmers their market for the crop that they are growing my father was unable to fill his contract to ship the soybeans to japan the japanese could have sued my father but did not even when they were short of beans this year because of the dry weather. instead my father is in court with monsanto. my father sold the beans for less money for crush it cost my father over $15,000 monsanto tell me that if any of those contaimined beans are used for seed that monsanto can sue for useing their genes and that they can seige the entire crop and also seek cash damages . $15,000 is as much as my father has to live on in a year i have to help out with the costs of him living in a nursing home he still crops the farms plus 200 acres from a class mate of his i am just now going to pay the class mate of my father the second part of the rent 2 months late because of monsanto i can use some help by someone who know the law to help with the court case with my father and monsanto stephen webster blyth ont canada 2262221429

    January 19, 2013 at 1:57 am | Reply
    • Austin
      

      Soybeans do NOT cross polinate!!!! They are a self pollinating plant. Unlike corn!!!!!!!!!!!! You need to do some research

      January 19, 2013 at 12:36 pm | Reply
    • littlechickenfarmer
      

      Hi Stephen, your soys are only able to self polliinate. It is impossible to cross from another field. Your contamination would need to come from the drill, combine, or other seeds. If you used bin run from a friend maybe he mixed them up when he cleaned them or they came from his combine etc. You need to be careful that you do not waste all of your money in court when you would loose your battle.

      January 19, 2013 at 7:40 pm | Reply
      • stephen webster
        

        i would like to say one my father is not an organic farmer the first thing checked was the seed source he does for real live in a nursing home and drive to the farm. he and i was both told that this could not happen that why when hauled the beans to the elevater and notice a few darker beans they did more test as the first 2 test on the first load cane up neg. for gmo or roundup ready gene both the elevater and my father could have proably got away with shipping those beans as nongmo but my father is what we call old school. we walked all the fields the was parts of the field that we could see the problem(the problem parts did not match up with planting paterns) .We had 4 grown men in the field both combines did no roundup ready beans and it was late in the fall when the beans after puting over 100 acres of corn through each the combines. My father does grow roundup ready corn sometimes and no soybeans and corn will not cross with other. i also went agriculture school quite a few years ago and i was told that soybeans should not become crossed like this i have no reson the reduce the value of my fathers crop by any means. you can call me at 2262221429 or my father at 5198879299 he live in apart ment or room 11 at huronlea nursing home in brussels ont canada my father is not spending a lot money so far with monsanto but reson he is doing this he want all farmers to be aware of what happened in his case as this could become a bigger problem down the road. i nor my father are not opposed to monsanto or newer or better plants thankyou for your reply my father is more than willing to meet with monsanto at anytime i also would like monsanto to tell me why this happened that should not have happened

        January 21, 2013 at 7:22 am | Reply
59. Blanton
    

    GMO's are only used because they can with stand all of the chemicals that Monsanto sells to the farmers...please study the facts!

    January 19, 2013 at 12:12 am | Reply
    • biogirl
      

      Maybe you should study the facts. GM crops are not just used so big biotech companies can sell chemicals. There are crops that are drought resistant, resistant to viruses and other pathogens and more nutrient rich than non GM crops. Just Google scholarly articles for transgenic plants and you will see some of the beneficial research being done by scientists. By 2050 there will be around 9 billion people in the world to feed...the only way it is going to happen is with biotechnology.

      January 19, 2013 at 3:45 am | Reply
      • coldassets
        

        Now the weeds are round-up ready also, so they have to come up with something new......a derivative of agent orange. The GMOs are also killing the soil. "more nutrient rich" You need to do some reading, there are less nutrients in the crops and also in the soil. I buy only heirloom seeds, I save my seeds and even share with my neighbors. STOP MONSANTO NOW and boycott anyone that supports them.

        January 19, 2013 at 4:52 am | Reply
        • FieldsofDreams
          

          "A derivative of agent orange". I know you are referring to 2-4-D here which is in no way actually related to the problems with agent orange...dioxins. There are no dioxins in 2-4-D and it has been widely used around the world for 40 years without problems so hardly "something new". I also would love to hear more from you on the exact mechanism that GMOs are "killing the soil.". On our farm our average yields are up 40% since 2000 and quite frankly without healthy soil this would be utterly impossible.

          January 19, 2013 at 8:45 am |
        • Kyle Stull
          

          Enlist corn and soybeans, or 2,4D resistant crops are actually created by DOW Agrosciences. Also, the carcinogen part of Agent Orange is not 2,4D.

          January 20, 2013 at 8:10 am |
60. Randall
    

    The most troubling thing about the people making the anti-agriculture comments: they can vote.

    January 18, 2013 at 11:39 pm | Reply
    • Ryan Goodman
      

      And pretty sure many who left a comment never read the article and all they saw were GMO and Monsanto.

      January 19, 2013 at 7:52 am | Reply
61. Amy
    

    You have GOT to be kidding me. What a bunch of BS multi-national corporation, new world order, mind control propaganda. Does Monsanto et al think this country is THAT dumb. Ha! Let's write a story and have a fake farmer tell his story... pro Monsanto. GMO's are AWFUL. Stay far away!!!!!!!!

    January 18, 2013 at 10:05 pm | Reply
    • TravisK
      

      Why does he have to be fake? Just because the story doesn't fit what Farm Aid told you about biotech companies?

      He's been running a blog (link in original article) for a couple of years. Pretty elaborate ruse if you ask me.

      A couple of his neighbors even stop by to say hello on the comment threads. Guess I am THAT dumb.

      January 18, 2013 at 10:44 pm | Reply
      • Amy
        

        Oh, hello, employee of Monsanto. I believe everything you say.

        January 19, 2013 at 9:30 am | Reply
        • Nicole
          

          What makes you any more credible than he is?

          January 19, 2013 at 10:07 am |
    • Dan
      

      Amy- isn't it incredible that this "fake farmer" told a "fake story" that is exactly like my farm? Wow what a coincidence!

      January 18, 2013 at 11:03 pm | Reply
      • coldassets
        

        I guess it's also a coincidence that there is high fructose CORN syrup in everything and because of it's modification, you crave more...almost like free basing, fast acting, fast addicting. I eat NOTHING with HFCS and I support no company that supports Monsanto. Luckily I have a little bit of property and can grow what I eat. My neighbors are of a like mind so I buy my beef, goat milk and eggs from their natural, free range animals. it's about greed....How can I produce more for less? I do not use weed killer, I weed by hand, I do not use fertilizer, just my neighbors manure. Is it hard work, VERY, but I'm not out to make a QUICK buck. I wish people would get a conscience and not let the $$$ be their GOD.

        January 19, 2013 at 5:11 am | Reply
        • Amy @KyFarmersMatter
          

          HFCS was an ingredient in many products because it was a less expensive sweetener. No conspiracy there. HFCS addictive per se. Sweet can be addictive. Sweet can have an analgesic affect. When my kiddos were babies, the pediatrician recommended introducing other less pleasing foods (vegetables) before introducing fruits. There's a good reason for that. They like the sweetness of apricots over the blandness of peas. That's just biological. Blaming HFCS for that seems a bit reachy.

          January 19, 2013 at 2:21 pm |
      • Amy
        

        Well, if this farmer does exist, and you are exactly like him and have a farm just like his, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Monsanto is ruining our food supply and you are going right along with it. That's why I buy local, organic food... no processed anything. No soy, corn, fake ANYTHING. Go ahead and create all the frankenfood you want. There are people out there that don't want anything to do with it and WILL NOT buy your crap.

        January 19, 2013 at 9:32 am | Reply
        • Dan
          

          Good for you for buying what you choose. I realize that there are people who only buy organic, natural, etc. like you, however there are millions of people who can not afford buy those foods. Organic production, which I am sure you are well aware, can be costly, as well as very risky. If, for example, there is an insect attacking a crop, that crop may be lost because there is no way to help control that pest. Soon you have a shortage and the cost for that product is even higher, keeping more people from buying it. I have no heard if there are still starving people on this planet but I believe there still is and we need to reduce that number, not increase it.

          January 19, 2013 at 4:26 pm |
        • Amy
          

          @Dan... what you are saying does not justify what you are producing. Maybe Monsanto should take all their money and teach everyone how to grow THEIR OWN FOOD organically. Then, if people became more self-sufficient there wouldn't necessarily be this need to create these frankenfood-like seeds to feed all the people who cannot afford to buy organic at grocery stores. What Monsanto is creating is going to get so bad that no one will be able to grow anything.

          January 19, 2013 at 6:20 pm |
        • What?
          

          @ Amy

          That's a great idea. You should start a crusade today to push for this, especially in New York City, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and Chicago. You should have all of those people self-sufficient in a matter of only a couple of years.

          I'm curious – if you "grow your own food", why do have to go to local farmer's markets to buy more?

          January 19, 2013 at 6:29 pm |
        • Amy
          

          @What... I live in Atlanta, right inside the city, and there are all kinds of people starting organic farms in random plots of land dotted throughout the city. I grow what I can, and buy the rest from these local, urban farmers markets. So, what's your point??

          January 19, 2013 at 9:38 pm |
        • What?
          

          @ Amy

          So what proportion of Atlanta would you say is feeding itself now? 50%? Too high? 30%? Too high? 10%? Yeah, I'll bet "No". My point is that what you propose would work for anybody in a rural setting – provided they had the 'know-how', which is a good probability. It will work, to some extent, for some people in urban areas – again, provided they have the know-how, but now we're getting into "not likely" territory. In inner-city areas in larger metropolitan areas, it will be impossible for any "real" average impact to be made – there's just too many people crammed into too small a space.

          Take your own situation: you didn't actually respond with how much of your food you grow, but whatever it is, it isn't enough. Do you think your situation is unique? Of course not. The point is that there are so many people who produce no food at all that it's impossible for the sum of the "hobbist" and "small-time" farmers to produce enough to feed them all. (You do realize there are significantly over 300 million people in this country now, don't you?)

          January 19, 2013 at 10:18 pm |
        • Dan
          

          I believe the point that "What" is trying to make is that if you cannot produce ALL of your food now, (when the majority or the population does not) how will you be able to produce ALL of your food when everyone else is also trying to produce all of their food using limited resources(land/physical space)?

          January 19, 2013 at 10:27 pm |
        • Amy
          

          @ What... I have no idea how much of the city of Atlanta is producing their own food. I wrote that there are urban organic farms popping up all over the city. You said I should start a crusade, right? Well, there it is. People are realizing they want organic, local food, and they are doing something about it. It doesn't happen overnight. No, I don't grow everything I eat, but I wish I could. For things I can't, I do the next best thing and that still is not GMO food. I have to rely on locally grown beef, chicken, etc from local farms that are specifically non-GMO and that is perfectly fine. I will do everything I can to avoid GMO.

          January 19, 2013 at 11:00 pm |
        • Amy
          

          @ Dan... who doesn't have enough space? There is plenty of space to grow food. People spend way too much time and energy to make pretty, landscaped lawns. They should be using their outdoor space to grow their own food... if they are worried about GMO's like I am. You can grow food in pots, containers, anywhere. Many apartment complexes have set aside space to have a garden for their residents. I don't buy the whole if everyone did it, there wouldn't be enough space. Please.

          January 19, 2013 at 11:05 pm |
        • Dan
          

          Yes, I will agree that food can be grown anywhere, IF people are willing to give up their nice lawns, etc. The other issue would be time. When people work 8 hour days, commute for 60-90mins every day, then come home to spend time with family/raise their children, is there time to grow 100% of your food? As cheaply as people can live on basic foods, they will likely still have to work for their other needs(clothes, shelter, etc.) while growing their food. There are times when growing plants that much management is required, if they aren't tended to, they may be lost-no food for the year-bad. I won't even dive into livestock raising, which is even more time intensive.(not to mention some cities and neighborhoods don't really want cows and chickens roaming about.)

          January 20, 2013 at 3:20 pm |
        • Amy
          

          @Dan... Yeah, if people don't want to give up their perfectly manicured lawns, then that's their problem. They can't complain. I'm complaining about GMO's and I am also trying to do something about it for my family. All it takes is a little research, some time, and financial investment, and anyone can grow tomatoes, herbs, cucumbers, whatever. It has taken me a few tries, but I am getting better at gardening, and will be adding more to what I plant this spring. Hopefully I won't get arrested for doing this, however, like a woman in Michigan did in 2011. Read this http://bungalowbillscw.blogspot.com/2011/07/michigan-woman-arrested-and-jailed-for.html. Ridiculous.

          January 20, 2013 at 4:52 pm |
        • What?
          

          @ Amy

          The point I am trying to make is that in very large metropolitan areas, there is no way that the vast majority of people living in the 'inner-city' could possibly hope to be able to grow any significant amount of their own food. There simply isn't enough "green space" available – I don't care if you plant every rooftop and balcony in the city, it simply cannot be done.

          On the subject of using 'available' land: I would be willing to bet that Homeowner's Association rules or development covenants/restrictions would prohibit any significant amount of "personal farming" in more instances than not, especially in 'front' and 'side' yards. There are few families that would have enough physical square footage to be anywhere near 100% self-sufficient, and nobody – nobody – in a single-lot urban setting would be growing their own "staple" grains of wheat or rice.

          And, again, I don't know how much you grow . . . but I know how much my family grew when I was younger, and I am going to say this – there are a significant number of people in this country today who absolutely will not expend the time or manual labor needed to produce a decent-sized vegetable garden.

          January 20, 2013 at 5:58 pm |
62. Dan
    

    Spot on!

    January 18, 2013 at 9:46 pm | Reply
63. arosebyanyother
    

    Not to let facts get in the way of hysteria, but here are a few things to know before posting your opinion:

    1. Bees do not pollinate corn plants. Please brush up on your basic biology before posting.
    2. Farmers are smarter, and better educated business people, than most of you here trolling the comments section (does your day start with checking Bloomberg for the international commodities market news?). So stop thinking farmers don't know enough to make decisions for themselves without being "tricked" by some company.
    3. There are more hybrid varieties of corn, and more lines of soybean, available today than ever before (stop to think – do you really think the same line of corn that grows well in Nebraska would be perfectly suited to conditions in Oklahoma?) – so stop with "monoculture" nonsense.
    4. There are many non-traited (non-GMO) lines of crop seeds available. The reason farmers prefer biotech products is because that is the only currently available solution for producing as much food as we do.
    5. There is no scientific evidence supporting any of the conspiracy theories out there, including the ones about GM food being any different than conventionally produced food.

    As a scientist, it is painful to read most of the comments on here, I am stunned at the level of science education in the general population. I cannot even understand most comments because they just don't make sense.

    And for those of you who oppose GMO on some sort of moral ground – do you know anyone who takes insulin to control their diabetes? That insulin protein is produced in a GENETICALLY MODIFIED BACTERIUM, called E. coli.

    January 18, 2013 at 8:26 pm | Reply
    • Harald
      

      You seem clueless as to what you are talking about.
      1) no, corn is not pollinated by bees, but what has that to do with the whole topic ?
      2) You are talking about large corporations. Yes, they work like industries and knowledge, most likely isn't a problem there. However, here we are talking about small, family owned farms and while there certainly exist highly educated farmers, there are also many that are not. Beside being educated in one field, let's say business, doesn't mean you are an expert in GMOs.
      3) You can plant 100 hybrids of a particular plant species together and it still is a monoculture. You need to read up on the meaning of monoculture.
      4) Patently wrong. It's just the easiest, especially when looking at it in the short term.
      5) It's not about conspiracy theories, but about the fact that the public has not enough info to make educated choices nor are there sufficient independent studies available to guarantee the safety of GMOs. GMO can be beneficial if done right but can cause disaster if done wrong. Same story as for other technologies such as nuclear energy. Just believing that GMOs are the best thing that ever happened to mankind because Monsanto says so, is lack of critical thinking and pretty naïve. In the absence of data we have to remain skeptical.
      Since you say you are a scientist, you should know better than what you are espousing in your post.

      January 18, 2013 at 9:14 pm | Reply
    • BEEEEEE
      

      I don't oppose GMOS or do i think farmers are stupid. I oppose Monsanto business practice. Is it to much to ask for transparency for a company that plays an important part of our daily life. Its not about science.....its about morals.

      January 18, 2013 at 9:21 pm | Reply
      • Harald
        

        I think it's in the hands of the consumer to put pressure on lawmakers for legislation that provides proper labeling of GMO containing food. Once this info is available, people can make up their own mind whether they accept GMO containing food or not. If they don't, producers will quickly get this feedback and adjust accordingly if they want to stay in business.

        January 18, 2013 at 9:26 pm | Reply
    • vongtama
      

      articles about health effects of GMO and roundup.
      http://research.sustainablefoodtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Final-Paper.pdf
      http://www.biolsci.org/v05p0706.htm

      January 19, 2013 at 3:26 am | Reply
      • What?
        

        You have got to be kidding with that first reference. Really? That is one of the most widely ridiculed pieces of pseudo-science since the boys in Utah reported achieving "cold fusion". Why don't you see if you can get past the Abstract and actually READ that paper – carefully – and get back to us on it's 'scientific validity'. You say you work in oncology – why would you even start a "lifetime" test with a strain of rats that is KNOWN to spontaneously develop tumors at the rate of the strain used in the experiment? And don't forget that one of the control groups had a higher mortality rate than at least two of the test groups (yes, I've read it). Pay real close attention to the "fine print" regarding exactly what they included in tabulating some of their numbers, too.

        January 19, 2013 at 8:30 am | Reply
    • coldassets
      

      And the 'ingredients' that supposedly are eliminated through your urine are being found in fetus', so they lied about this too. I don't have an issue with hybrid plants, I have an issue with round-up ready seeds. Now the weeds have mutated and they too are round up ready, so now they have to come up with a different weed killer and they are using a derivative of agent orange. Dow has literally killed the Titabawassi river in Michigan, so yes....they are greedy and don't give a rats azz about your or me or our health. If it's such a good thing, why are they fighting about mandatory labeling. Or am I THAT stupid that I can't decide what I want in my body??? Give me ALL the facts and let me decide. But no, they hide the facts and are not true in their advertising. I no longer purchase coke products, del monte, pepsi and a slew more low life greedy corporate mongers that back Monsanto.

      January 19, 2013 at 4:59 am | Reply
64. MessaLOVEfoodz
    

    Shut up and grow your food for ethenol.You don't 'own' your land.It's rented to you.You exists to do whatthe President Says.NO EXCEPTIONS!

    January 18, 2013 at 8:23 pm | Reply
    • Brian
      

      Actually we own nearly all our acres and know personally the landowners we rent a few hundred acres from. In fact we pay one owner who likes to do some field work and trucking for us in the fall.

      January 19, 2013 at 2:16 am | Reply
      • John Godwin
        

        Brian; you only occupy the land you grow crops on... if you did not pay your "taxes" then your government would take it away..... and when it all ends, then it will again be occupied by the original owner.
        Why not be a good steward of the land you occupy and grow heirlooms?

        January 20, 2013 at 11:56 pm | Reply
        • Brian
          

          "Taxes?" Are we talking about income tax, social security, propoerty, etc? I pay them an don't plan not to. I can't say I enjoy it, but I tend to err on the side of the law.

          There's more than one way to skin a cat, and there's more than one way to steward the land. My most recent venture is cover cropping. I'm using cover crops to increase soil health and organic matter. Hopefully in time I'll be able to purchase less fertilizer because of those benefits and some cover crops offer weed suppressing capabilities as well, reducing herbicide use.

          January 21, 2013 at 11:44 am |
65. Voiceinthewind
    

    I smell a rat or is that GMO seed rotting I smell. A whole big bunch of Monsantinity Propaganda.

    January 18, 2013 at 8:04 pm | Reply
66. Brian
    

    Again CNN disgusts me with supporting the corporations that don't give a crap about people. They have one goal in mind and that is to make tons of cash and sacrifice the health and well being og the American people. Monsanto only wants to control the agriculture market while poisoning our food supply, farm lands and water. Their products should be banned and followed by the largest class action suit in history. This moron Brian Scott is either stupid or attempting to write deceiving commentary to support trash companies such as Dupont and Monsanto. I'm sure you people are clear as to what is really going on but to spineless to report the truth in fear of being procecuted or fired. When are you people going to stop this deception?
    Do what right for a change!!

    January 18, 2013 at 7:55 pm | Reply
    • Amy
      

      Right on, Brian!

      January 19, 2013 at 1:29 pm | Reply
67. farmmyass
    

    as big ag's business is killing the honey bees who we ALL depend on for life.

    January 18, 2013 at 7:53 pm | Reply
    • arosebyanyother
      

      You do know that most row crops (corn, soybean) are pollinated by wind or self-pollinated, right?

      January 18, 2013 at 8:14 pm | Reply
68. BEEEEEE
    

    @ JOSH
    You talk like their misdoings are past tense.
    I actually grew up very close to a Monsanto super fund site. Monsanto lending a helping hand is a conundrum. Unlike you, Brian and Monsanto.... I do have a high horse. I've seen first hand of the damage what that helping hand cost. The fact is its not right. All Monsanto has done is take advantages of democracy and wiling farmers and corporations have made sure they have the money to do so. You fail to see the other side....which is growing daily. The side that has been robbed of their health, land and farms. Its people like you who make sure these stories are nothing new.

    January 18, 2013 at 7:31 pm | Reply
69. Katie
    

    Hey CNN, please consider having ecologists weigh-in on this instead of environmentalists.

    January 18, 2013 at 7:22 pm | Reply
70. Jay
    

    The whole country has been co-oped in one way or another. None of us could survive if it weren't for some corpation or another. Sad to say, but we are at the mercy of big biz, pharma, AMA, Walmart ect....and if you think your not try to go one month without one of these business.

    January 18, 2013 at 6:33 pm | Reply
    • Amy
      

      Jay, we don't have to be at the mercy of big Pharma, the AMA, Monsanto, Walmart, etc. Give me a break. There are good corporations out there and there are bad ones. Monsanto is one of the bad. You can easily avoid these bad ones. Just don't buy into their propaganda. Don't go to Walmart. Don't buy GMO food. Take really good care of yourself and you won't have to see the doctor much and you won't need prescription drugs. All these corps you mention are all related. Don't you see it? Monsanto wants to toxify the food supply and then sell it to Walmart so they sell it to you. You eat that crap, then get sick, go see the doctor, then take drugs. They are all in it together.

      January 19, 2013 at 1:33 pm | Reply
71. John
    

    We all sign technology use agreements to use our computers, they're known as Licenses. Does that mean every PC user is corporate controlled? No it does not, and further I feel that the belief that family farms are corporate controlled because they sign technology licenses to use corporate seed is complete and utter BS.

    January 18, 2013 at 6:27 pm | Reply
    • Harald
      

      John, I think it's up to every individual to make the decision where "corporate control" begins for him. Apparently Brian is fine with his relationship with Monsanto. Others are not.
      As a consumer and as a biochemist, my concern isn't so much with any agreements farmers have to sign but with the quality of food I purchase.

      January 18, 2013 at 6:50 pm | Reply
72. Primal 4 Life
    

    Absolutely terrible article. Monsanto shill. Total waste of time to read.

    January 18, 2013 at 6:27 pm | Reply
    • Easy E
      

      Exactly. The guy claims not to be corporate controlled, but then goes on to emplain exactly how he is indeed, highly controlled by these entities. I guess this piece was supposed to be some sort of catharsis for him, but he ends up revealing just how deluded he really is. What is far more frustrating, however, is that he doesn't reveal how his seed choices tie the hands of adjacent farmers: should a single GMO plant grow as a "volunteer" on a neighbor's lot, that neighbor ends up being legally bound by the same one-sided restrictions as our sycophantic protagonist. The man is a self-deluded fool and tool for the corporatist agenda.

      January 18, 2013 at 6:48 pm | Reply
      • Amy
        

        This so-called farmer doesn't exist. This story is a bunch of bull. Monsanto wrote it, paid big bucks for CNN to put it on their website in hopes that stupid people will go along with it. Not me. I smell a rat.

        January 18, 2013 at 10:08 pm | Reply
        • agsalesman
          

          That's funny Amy, because I just had dinner and drinks with this "non existent" famer. We talked about the markets, technology, and our families. Guess I must not be a farmer either.

          January 19, 2013 at 1:22 am |
        • Amy
          

          agsalesman... hmmm, your name is interesting. I absolutely don't believe you. You are probably the author of this story. Give me a break. Just because you say you had dinner with this farmer should mean I should believe you, right? Yeah, um, no. I find it interesting that I can't directly reply to YOUR comment while I can to all the others. You are absolutely not credible.

          January 19, 2013 at 9:28 am |
        • FieldsofDreams
          

          This story pretty much describes our farm as well. I'm not a Monsanto school this I know. I am amazed at the amount of wild misunderstanding in the public. This guy lays it all out for all to see and gets blasted...just cannot believe how people are reacting here!

          January 19, 2013 at 9:40 am |
        • Urbanmnfarmer
          

          Amy. I also had dinner with the "nonexistent farmer" and Agsalesman last night. If you need proof that I'm real feel free to follow me on twitter @urbanmnfarmer. This is no joke we are just people trying to make a living the same as you. Plus I could not reply to you ether Amy so I had to do it to the main thread. Thats not Agsalesmans fault.

          January 19, 2013 at 11:16 am |
        • BMOC
          

          To Amy and all the other non-Monsanto/GMO haters, CNN has complete control over your mind!! Oh, and move out of the big city and see what "Real life" has to offer. Wake up and smell the that great GMO coffee.
          PRO GMO!!!!!

          January 19, 2013 at 11:37 am |
        • Amy
          

          @ BMOC... go ahead and be pro-GMO. You deserve what you get.

          January 19, 2013 at 1:36 pm |
        • Amy
          

          @ Urbanmfarmer... again, just because you claim to have gone to dinner with x,y,z still does not convince me. No, I will not follow you on twitter. I don't tweet or do facebook. If you want to grow GMO crops via Monsanto, that's your business. However, they are an evil company and just because you have to make money, doesn't erase all the bad they stand for. You go grow your GMO crops. You will not see a dime of my money or many thousands of others. I don't know what farming means to you, sounds like you're just worried about the money. I'd rather buy from a farmer that is in it to provide healthful food to the public and to try and not kill the food supply by growing organic versus toxic. Please let us know what you grow and where you sell it so we know what NOT to buy.

          January 19, 2013 at 1:43 pm |
        • SlowMoneyFarm
          

          So despite being on television news and in youtube videos this farmer doesn't exist? If things can be that convincingly faked, why should we believe anything else – pro or con – about the topic? I too know he does exist – as does agsalesman (saw him just last month in fact). ~ Jan

          January 19, 2013 at 9:35 pm |
        • Amy
          

          @Slowmoneyfarm... so what you are saying is is that because this person is on the news and on twitter or whatever that I should believe this story? It is sooo obvious that this is Monsanto propaganda. Even if this person DOES exist, what he is supposedly doing is despicable. Either way you slice it, he and others like him are doing way more harm than good. He should know better. But, I guess it's too late. He signed a deal with the devil. So, hey, as long as he's making money, right?

          January 19, 2013 at 9:43 pm |
        • SlowMoneyFarm
          

          Whether he exists or whether he is believable isn't the same thing. It was said that he was fake, and did not exist – I simply said I know he exists because I've met him, as well as @agsalesman and I know they are real people. They grow very differently from me, but are also growing for a different market. And, although many condemn them people line up many times per day to buy the products made from corn they produce. Much bigger than heirloom/heritage produce and meats and eggs...so until that shifts and people in action buy something different, yes they will continue. If I and everyone like me sells out and can't get bigger, I would bet they would be among the first farmers on the phone to get involved in doing some things like I do...because people want it and in action pay for it. Everyone has to do what pays the bills, and for as much as folks criticize they also support – with dollars – what these large farmers do. Food choices make farm choices. ~ Jan

          January 20, 2013 at 2:09 pm |
        • stephen webster
          

          hy you can come and vist me anytime and my father i always have a open policy there always a extra bed at my house i have not been paid by monsanto and monsanto did not pay cnn

          January 21, 2013 at 7:34 am |
    • bairkus
      

      These responses such as Primal 4 Life's response puzzle me. Do "Primals" have anything to say on the Subject? How many farmers do they know and how much do they know about farming? I enjoyed Brian's post, but as a city-cousin with several score of farming relatives, several things he had to say are new to me, much more is familiar. I have to wonder though if "Primals" understand, or even are aware of the strong ethic, calling, and commitment that many farmer's serve in their efforts to try to "Feed the World"?

      I think there might be a workable analogy for the use of engineered seed in the business of renting and piloting a plane – limited but workable to some extent: If you're going to use some company's plane, you need to know what you're doing and follow all the safety rules. All three parties, the rentor/builder, you the renter/pilot, and your passengers all want the plane used safely for the benefit of the passengers, and for your reputation and that of the owner. You can fly the plane wherever your customers want to go, but there are a lot of things that can go wrong, and a lot is riding on your responsible use.

      January 18, 2013 at 10:21 pm | Reply
73. Julia Gerson
    

    I think he's a Kool-Aid farmer.

    January 18, 2013 at 6:25 pm | Reply
74. TryToSwitch
    

    So try to switch out for a few years and not use their stuff, but instead buy seed elsewhere. And see if you don't get sued because their GMO material shows up in your next batch of crops.

    January 18, 2013 at 6:22 pm | Reply
    • Brian
      

      I already do this by growing popcorn. There is no such thing as biotech popcorn, and my seed comes from the popcorn company I grow for. For more about where my harvest goes check out another post I've written. http://thefarmerslife.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/where-does-my-harvest-go/

      January 18, 2013 at 7:10 pm | Reply
    • Steve
      

      Ok. I plant 4 different seed companies genetics, I don't understand what your trying to say? What reason would they have to sue ???? People are so off base this is killing me.

      January 18, 2013 at 9:25 pm | Reply
75. ant matthew
    

    this guy is an idiot. he says he OWNS his freedom as a farmer and not in the hands of the big ag industry, yet in the same paragraph he talks of signing multiple CONTRACTS and agreements with big ag industries. i was a small market farmer for a number of years and this guy has been co-opted as far as i am concerned. i never signed a contract in my life to have the right to grow food or buy seed. he lacks integrity.

    January 18, 2013 at 6:21 pm | Reply
    • Easy E
      

      Agreed. The man is self-deluded, and lacks integrity becauses he's succeeded in lying to himself for so long he cannot acknowledge reality. It's a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome as applied to agronomy.

      January 18, 2013 at 6:50 pm | Reply
    • Amy
      

      This "farmer" is not real. How can someone call themselves a farmer while being controlled by Monsanto?

      January 18, 2013 at 10:10 pm | Reply
      • BMOC
        

        What is your definition of "Real Farmer" Amy? The only thing that I can determine is that Amy thinks food comes from the store. Wal-Mart's organic section is the "Real Farmer"!

        January 19, 2013 at 11:48 am | Reply
        • Amy
          

          I don't shop at the equally evil Walmart. I shop at local farmers markets and buy organic. I pay more, but have comfort in knowing where my food comes from and that it is safe. I also grow my own food.

          January 19, 2013 at 1:46 pm |
    • trulythere
      

      I am a organic farmer and a lot of the certified organic seeds I use have licensing requirements. The seed producers do not let me use their seed stock to produce my own seed for resale. The seed companies told me they rely on sales to continue research. I can save seed for my own use. Saving seeds from Hybrids, even certified organic, does not work out sometimes because of the loss in vigor and sometimes the next generation is just not that good.
      Sometimes I feel like a slave to the organic program. I cannot legally sell my crops as Organic (unless it is a small amount) without being certified, and if you want to know what being controlled is, go through the certification process and look at all of the hoops you will be jumping through. The certifiers do take a percentage of all your sales by the way.
      I do have a lot of friends (not organic)who farm thousands of acres do not use GMO's. I also have friends who do use GMO seed and almost all these people are great friends and neighbors who will help me or anyone else in a jam whenever asked. Their level of community service is incredible and their knowledge of farming is extensive. Most of them know a lot more about farming than my friends who farm organically and who may not have come from a farming family. Their families have been farming for many generations and they have been through a lot. So people who think that all of the big farms are corporate owned and all of the big farmers are mindless morons are very misinformed. Yeah I am not the greatest writer and I hope you get the idea anyway.

      January 19, 2013 at 11:17 am | Reply
      • Brian
        

        trulythere, you are truly awesome. Thanks for bringing your insight to the conversation. Do have thoughts on consumers and farmers who prefer natural of organic. By that I mean people I see that think the USDA standards for organic don't accomplish much. I'd appreciate your input on that.

        January 20, 2013 at 12:55 am | Reply
        • trulythere
          

          We have organic inspectors come and do inspections who only had a few days training to get their licence. They sometimes do not even know what the crop is they are looking at (corn is obvious, but some small grains are not). I know of a few local Organic growers who never test their soil, which I can't figure out . Anyway, we try and live our lives not being afraid. There are so many people who seem to always afraid of something. The stress from that lifestyle cannot be easy. I have said before that there are good farmers and there are not so good farmers and It is up to the individual to seek out what type of food they think is best for themselves and family. My friends who farm buy Organic sometimes and other times they don't. Just because it's labelled Organic does not prove that the farmer who grew it was a good farmer.

          January 20, 2013 at 4:28 pm |
      • Brian
        

        trulythere, would you be interested in talking about this further? You given me some blog post ideas. If you feel so inclined, drop me an email at thefarmerslife@gmail.com

        January 22, 2013 at 2:01 pm | Reply
    • trulythere
      

      Everyone thinks they are a farmer nowadays. Some farmers use GMO's some don't. Many of you should be ashamed and embarrassed. Most of you have been eating food from farmers with absolutely no thought or care to who was producing it, until it became "cool" to pretend you knew how to farm. I remember kids in school making fun of us farmer kids and still hear and read about how urbanites make fun of farmers. It takes an incredible amount of planning and work to get all of the seed in the ground and when ready to get it harvested. These farmers are not idiots and if they all decided to hold there food back for just one season, a lot of you unthankful people would probably die from starvation.
      There is a better way to communicate your concerns about monsanto than bashing farmers who are out there growing your food. Most of the farmers I know will listen to reason and are open to suggestions, but don't have time for all of this childish drama.

      January 19, 2013 at 1:51 pm | Reply
76. Frank Stanton
    

    The author (with his Chesire Cat-like grin) has chosen to sidestep all mention of the constant litigation which has been generated both by and against Monsanto over exposure to and cross pollination of non-GMO/ Roundup farms and fields, as well as glossing over the issue of using seeds that have become altered due to exposure with Monsanto products. Monsanto has commonly sued farmers whose fields are adjacent to fields using GMO/Roundup. This has led to harassment and great financial losses to innocent farmers who are unlucky enough to be adjacent to guys like Brian Scott. People have lost their farms fighting Monsanto. If Brian Scott is happy with the profits he makes using Monsanto products, then maybe he should be quiet and count his lucre. Until he addresses the concerns folks have over the world about biodiversity of plant and seeds, and pollution in Third world countries, he will come off as little more than a businessman who is in league with Monsanto. He will never be portrayed as a steward of the land. If he is happy making money using Monsanto, fine. But he needs to understand that some of us believe that diversity of seed and plants must be protected. As it stands, Monsanto's insidious growth in agriculture has endangered the health of unwitting persons the world over, and has given it an ever growing market share of corn crops, the long term result of which will be a single type of corn in fields all over this great Earth.

    January 18, 2013 at 6:19 pm | Reply
    • TravisK
      

      I keep hearing about all these lawsuits yet nobody brings up any specific cases. When some one does its usually Percy Schmeiser from Canda. Then you read the case documents and find out Percy actually sprayed roundup so he could save the seeds that were herbicide resistant on seed he never paid for to begin with. Hardly this harrasment over mere pollen drift everyone talks about. And if that were the case why does Monsanto not sue Brian for growing all the non GMO seed he talks about in his post?

      January 18, 2013 at 6:37 pm | Reply
    • Easy E
      

      Frank: the evidence is all around us that biodiversity is the only thing standing between us and a mass starvation event. There is not a single system in all of biology where a monoculture of a single subspecieis has withstood the pressures of natural selection and cataclysm over any meaningful time period. Bioiversity = risk reduction, but the corporatist fools haven't found a way to wrap a business model around that so they wish reality away like any other self-deluded cult.

      January 18, 2013 at 6:54 pm | Reply
      • Harald
        

        100 % agreed. Monocultures provide the delusion of better yields than bio diverse systems. However, in the long run people will figure that monocultures are not sustainable for a variety of reasons.
        Monocultures only work as long as they are supported with heavy pesticide, herbicide and fertilizer use.

        January 18, 2013 at 7:01 pm | Reply
    • Dan
      

      I have also never seen any real evidence of a lawsuit TravisK!

      January 18, 2013 at 10:54 pm | Reply
      • coldassets
        

        I guess you don't know how to goole anything then. Just google 'monsanto and lawsuit' and you will see 1000's of stories of these lawsuits. also google the relationship with autism and cancer.

        January 19, 2013 at 5:17 am | Reply
        • TravisK
          

          A quick google search repeats the same myths that guys like Percy are totally innocent because its a convienient story for all the Monsanto haters. Or you could take the Organic Consumer Union case where THEY sued Monsanto over all this but couldn't cite a SINGLE case where Monsanto sued a farmer for just having contaminated crop in his field.

          You know what else is related to Autism? Organic Food consumption...or wait is it vaccines...or is it BPAs?

          http://boingboing.net/2013/01/01/correlation-between-autism-dia.html

          January 19, 2013 at 9:46 am |
        • Dan
          

          coldassets I DO know how to use google, I did not know that EVERYTHING on google was 100% FACT, I learned something today! I can tell that you are a google master, why don't you post a link to one of these lawsuits from Monsanto suing a farmer for being next to a GMO farmer?

          January 19, 2013 at 4:05 pm |
77. Brandi
    

    Bottom line is that ANY agricultural method that relies on fossil fuels for input is not sustainable. And yes, that means the acres and acres of monoculture crops in America's Heartland (my home!) that require the gallons of fertilizers to grow because the soil is dead. In just one or two generations, Brian's family's livelihood will be nonexistent.

    Roundup is causing the development of super weeds that are actually herbicide resistant. Funny how nature kind of does what she wants, eh?

    January 18, 2013 at 6:16 pm | Reply
    • Frank Stanton
      

      Brian's presentation of his opinion is so carefully crafted that it comes off as bullet points from the Monsanto Legal department. There isn't a lot of soulfulness in his view of farming or any sense of moral responsibility for future generations who might try to farm his land when he is long gone and whose kids will most likely be wearing a white collar to work.

      January 18, 2013 at 6:27 pm | Reply
      • Brian
        

        Frank, the reason it may read like bullet points is because the point of the article was to break down a legal document in my own words. The words of a farmer who wanted to put his agreement out in the public eye so everyone can read it for themselves and draw their own conclusions. I'm the 4th generation to farm this land and right now I'm farming it alongside the 2nd and 3rd generations. I hope one day I'm lucky enough that our now 3 year old son will one day choose to follow in our footsteps. After college I spent six years working at a retail job in town. For me it was always a just a job although I learned a lot of valuable skills. When I chose to return to the farm I returned to something I'm passionate about. I'm lucky that I don't feel like I'm going to work everyday now. I love what I do, and I love seeking out new ways to be a better farmer.

        January 19, 2013 at 10:08 am | Reply
    • Harald
      

      You are right Brandi. The sheer need of RoundUp and RoundUp resistant crops as a consequence shows us that something is wrong with the way agriculture works today.

      January 18, 2013 at 6:56 pm | Reply
    • Kyle Stull
      

      So where are we using fossil fuels? My potassium is mined in Canada, my phosphorus is mined in Florida, and my nitrogen is mostly manure. I use less fuel than organic farmers. We use less tillage and have less soil loss than our grandparents. I honestly use Roundup the same way as most farmers, as a rescue spray not a primary method of weed control.

      January 20, 2013 at 8:28 am | Reply
78. donjoy
    

    What good is it when it doesn't ripen,it rots?what good is it when it's tasteless?To every action there's an equal and opposite reaction.

    January 18, 2013 at 6:14 pm | Reply
79. webyourstuff
    

    "Monsanto also says I should only buy seed from a dealer or seed company licensed by them. I'd want to do that anyway. Would you buy a brand new home entertainment system out of the back of some guy's van parked in an alley?"

    Because the guy in the back alley isn't trying to force you to grow unhealthy food.

    January 18, 2013 at 6:06 pm | Reply
80. Mattie
    

    It isn't yet. Give it time, it will be.

    January 18, 2013 at 6:05 pm | Reply
81. us_1776
    

    Monsanto is destroying the ecosystem, destroying farmers and destroying our food.

    .

    January 18, 2013 at 5:57 pm | Reply
82. Wonder Spunion
    

    You're a selfish tool.

    January 18, 2013 at 5:54 pm | Reply
    • us_1776
      

      Cause the man's not a Big Ag farmer?

      .

      January 18, 2013 at 5:58 pm | Reply
83. disgustedvet
    

    Family owned farms are an endangered species and we should do everything in our power to protect the few that are left. Instead we force the family to sell the farm to the Corporate Farmers when Dad passes and the Estate Tax man comes a calling . My grandparents farmed in this same neck of the woods in NW Indiana. Only 170 acres though . Tough life .

    January 18, 2013 at 5:53 pm | Reply
84. Andrew
    

    F@#$ MONSATAN!!!

    January 18, 2013 at 5:52 pm | Reply
    • Amy
      

      Agreed!

      January 18, 2013 at 10:11 pm | Reply
    • wa2go
      

      Agreed !!!!

      January 19, 2013 at 4:16 pm | Reply
85. axel Segura
    

    I agree with all of you, now my question is... If you mix soy bean with corn, do you get soy corn or bean corn? and if you make milk out of it, will it taste like soy milk with corn flakes?

    January 18, 2013 at 5:43 pm | Reply
86. Sally Smoon
    

    Is this an Onion article?

    January 18, 2013 at 5:39 pm | Reply
87. Scott Dave
    

    Finally, someone at CNN went looking for the truth instead of asking 100 people with any credible background or experience in agriculture and food production. Great article. Truly a breath of fresh air.

    January 18, 2013 at 5:39 pm | Reply
88. TravisK
    

    Brian,

    Thanks for writing this. I know how much it can suck to be called a shill, a polluter, and a greedy pig when in reality one of your biggest goals in life is to produce the most food possible with the least environmental impact.

    For those playing at home, we already have NPR's top five GMO myths being portrayed as truth in the comment thread.

    http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/10/18/163034053/top-five-myths-of-genetically-modified-seeds-busted

    Bingo!

    January 18, 2013 at 5:28 pm | Reply
    • coldassets
      

      'biggest goal is to produce the most food' =UHHHHH I think you got that TOTALLY WRONG. His biggest goal in life is to make the most $$$$$ possible, just like his wicked master Monsanto. GREED, GREED AND MORE GREED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just remember this, what goes around, comes around. When your kids have tumors growing off the top of their heads or are a diabetic because of HFCS, tell us how much you LOVE Monsanto then.

      January 19, 2013 at 5:22 am | Reply
89. Real Farmer
    

    "We need to abide by the contract."

    "I also agree to implement an insect resistance management program." Read: use toxic pesticides.

    "Monsanto also says I should only buy seed from a dealer or seed company licensed by them."

    "I must agree to use seed with Monsanto technology solely for planting a single commercial crop and I shouldn't sell any to my neighbor, either. We can't save seed to grow the next year."

    "We may have to provide documents supporting we are following the agreement within seven days after getting a request from Monsanto."

    "If Monsanto asks to do so, they can inspect our land, storage bins, wagons, etc."

    "We agree to allow Monsanto to obtain our internet service provider records to validate an electronic signature."

    "Do you think farmers (like you) are under control of multinational corporations?"

    Are you kidding? Hell yes you are. Read your own words.

    January 18, 2013 at 5:26 pm | Reply
    • Brian
      

      I see your copy and paste function works. Something like IRM is so much more than spraying pesticides. In fact, it's a very rare situation that I would need to make an in season application for insect pests. Not all is perfect, but thanks to technology like Bt (also used in organic ag, but I realize there are differences) and seed treatments most of the time I have no need to hire a sprayer fuel of diesel fuel with a tank mix of chemicals and water (mostly water by the way) to come and cause more soil compaction on my ground. In 2012 we had to spot spray soybeans for spiders mites because the drought conditions were very favorable to that pest. Of course soybeans don't carry any insect resistant GMO traits.

      January 19, 2013 at 10:17 am | Reply
90. Talgrath
    

    So many posters, so much wrong. If you claim that this guy is full of crap and that his agreement is fake...then prove it. Get the "real" documents and post them online like he posted his supposedly fake document. But of course, in your little conspiracy theory, Monsanto is hiding the real documents and making people up so you'll never be able to prove the "truth".

    Of course, the real truth is that without GMO's and the herbicides and pesticides people trying to ban GMO's detest, millions, if not billions of people will likely die of hunger. There's a reason why fewer and fewer people are farmers in the world and it is because we have gotten better at growing more food on less land. Getting rid of GMO's on their own would cause relatively minor food supply problems, but dropping our entire farming system would. Take a look at the cost of buying organic vegetables at your local store when compared to non-organic vegetables; the organic vegetables are smaller and more expensive. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to ban organic foods, I simply don't think that banning non-organic foods is a good idea.

    January 18, 2013 at 5:25 pm | Reply
91. Terrye Lucas
    

    I laugh so hard when I see some of the uninformed and downright stupid comments on here. Thank you to the well thought out article by the farmer. I'm sure you probably don't have to do alot of research as you are living the issue. I am not sure why so many think you owe them a living by growing their food. They can always grow their own. THAT is the only way to guarantee there is nothing in it that you don't want. The FARMERS in America have one of the hardest professions in the country. Go visit, spend some time with one. Then go back to your cute little place in the city and make your judgement calls. You wouldn't be able to handle the livestyle. Give me a good ole country boy anytime!!!!

    January 18, 2013 at 5:17 pm | Reply
    • Sherri
      

      Well, Terrye, you see I do live in the country. There are 5 farms within 5 miles of where I live. Thankfully, 4 of them do not use GMO seeds (not sure about the 5th one, but he sure does use a lot of pesticide). Yes, the rest are organic and it is so nice to buy and visit their farms.

      I had never seen the contract that Monsanto "makes" those farmers sign, but my guess was right – they are corporate farmers. And, Monsanto is evil.

      January 18, 2013 at 6:04 pm | Reply
      • bairkus
        

        Try telling that to the millions of people around the world who get to eat something only because of people like Brian.

        By the way, you might want to look into the meta-study of organic foods vs model farming foods. Here are some of their findings: Organic foods are more expensive, but provide No Discernible nutritional or health advantages; Organic farming causes More environmental pollution per product pound than model farming because organic farming practices are much less efficient and much more wasteful; Organic farming cannot feed the world. - This was NOT a Monsanto study.

        January 18, 2013 at 10:41 pm | Reply
        • Amy
          

          It's not that organic is claiming to be more nutritious necessarily than conventional, but it does claim to be safer and has proven this. Please link articles claiming organic farming practices cause more pollution. I'd be glad to read up on it.

          January 19, 2013 at 9:53 pm |
92. david
    

    he's to lazy to weed his crops, so he sprays it. and we eat it. he is guilty. maybe he should eat NOTHING but his own crops for a few months. see if him and his family is still alive.

    January 18, 2013 at 5:00 pm | Reply
    • Brian
      

      We still own hand held weed hooks, and they do get used.. I was just in a conversation earlier today talking about how I have yet to find volunteers to walk several hundred acres of soybeans, weed hook in hand, searching out weeds big enough to cut down. In the middle of a steamy Indiana summer. Even then you're only getting the worst patches of weeds that have already robbed some yield. Regardless of production method, weed management done properly is not for the lazy.

      January 18, 2013 at 5:17 pm | Reply
93. fozzyespeak
    

    To the farmers talking down to people. These people are your customers and they have concerns. Being a jerk will not make them feel any better about your product that they are currently scared of. People need food. They do not necessarily need your food. Be kind, if you are correct I am sure it will all come out in the wash.

    January 18, 2013 at 4:49 pm | Reply
    • Hogan's Goat
      

      "Being a jerk will not make them feel any better about your product" Easy for you to say, since no one is accusing you of poisoning people or calling YOU a jerk. Oh wait, technically that's not correct since I'm about to call you one. The farmers are being fairly polite about the nasty comments. Do you expect them to agree?

      January 18, 2013 at 4:55 pm | Reply
      • fozzyespeak
        

        You totally won me over. You are wasted on these boards.

        January 18, 2013 at 5:21 pm | Reply
    • Harald
      

      I wouldn't blame the farmers. Most farmers aren't scientists and rely on other people to tell them what is good and what is not. Unfortunately, companies like Monsanto have taken this position and "teach" the farmers how to do that. Problem is that they don't care about the farmer nor the consumer but only their bottom line.
      I think one important step into the right direction would be to clearly label food stuff so anybody can easily see whether or not it contains any form of GMOs. Then it's up to the consumer to make the decision that best suits him.

      January 18, 2013 at 5:04 pm | Reply
      • KurtSteiner
        

        To your last paragraph, a-freaking-men.

        January 18, 2013 at 6:00 pm | Reply
      • bairkus
        

        You might want to one day visit one of the Agricultural Colleges or Universities with these farmers. You need to know mour about them and see what it is they are getting with their university Ag Extension Service programs, courses, and publications. Purdue University would be a good place to start, since it was a land grant college, it is in Brian's locale, and is an integral partner in the work that Brian and his neighbors are about.

        January 18, 2013 at 10:50 pm | Reply
    • Brian
      

      I agree, fozzyespeak. The "I grow it so you better eat it and be quiet" mentality doesn't fly with me either.

      January 18, 2013 at 5:19 pm | Reply
      • TravisK
        

        As an person passionate about agriculture I hate this mentality too and it crops up all too often.

        If we ever meet in person I'm buying you a beverage of your choice!

        January 18, 2013 at 5:30 pm | Reply
        • Brian
          

          I'll hold you to it!

          January 18, 2013 at 5:32 pm |
      • littledeersmusings
        

        I suppose that my biggest concern with GMO's is the question of undoing it. With such a high percentage of GMO crops in corn and beans especially, but the numbers are zooming upward elsewhere too, can it be undone? If all this is about is feeding people, then great, but without REAL evidence going either way, or maybe even too much 'maybe' evidence going in both directions, is this something we can afford to be wrong on? I am passionately opposed to GMO's for this reason alone. We aren't talking about hybridization, such as the inbreeding of dogs to highlight certain traits, we're talking about inserting the aging gene of a monkey into a dog so that it will live for 40 years instead of 10-15. That's a HUGE difference in my book. God created ways for things to put forth seed to continue the cycle of life for it's species, and within that He allowed for adaptations and a form of 'evolution' if you will (such as happens with hybridization, or why or human races exist with such polarity to each other, even when variations exist within the realm). However, if we look strictly at the dog/monkey comparison it seems absolutely asinine, even if you really wish that your dog could live that long as a faithful companion, how would the monkey gene change the dog? What if this began and for the first 10 years the dog was a faithful and good companion and then for the last 30 years it was wild as a monkey. In the mean time, hundreds of thousands of dogs were created because there was no sign that it was harmful. In this instance, the terminator gene may come in handy, since reproduction could be controlled and the dogs themselves would not be creating new dogs. Any dogs bred normally into the world would still exist, it would be possible to eradicate all the GM dogs and continue on as before. But what of these crops, our sustenance? With cross pollination and all that that entails along with the issues that the terminator genes are not practical because of the same, and all the other many variables associated with crops and crop rotation and cross pollination and such, can this be undone now? What about in the future if credible evidentiary findings would conclude that it was needed? Personally, I think extremely difficult if not impossible. I'd venture to guess, in current conditions, within 5 or 10 years there won't be enough non GMO seed on the planet to sustain us whist we wait to grow enough seed to sustain us. And even if that were possible, you would HAVE to pull out your weed hook to prevent voluntary GMO crops so as not to begin again the cross pollination. It just seems very scary if you're wrong. If the current GMO crops can't be undone, given our reliance so heavily on corn and soya, there is no backup plan in place, there is nothing that can undo the damage in any short time, a short time needed to feed the nearly 7billion on the planet that you are worried about feeding. I just add this because in all the discussion, I haven't seen an answer or question or argument for this and this is my biggest fear with GMO's. (Although I do have many others, they've been beaten like a dead horse and I won't rehash them in my lateness to the party). I'd love to hear from any of you your opinions on this.

        May 11, 2013 at 11:55 pm | Reply
94. Sylvia
    

    Numerous countries are banning Monsanto's genetically modified foods, with good reason. GMO's are considered harmful by a growing number of people around the world. Who wants to eat corn with pesticides 'built-in'. And this is just the beginning.... it seems that ever larger quantities of Round-up is needed to overcome pesky little bugs and weeds. According to a recent article in the Huffington Post a growing number of these crop acres are also reluctant hosts of Roundup-resistant "superweeds." Repeated application of the herbicide has literally weeded out the weak weeds and given the rare resistant weeds the opportunity to take over.
    While I don't see Monsanto's foods being banned in the US in the near future, I do know there is a large number of people who at least want to have GMO's labeled.

    January 18, 2013 at 4:44 pm | Reply
    • Harald
      

      No, it's not that GMOs are harmful. That's like saying bacteria are harmful.
      Everything depends. There are GMOs (not talking about crops) that produce antibiotic for example. This is a very useful application. And then there are GMOs like the one you mentioned with built in pesticides. That's one I wouldn't want to eat.
      So, genetic modification is a technology, as so many other technologies, that can be used for something good or something bad.

      January 18, 2013 at 7:39 pm | Reply
    • bairkus
      

      That might be considered a questionable perspective. There always is great fear of all things new and powerful. And it is not wrong to dis-trust. But I would ask the people who are eating those crops if they want them.

      By the way, ALL crops have their own built-in pesticides already. They developed them on their own of course, without Monsanto's help, and you're eat'n 'em every day.

      January 18, 2013 at 10:57 pm | Reply
95. Danielle H.
    

    Some farmers would like to save soybean seed, but with hybrid corn, the seed harvested will not be identical to the parent seed."

    January 18, 2013 at 4:43 pm | Reply
    • Hogan's Goat
      

      They cross two kinds of corn to get the seed. Often the seeds are sterile 'mules' or don't germinate well.

      January 18, 2013 at 4:57 pm | Reply
96. Danielle H.
    

    I find it interesting that this article brings up a hiden point: GMO seeds can't be saved for replanting because they don't produce the same thing. It's a pretty strong biological argument against GMO seeds. If it can't propogate itself, then why do I want to eat it?

    January 18, 2013 at 4:40 pm | Reply
    • Tom
      

      Amen

      January 18, 2013 at 4:43 pm | Reply
    • Hogan's Goat
      

      How about seedless watermelons? They cross two kinds of melons to get them. They can't very well plant the seedless seeds, right? It's like that with the grain; a tricky job for a small farmer but not for a huge company. Without Monsanto or another big group, no one is going to plant grain A and grain B just to cross-pollinate one with the other to get next year's seeds; they want this year's crop. Then they buy the seeds. Come on, chicken ranchers buy chicks from breeders and fatten them up. They don't breed their own stock either. It's not some weird scam.

      January 18, 2013 at 4:48 pm | Reply
    • TravisK
      

      This has nothing to do with GMOs, but the way hybrid plants work. Calm down.

      It's still 100% corn, it just is genetically different than the previous crop and as a result is less productive.

      January 18, 2013 at 4:48 pm | Reply
    • Swen
      

      The GMO portion of the corn crop does not make it unusable as seed. It is the hybrid aspect that makes all corn hybrids this way GMO or not. It's a function of the hybrid process in corn. This is not the same in soybeans where the seed produced is genetically the same as the seed planted.

      January 18, 2013 at 4:55 pm | Reply
    • Chau Nguyen
      

      No, you have misunderstood the writer. You can definitely use seeds from your harvest to grow a new crop BUT it is NOT a good idea. WHY: -Quality-
      1) – Seeds do not have the exact genetic make up as their parents because of cross pollination. For example, if you have a crop of very sweet strawberries, there is no guarantee the seeds will produce the same sweet strawberries.
      2) offspring seeds are not guaranteed to carry the resistance of their parents.
      3) The seed suppliers by some method (beyond my scope of my understanding) is able to mass produce seeds of the same genetic make up at a cheaper price than you can sit around and cultivate.

      January 18, 2013 at 5:02 pm | Reply
    • What?
      

      Don't know much about "hybridization", do you? Or the fact that it has been going on for millenia and has, in reality, been the 'source' of a great deal of the seed corn in this country for at least 4 decades?

      January 18, 2013 at 5:05 pm | Reply
      • TRUE UNBIASED JOURNALISM
        

        Farmers need to take care of their families. People who know nothing about farming need to take care of their families. Some people feel it is important to know how and where their produce is made. Genetically Modified Organisms do not equal hybrid organisms. Consumers deserve to know that product A was derived from GMO seed and product B was produced without GMO seed.
        We will let the the market determine what seeds farmers decide to plant. That is a "free" market, correct?

        January 18, 2013 at 6:08 pm | Reply
        • What?
          

          That is true.

          However, the original poster's "argument" about GMO's being "biologically" bad because they 'don't reproduce "true" ' is a logical fallacy. That is the point I was making.

          January 18, 2013 at 7:00 pm |
    • Brian
      

      The other responses are correct. GMO has nothing to do with the germination of the seed. Being a hybrid plant (through traditional breeding) is what keeps me from planting the corn I harvest. Growing corn for seed is an intensive process where you plant male and female rows and remove the tassels from some of the rows in order to control pollination to achieve the desired progeny. Soybeans on the other hand will self pollinate and remain "true" to themselves. It's not a GMO question, it's a matter of how a plant was bred.

      January 18, 2013 at 5:09 pm | Reply
    • Mike
      

      This is nothing new to horticulture, next time you eat an avocado save the seed and plant it, you won't get the same fruit, if any, from the tree that grows from it. The reason is that the avocado you ate came from a tree grown from a 'cutting', not from seed. What we should worry about is the pesticide resistant crops. Now that those crops resist the poison that should kill them how much are they absorbing? And don't try and tell me they don't, water some white daisies with water that has food coloring in it and tell me what happens. That pesticide gets on the ground and is subsiquently watered in.

      January 18, 2013 at 5:19 pm | Reply
    • basketcase87
      

      What does a crop's ability to grow have to do with whether or not we should eat it again?

      January 18, 2013 at 5:28 pm | Reply
    • Vern
      

      Almost all corn raised in this country whether it is genetically modified or not comes from either 2, 3 or 4 way crosses of genetic lines. It's call hybrid vigor and in the F1 generation the progeny/plants/offspring are all very uniform. Now when you try and cross F1 progeny to produce the next generation the variability between offspring increases tremendously so your yields go down so that is why you don't keep seed from hybrid corn. Soybean mating systems for some reason are different from corn so that is why saving seed made more logical sense. I grew up on a farm raising corn and soybeans and have PhD in quantitative genetics, so this is all fairly initutive for me.

      January 18, 2013 at 5:36 pm | Reply
97. Harald
    

    I'm a biochemist and I think the whole issue of Monsanto and GMOs is very complex, but here just a few thoughts.
    1) The need for GMOs in agriculture is an artificial need based on the way we practice agriculture. This "way" is to rely mostly on monocultures which are ecological wastelands compared to ecosystems that contain a large variety of organism that are in some sort of equilibrium.
    2) Companies like Monsanto are not very forthcoming with information concerning their products, hence opening doors to wide public speculations regarding possible dangers related to their GMOs. Unfortunately, few independent studies on GM crops are available.
    3) While in principal, GMOs can be beneficial to society, they also can be a danger. I'm not sure that even Monsanto has a clue what possible side effects their GMOs can exhibit in the long run. Genetic material is very, very complex and there is no clear guide as to what gene is doing what. Usually a combination of genes results in a particular characteristic or feature of the organism. Changing a gene or a gene complex can lead to a desired feature in the organism but can also influence other gene complexes leading to unpredictable results.
    4) GMOs, before released into the wild should be tested by independent organizations in order to make sure they are safe
    Those are just a few short points that came to mind, but as a consumer, when given the choice (and that's yet another problem, because we are NOT given a choice) I prefer food without any GMOs.
    Solution: produce as much as possible on your own if you have the possibility and space to do so.

    January 18, 2013 at 4:37 pm | Reply
    • glo
      

      I have one question. How is your health? You probably don't know. I do. I gave anesthesia for 32 years. Anesthesia101 teaches us that the occupation of farming is a red flag...because of pesticide use. You don't know it but your body is low on pseudocholinesterse. I won't go into its function but I can tell you that one farmer whom I anesthetisized could not move his body for 20 plus hours after an injection of sux which is supposed to paralyze someone for 5 minutes...long enough to intubate them. He was kept asleep on a ventillator for 20 hrs until his body could recover and he could breathe on his own again. This is not rare with those farmers who use insecticides.

      January 18, 2013 at 4:48 pm | Reply
      • Harald
        

        Not sure I got your point, but I'm not promoting pesticides. Pesticides (and synthetic fertilizers) are also something that is needed mostly because of our ill conceived agricultural practices.

        January 18, 2013 at 4:55 pm | Reply
        • Hogan's Goat
          

          glo's just warning everyone, but yeah, off topic. We are in too deep now and our population is too high. Someone needs to come up with a better RoundUp, but we have to have the weed killers.

          January 18, 2013 at 5:00 pm |
        • Harald
          

          @Hogan: Probably that goes a little bit to far in detail, but we don't really need the weed killers, although we have to change the way we do agriculture.
          Weeds are opportunistic, that means they grow where they find proper conditions. These conditions might be good lightning, unoccupied space and even over fertilizing.
          Since people plant stuff they also developed techniques to cope with pests and weeds, but for some reason, modern agriculture just forgot (or ignores) this knowledge.
          For example, to control pests companion planting is a way to go. Weeds can be battled with mulching or with planting something useful in the space that weeds would occupy otherwise.

          January 18, 2013 at 5:11 pm |
        • Brian
          

          Conventional, natural, organic. All types of farms fight weeds. The control methods are different even among each group, but we all deal with weeds. We've starting running more no-till acres and last fall planted about 200 acres of cover crops. I think both have great benefits, weed control being one of them. http://www.plantcovercrops.com

          January 18, 2013 at 5:28 pm |
        • Harald
          

          @Brian: Exactly. The point is really how you control it. You can do it with prevention (e.g. cover crops or mulching) or you can fight them with herbicides.
          In my opinion, not giving the weed a chance to grow and propagate in the first place is the way to go.

          January 18, 2013 at 5:33 pm |
        • Harald
          

          @Brian: Did you ever check out the concept of Permaculture ? Although I don't agree 100 % with the philosophy, I still think there are lots of valuable ideas in it. If you didn't yet, I strongly recommend to give it a look.
          Also.....and you probably do that anyway......look at nature. Where do pests or weeds usually occur ? Try to mimic nature. What does nature do to avoid the domination of one species (weeds) over another one ? How does nature deal with pests. There are lots of things to learn just walking open eyed through the countryside.

          January 18, 2013 at 5:41 pm |
        • What?
          

          Actually, in a 'flora' setting, nature does nothing. Larger, hardier perennials take over – it's called "succession".

          January 18, 2013 at 7:05 pm |
        • Harald
          

          @What!: true, if you leave an ecosystem to its own devices succession will take place, but that's not what I propose. I propose diversity, but "controlled" diversity.

          January 18, 2013 at 7:19 pm |
      • Daddio7
        

        News to me. I just had carpal tunnel surgery and had no problem with anesthesia. I applied pesticides for 27 years. Carbamates , organophosphats, and others.

        January 21, 2013 at 2:20 pm | Reply
    • Sherri
      

      Of course, the farm bill that was on the table had a nifty little rider – Future GMO seeds would not need approvable from the FDA. Monsanto has a new seed coming out that is really exciting – the Agent Orange seed (or half the ingredient that is Agent Orange, which by the way, Monsanto was one of the producers of). Yup, their Round Up GMO seeds have sprung up weeds resistant to Round Up, so now they have to produce seeds resistant to other chemicals.

      Nice, huh? GMO's are getting scarier.

      January 18, 2013 at 6:13 pm | Reply
98. Steve
    

    I guess entitling this "Killing people with GMO food.....but on my terms" didn't have the same allure?

    January 18, 2013 at 4:33 pm | Reply
99. Hogan's Goat
    

    Some of you fellows need to look up Luther Burbank. You have probably never eaten a vegetable or fruit which wasn't genetically modified. That's not the same as gene-splicing, by the way.

    January 18, 2013 at 4:28 pm | Reply
    • Tom
      

      ge·net·i·cal·ly modified organism (j-nt-k-l)
      n. Abbr. GMO
      An organism whose genetic characteristics have been altered by the insertion of a modified gene or a gene from another organism using the techniques of genetic engineering.

      Luther Burbank bred plants, correct? He used classic breeding techniques, unless I am mistaken. He did not insert and/or remove genes. He cross-bred by hand.

      January 18, 2013 at 4:42 pm | Reply
      • Hogan's Goat
        

        Technically, he modified their genes by cross-breeding them for resistance and better taste. Like I said, not the same as gene-splicing. Heirloom tomatoes are the 'real' tomatoes, not Big Boy© tomatoes.

        January 18, 2013 at 4:51 pm | Reply
        • Tom
          

          I agree.

          January 18, 2013 at 4:53 pm |
      • Harald
        

        There are different kinds of genetic modification. One is where you transfer a gene from, let's say a mouse to corn.
        This, in general is not a natural process (although gene transfer between different organism can occur).
        The other modification would be to replicate the process of breeding in the lab without having to wait generations for the desired result. I think this kind of modification is much less questionable than the first one.

        January 18, 2013 at 4:51 pm | Reply
    • federalreserve
      

      Luther never tried to get a poisonous toad to have sex with a tomato, which is exactly what Monsanto the criminal did.

      there is an effort by a misleading professional type to confuse hybrid with GMO,,, but now days even high school kids see right thru it.

      January 18, 2013 at 10:09 pm | Reply
100. chris
     

     Watched a few documentaries on the food industry, and our family decided to totally overhaul our eating habits and go organic. Since doing so, my health has improved, i dropped 15 lbs, and my family is happier. That was just in the first 2 months. That might not be everyone's experience, but its scarey to think that the only thing i did was stop eating GMO foods. I don't exercise any more/less, and my wife and i certainly enjoy wine. I am 5-10 and i am not 156 lbs. So, its not as though i was obese and now eating less either. All i want is to be able to know if GMO foods are present in what i am consuming. If the agg side says they are safe, there should be no issue with labeling them. If the other side is ignorant and spiteful, why would you want them as customers so badly?

     The issues at play are the law of unintended consequences. Today, your crop requires slightly less poison, and slighly less water.....a few generations down the line you can't grow anything using that plot of soil because the mutant plans don't organically recylce as well back into the grand. Destroying bio-diversity, soil productivity, and the enviornmental havoc being wrecked on this world by GMO food production is another issue we kick down the road for future generations. Social security, medicare, and other issues currently being debated seem eerily similar in that our attitude is the present is not the time to address them.
     At some point we will all feel a responsibility to each other, and start to think about how we can put this nation and planet on a path to prosperity, rather than sacrificing the future in order to save a few pennies on current production. Adam Smith wrote a book "the wealth of nations" in which he discussed how individuals operating in their own rational self interest would be led as if by an invisible hand to create an economy and that economy would grow. Well corporate friendlies typically unearth that passage to rally against regulation, the irony is that adam smith was arguing the opposite point. If you read the book, his point was that society needs to impose standards, or else corporate entities would grow to the point of all-powerful /controlling forms that were negative for society. It just feels like we are there. When the supreme court (clarence thomas), and virtually the entire FDA came from Monsanto, you get perversion of the highest level. In no way are those parties willing to ask the tough questions in order to protect us from malpractice. We as a society have to demand more from our government, and from those chartered to protect us and put in those very societal safeguards Adam Smith spoke of 100 years ago.

     Aside from, "why do we need mutant salmon"....and "why do we need apples that stay red longer?" we could probably also ask "Why are we growing so much corn? Do we need to substitute everything with corn? Is cane sugar not sweet enough....we need high fructose syrup?"

     January 18, 2013 at 4:14 pm | Reply
101. Wyoming Farmer
     

     I am a farmer in Wyoming who raises corn, hay, and cattle. This is Brian’s experience working with Monsanto and from my own experience I can say this article is honest and straight forward. We as a human race depend on sound science from companies like Monsanto to help farmers like myself produce a safe, healthy, and abundant food supply using less water, fuel, herbicides, pesticides, and land.

     January 18, 2013 at 4:14 pm | Reply
     • Hogan's Goat
       

       Wyo, most of the people trying to argue with you are sitting around in urban lofts pretending they know what it's like to get your neck sunburned. Frankly I think Monsanto is too big and needs to be taken apart and parts sold off; we'd all feel safer. But it's silly to pretend they are an army of masked super villains poisoning our food.

       January 18, 2013 at 4:32 pm | Reply
       • Harald
         

         I agree on that one. They are just a business like any other trying to make profits. The only problem is that the stuff they sell has potentially huge implications for the environment and on society in general.

         January 18, 2013 at 4:45 pm | Reply
     • Harald
       

       Not sure I agree with you, although, relying on somebody like Monsanto is, at least superficially, the easiest way to go.
       The main problem lies in the way we practice agriculture. As I pointed out in my other post, monocultures are ecological wastelands, totally off balance ecologically. This is the reason why you have fight pests and weeds in the first place.
       If you would move from monoculture to a more sustainable concept, you'd quickly find that many of your pest/weed problems are gone or at least much diminished.

       January 18, 2013 at 4:42 pm | Reply
       • TravisK
         

         Totally off balance ecologically?

         ...and so is everything else man has accomplished since he quit being a hunter gatherer.

         January 18, 2013 at 4:51 pm | Reply
       • Stacy
         

         Diversified cropping systems are widely used throughout the world by subsistence farmers. The problem with diversified cropping systems outside of third world countries or small specialty farms is that multiple crops in the same field have to be harvested at multiple times. This requires either substantially more hand labor or specialized equipment, which in turn creates more air pollutants and higher costs as a result of more fuel use.

         January 18, 2013 at 6:10 pm | Reply
         • Harald
           

           Hi Stacy, true, although there are so many available crops to choose from that one has a certain degree of control about that. On the other hand, having different harvesting times could also be an advantage, making crops available more continuously throughout the year. Another advantage of having multiple crops instead of monocultures is a better use of available nutrients.
           Anyway, each case would have to be looked at individually. There is no single answer that works for everybody.

           January 18, 2013 at 6:46 pm |
     • federalreserve
       

       after 245-T and dioxin & Viet Nam, I'd be happy to execute anyone doing business with Monsanto,,, after what they did to us with that damned Agent Orange and NOT one single scumbag ever goes to jail even though hundreds of thousands of us went to our graves?,,, and then there is the birth defects?? cancers galore?... american farmers are bad people, and everyone KNOWS it.... you clowns have POISONED the american people under the guise of farming.

       January 18, 2013 at 10:15 pm | Reply
102. cloudraptor
     

     Here is an opinion of mine... you're on Monsanto's payroll.

     January 18, 2013 at 4:12 pm | Reply
     • John Danielson
       

       Here's an opinion of mine... oh, wait, it's not even an opinion, it's a correct statement.

       Even if he's on their payroll, he's not wrong.

       January 18, 2013 at 4:19 pm | Reply
103. Woody Daly
     

     Monsanto poisoned many of my Vietnam Vet Brothers with Agent Orange and denied they did anything wrong.

     They are liars and are poisoning the Planet still.

     They are not to be trusted.

     I think they suck.

     A lot.

     January 18, 2013 at 4:09 pm | Reply
     • ALICE BOWIE
       

       WELL, LUCKY DARN THING WE GOT "WOODY DALY'S" OPINION ON SOMETHING ONLY AN ARMCHAIR BEECHER WOULD KNOW ABOUT!!!!

       January 18, 2013 at 4:25 pm | Reply
     • ITs Me
       

       No....the Government poisoned your buddies in vietnam using chemicals they established the standards for, contracted for, purchased and more importantly, deployed. Monsanto simply sold the gov what they asked for.

       January 18, 2013 at 5:07 pm | Reply
       • tasaad
         

         And that vindicates Monsanto how?

         January 18, 2013 at 7:58 pm | Reply
       • federalreserve
         

         LIAR,, the gutterment NEVER ordered any 2378-TCDD,,, but Monsanto KNEW they were getting MORE than they bargained for,,, professional apologists for Monsanto are people I will GLADLY go to jail for assaulting anytime anyplace....
         and I've been 46 times already.

         January 18, 2013 at 10:37 pm | Reply
     • federalreserve
       

       the Suskind Dioxin Fraud should have seen a great many off to prison for decades, but that would have deprived the jew ishnazipolce state cells for800,000 potheads the real nat'l threat.... thinkers.

       January 18, 2013 at 10:34 pm | Reply
104. barbarianofgor
     

     What's only missing is a Muppet instead of a person behind the face of this Corporate Controlled farmer...

     1. He's relinquished the right to keep seed, to sell seed, etc. That means he's sacrificed one critical aspect of his profession as a farmer; keeping and maintaining the technology to grow food. If, and it's only a company, if they didn't make a profit they'd close down in a second, and the elites running it could afford food if it went to 100x the current level, so they'd not care. If the corporations stopped selling seed, he'd not know how to keep seed from one year to another and the seed he uses and raised won't be the same crop next year anyways...by his own admission on the latter.

     2. The real thing about "Big Ag" is that the market is controlled. Try an make a micro farm and sell tomatoes to the local supermarket. They won't take them. They usually have open contracts that forbid them from buying produce from another source -UNLESS- it is sold to some distributor first.

     3. Know why they eat dirt in Haiti? Oh, coz they are N-–ers, right? Actually they did pretty good on their own, till the Cold War had the USA propping up some "Anti-Communist" dictators – no argument there, they were living, breathing advertisements for the concept. But the USA wanted Haiti to be one big non-union sweatshop to undercut the strongly unionized and well paid US garment industry. Problem was Haitian people were self-sufficient. The formula was to have them working in tons of factories in the cities and have them use the petty money to buy food. So the dictator murdered farmers while the US agriculture dumped tons of food (Farm surplus) on Haiti at artificially low prices. For two generations they had almost no farmers and tons of cheap food at the food store. BUT- then the country got too unstable for even the US to prop up and China proved cheaper with increasing tolerance for tax breaks and subsidies. So they dropped them like a hot stone, along with the flood of cheap food.

     4. We also have all sorts of nice things overseas, they just for now treat US farmers just slightly nicer. Like in India and elsewhere water tables pumped so low they kill tons of farms for GM crops, pesticides that wipe out natural crops, infant formula being given to mothers but then they charge full us retail when their natural breast milk dries up...starving babies to death for literally pennies in profit.

     We have essentially the beginnings of a "Hydraulic Dictatorship" where they will try to seize total control of a critical resource (food) and then threaten to disrupt the supply any time there's any attempt to control them or not pay unfair tribute to them.

     January 18, 2013 at 4:09 pm | Reply
     • Hogan's Goat
       

       "3. Know why they eat dirt in Haiti? Oh, coz they are N-–ers, right?

       Do you ever wonder why you are this way? Dropped on your head as a baby perhaps?

       January 18, 2013 at 4:35 pm | Reply
     • Danielle H.
       

       If you've actually been to Haiti, you would see the soil is useless there. Dried up, lifeless.

       January 18, 2013 at 4:48 pm | Reply
105. Terry Brookman
     

     Franken-food, need I say more.

     January 18, 2013 at 4:08 pm | Reply
     • basketcase87
       

       No, you've demonstrated your lack of knowledge sufficiently, thanks.

       January 18, 2013 at 6:02 pm | Reply
     • Dan
       

       Terry Brookman-you didn't say anything.

       January 18, 2013 at 10:39 pm | Reply
106. Naboob
     

     Of course Monsanto is evil. They have cornered the market on seeds forcing millions into poverty. Pumping the environment with toxic materials.

     January 18, 2013 at 4:08 pm | Reply
     • Hogan's Goat
       

       Sigh. That's how stuff works in a capitalist society. Capital accrues to the capitalists, or rich get richer while the poor starve. Let me save you some time: Marx diagnoses the problem correctly but his suggested cures are ridiculous and impractical, and no Marxist, Communist, or Socialist has ever come up with a system that works better than capitalism. If you want relief from huge corporations, push for better ant-trust laws. Otherwise they grow into WalMart and Monsanto and we have to deal with them.

       January 18, 2013 at 4:41 pm | Reply
       • Tom
         

         Very good point Hogan's Goat.

         January 18, 2013 at 4:46 pm | Reply
       • Harald
         

         I agree in principal, however, corporations are not as powerful as you might think. All of them, probably with the few exceptions that have monopoles, rely on buyers. If buyers refuse to buy the stuff they are selling the company goes down the drain.
         The real problem is lack of critical thinking on the consumer/buyer's end. People usually buy goods without much thinking about what their purchase means.

         January 18, 2013 at 7:13 pm | Reply
107. Hogan's Goat
     

     Cue the Truthers calling him a liar. If he's telling the truth, then their heroes are lying to them. Easier just to ignore him.

     January 18, 2013 at 4:04 pm | Reply
108. High Plains Farmer
     

     There is so much misinformation in the comment section it is mind boggling. Where to start? I farm in Texas. I use Monsanto products. I also use conventional seeds. I grew up on an organic farm- that is all we had. I have adopted the latest technology. First of all I would urge everyone to not get there information from the internet, from either side. Go to the country and talk to a farmer. A full time farmer not some one that grows a garden. I have no problems with organic and none of the organic farmers I know have problems with they way I farm. Lets deal with some issues. Monsanto does not sue farmers because of cross pollination. I have read lots of the accusations and even read about the canola farmer in Canada that was sued. He was not sued because pollen drifted on to his farm. Monsanto is not responsible for indian suicides. Unscruplous lenders and business men are responsible for that. Why would Monsanto sell seed that would not work in a farmers climate? Monsanto has no desire to own an acre of ground in India. Bt does not kill butterflies. That story was debunked decades ago. The latest study shows that an insecticde called neonics is part of the reason for the bees dying. Along with mites and the way some beekeepers are using their bees. Monsanto does not require a farmer to buy their product. Never have. Bt kills the insects by disrupting their digestion. Insects digestive tracts are not the same as ours. Theirs is alkali ours is acid and that is why it doesn't affect humans. Bt does cut down on insecticdes and actually increases bee and other insect numbers by reducing or eliminating the need to spray insecticides that will kill all insects not just worms. Monsanto seed will germinate the next year. Farmers have not caught their own seed in decades except for wheat. Even wheat seed is restricted due to the Plant Variety Protection act that was passed long before the gmo technology. If any of you are in Texas or come through the panhandle would love to have you stop and visit. I grow cotton,corn, milo, sunflowers, and wheat. Also have some momma cows. Love discussion not so much attacking. Ya'll have a nice day.

     January 18, 2013 at 4:03 pm | Reply
     • U.N. Owen
       

       I think it is pretty arrogant to say with any certainty that BT Corn toxins do not affect bee populations. You would have to know every part of the bee ecology. We are just beginning to understand the bacteria in our own guts but we pretend to know the safety when we start manipulating the environment of the honey bee.

       January 18, 2013 at 4:12 pm | Reply
       • High Plains Farmer
         

         U.N. go talk to a farmer. Go ahead and do a google search of the latest research. Use ag research as well as organic. Read both sides.

         January 18, 2013 at 4:16 pm | Reply
     • Swen
       

       Well said.

       January 18, 2013 at 5:08 pm | Reply
     • Scott Dave
       

       The truth. Well said. Best post of the day.

       January 18, 2013 at 6:10 pm | Reply
     • Zai
       

       "Monsanto is not responsible for indian suicides. Unscruplous lenders and business men are responsible for that."

       So Monsanto isn't a business? They dont loan or venture their capital to organizations and people? Come on dude, stop being the cheerleader for a corporation that cares more about you dollar than they do about your well being.

       January 18, 2013 at 6:12 pm | Reply
109. badskippy
     

     WE SHOULD ALL DEMAND THAT "GENERICALLY MODIFIED" BE ON ANY FOOD LABEL THAT HAS IT IN IT. Right now, MONSANTO says the GM food is fine – they why do they fight to have it on there?? They say it will just "frighten" the consumer. WHILE, as a consumer I feel I have the right to know EXACTLY what's in my food. And if you don't believe me that MONSANTO does this – google it!

     January 18, 2013 at 4:01 pm | Reply
     • Hogan's Goat
       

       I would love to have some 'generically modified' food, sonny boy. Does your mom know you are using her computer?

       January 18, 2013 at 4:05 pm | Reply
     • Label My Food Please
       

       Agree totally.

       As a farmer, Brian has the choice to use GMO seed or not, and if he is happy with Monsanto, then good for him!

       As a consumer, I would like a similar choice to buy GMO food products or not. I am not convinced GMO foods are safe and until sufficient research shows them to be harmless, I would like to avoid them. And just like Brian I should be able to choose.

       The problem is I cannot always tell if a product has GMO's or not. Buying 100% organic helps, but what about the thousands of other products that are not 100% organic, but are GMO free?

       As to those who say it would be too costly to label all GMO products, if GMO products are harmless or even better than traditional, wouldn't Monsanto be spending money to ensure labeling of GMO products rather than funding efforts to deny such labeling?

       And yes, producers of non-GMO foods have begun to label their foods as such, but only after enduring lawsuits from Monsanto. Lookup Monsanto vs. Oakhurst Dairy.

       The bottom line – if GMOs are harmless, why has Monsanto spent so much money to prevent lableing of both GMO and non-GMO products?

       January 18, 2013 at 4:30 pm | Reply
       • Tommy Boy
         

         You are being a bit misleading in describing that you are free to use whatever pesticides you want. RR means that they are seeds technically designed to work with Roundup. The technology is designed to make it difficult to choose anything but Roundup. You don't need a contract to force you. Signing onto the seeds you are essentially signing on for the whole technology solution. No big deal, but if we are going to be "real" lets be real.

         It's refreshing to see Monsanto has finally got a social media team in their marketing group. Look next for the injection of pro Monsanto dialogue in movies, TV shows and local travel guides. Love those "Corn Sugar" commercials. So sweet. Speaking of sweet, want some Saccharin? I remember when my Dad brought a bag home after a business trip. How we rejoiced in "better living through technology." I remember sifting Diazinon through my fingers as a kid looking forward crunching on a fresh cucumber. My Mom loved DDT, they used to wear it like bug spray- it was so helpful and safe. My 100% deet worked great too. Sorry about that cancer Mom and Dad.

         January 18, 2013 at 5:15 pm | Reply
         • What?
           

           "RR means that they are seeds technically designed to work with Roundup."

           Yes, if by "technically designed to work with Roundup" you mean that direct application of Roundup to the growing plant won't kill it. It does not mean that that Roundup "has" to be used, nor does it mean that Roundup is the only herbicide than can be used or will be effective. You ever hear of 2,4-D? You seem to be somewhat familiar with agricultural chemicals by the list you threw out, so surely you've heard of 2,4-D. If you know anything "about" 2,4-D, then you know full well that it can be used with RR corn as well as non-RR corn. Yes, there are certain 'sensitive' times in the life cycle when it shouldn't be used, but that holds for the non-RR corn as well. I'm quite certain that is not the only 'other' herbicide that is safe to use, either. We won't talk about narrowleaf herbicides, because you know full well that they will kill any corn. Take your half-truths – actually, mostly lies – somewhere else.

           January 18, 2013 at 9:15 pm |
       • Stacy
         

         I have no idea why Monsanto specifically is against labeling GMOs, but I personally against it because of the increased cost to taxpayers or consumers. In order to keep GMOs separte a whole new infrastructure would need to be put in place at every grain elevator across the country (and believe me there are thousands). Why do we need such an extra cost when there is already a labeling system in place-it's called buying organic!

         January 18, 2013 at 6:42 pm | Reply
110. Amanda
     

     Thanks for writing this article! People have so much misinformation when it comes to these types of transactions. Further, 90% of "corporate farms" are actually FAMILY farms. People just have no idea what this means. If you are interested in learning more, I blog about these issues as well. http://www.thefarmersdaughterusa.com

     January 18, 2013 at 3:58 pm | Reply
     • SCBAMA
       

       Grow your own food if it is that big of a deal to you.

       January 18, 2013 at 4:13 pm | Reply
111. Tom
     

     Yea, it's awesome that we should have to pay for seeds aka NATURE year after year. Monsanto says on their website that they sue anyone who harvests seeds for the next season from plants grown with their seeds to ensure they are paid. So, thousands of years of using seeds from the previous season is now a crime? Ridiculous...they are attempting to patent nature. You're blind if you don't see this, and the fact that this story is posted by a farmer who uses these seeds shows that the media is biased. Smh

     January 18, 2013 at 3:54 pm | Reply
     • deadlyserious
       

       The article addresses saving seeds for next season (simply put, farmers don't do that any more).

       January 18, 2013 at 4:01 pm | Reply
       • deeg24
         

         um, yes... farmers DO save seed... ORGANIC farmers...

         January 18, 2013 at 4:10 pm | Reply
         • deadlyserious
           

           And this farmer is not an organic farmer.

           January 18, 2013 at 4:15 pm |
     • deeg24
       

       Amen. And the organic farmer next door, whose seed has been corrupted with Monsanto's, is cordially included in this lawsuit threat... and doesn't even have to sign a contract or anything! How nice... i mean, look – it's one thing to sign on the dotted line, agree to whatever you're agreeing to, and then live with the consequences... it's a whole different level to NOT be a customer, NOT sign on the dotted, and just try to mind your own business and grow REAL FOOD (the way nature intended it), and then have this corporate evil come and sue you for stealing their "patent"... and you did NOTHING... that's "evil", plain and simple....

       January 18, 2013 at 4:07 pm | Reply
       • Tom
         

         deeg24, I completely agree. And deadlyserious, this is the opinion of ONE farmer who does not want to save seeds. You are assuming that because one person doesn't want to save seeds, none do. Have you worked on a farm? If so, you should know some farmers do save seeds. My family grew up farming and canning natural foods. Yes, some seeds cannot be saved due to the fact that the next generation won't be the same. However, this is not true of all fruits/vegetables. By the way, we're not only talking about wheat and grain here. Broaden the spectrum. I organically farm, and save seeds. Thanks for telling me that I, and many organic farmers I know, don't save seeds...

         January 18, 2013 at 4:16 pm | Reply
         • deadlyserious
           

           Again, you're only referring to organic farmers. And the author of this article is not an organic farmer. So I'm going to go ahead and trust him when he says that non-organic farmers don't have as much of a reason to save seeds.

           January 18, 2013 at 4:18 pm |
         • Tom
           

           deadlyserious

           The article addresses saving seeds for next season (simply put, farmers don't do that any more).

           Maybe you should be more specific and say "non-organic farmers" next time. I'd rather do my own research rather than trust someone I don't know..just my opinion, kind of like this article is an opinion.

           January 18, 2013 at 4:26 pm |
       • Kotawolf
         

         There is little hope for the human race and your post is a indicator as to why.

         January 18, 2013 at 4:35 pm | Reply
         • Tom
           

           Are you addressing me, Kotawolf?

           January 18, 2013 at 4:47 pm |
     • Hogan's Goat
       

       Growing enough grain to both sell and have next years' seed is expensive, plus sometimes the seed comes from crossing two varieties. I can make my own ice cream if I want but it's cheaper, easier, and better to buy it from professionals.

       January 18, 2013 at 4:08 pm | Reply
     • High Plains Farmer
       

       Tom go visit a farmer. We haven't caught corn seed in decades. There are still varieties of cotton, soybean, and wheat that farmers can catch the seed from. There are seeds of the same crops that are not gm crops that farmers cannot catch due to the Plant Variety Protection act.

       January 18, 2013 at 4:14 pm | Reply
       • Tom
         

         I have visited farms. Organic ones that save seeds. I am not talking about soybean, wheat, etc.

         January 18, 2013 at 4:18 pm | Reply
       • Tom
         

         High Plains, I am not saying you are wrong, I am just saying I have seen sustainable farming where seeds are saved first hand.

         January 18, 2013 at 4:19 pm | Reply
     • SlowMoneyFarm
       

       I save seeds – no one from Monsanto has come to visit me. I also didn't sign a contract as Mr. Scott did, and grow different seeds. No one stopping us from saving seed – choose a type of seed that it's not restricted and all is good.

       January 18, 2013 at 4:35 pm | Reply
       • Brian
         

         Thanks for the comment and I know you know as well as I do that I could starting farming the way you do right now if I chose too. That's not my choice at this time, but the fact is I could if I wanted to. I'd disappoint a few seed saleman by cancelling my 2013 orders, but it could be done!

         January 18, 2013 at 5:50 pm | Reply
         • SlowMoneyFarm
           

           Absolutely! But if everyone in the area signed up tomorrow I'd need as much land as you have and some changes. None of us can make everyone happy – but all can serve a market.

           January 18, 2013 at 7:00 pm |
     • What?
       

       Tom, try this – (Brian, help me out here if you see this, please)

       I don't grow corn, but I'm not completely ignorant to what is involved. Let's assume that it takes 10 lbs of seed to plant an acre of field corn (that should be "in the ballpark", probably on the low end). If you plant 1000 acres of corn, that's 5 tons of seed you have to collect and store in a dry (so it doesn't mold or rot), pest-protected area for several months of the year. Do you see a logistical problem here?

       And, as you already alluded to – not all seeds are "true", particularly when one is growing HYBRID varieties, which probably account for over 80% of the yellow #2 dent corn grown in this country.

       January 18, 2013 at 4:45 pm | Reply
       • Tom
         

         I am not talking about one specific crop. Again, I'm talking plants in general.

         January 18, 2013 at 4:48 pm | Reply
       • Brian
         

         You're pretty much right on with hybrid corn. There would be no reason to plant that seed because you don't know what you are going to get next year. Seed production requires more intensive management planting male and female rows and controlling pollination so you know what the end product will. Then you must clean the seed, and store it. If we have a drought or other event you'll find seed companies sourcing seed from South America since they are able to grow a second crop down there. Other crops are different. Soybeans self pollinate and will be "true" to the planted variety.

         January 18, 2013 at 5:02 pm | Reply
112. relians
     

     as long as they are labeled, ok. and what happens when the only place you can get your seed is monsanto?

     January 18, 2013 at 3:54 pm | Reply
     • Brian
       

       I'd hazard a guess there are plenty of other seed companies who aren't going to let that happen. Competition is a good thing!

       January 18, 2013 at 4:33 pm | Reply
113. Bill Hannegan
     

     So let me get this straight...

     The author buys seed, and half way through the growing season decides to sell the land that he owns free and clear. He can't do that unless the buyer signs a Monsanto agreement? If you don't think that's "control", you need to have your head examined.

     January 18, 2013 at 3:50 pm | Reply
     • U.N. Owen
       

       I have no problem with that. If you rent out an apartment for 12 months and decide to sell the house the new buyer has to honor the lease agreement.

       January 18, 2013 at 3:52 pm | Reply
       • J-Pap
         

         No they don't.

         January 18, 2013 at 4:05 pm | Reply
         • deadlyserious
           

           Yes they do, champ. Pesky things, laws.

           January 18, 2013 at 4:14 pm |
         • loreeeeeee
           

           Yes, in fact they do. The lease contract is a standing contract, and if the home is sold during the lease period, the lease must still be honored (in most states).

           January 18, 2013 at 4:15 pm |
       • Iconify
         

         I think you have somewhat of a point, but the key difference there is that in the Monsanto case, they can block the sale, thus putting the legal burden on the seller /before/ the sale. In the apartment case, the legal burden is on the buyer /after/ the sale. Unless I'm mistaken, which very well could be the case. The only experience I have with the apartment issue was trying to buy a condo last year that was rented for several months after the sale would have closed (I passed on the property).

         I get where you're going with this though. The requirement does beg the question, "What is the purpose of the requirement"? I'm not inclined to assume anything about it one way or another. It would be helpful to know what the rationale is?

         There does seem to be a bit of a property rights quandry. On the one hand, the farmer should have the right to sell his property whenever it best suits him based on market conditions, his need, etc. On the other hand, Monsanto probably has some property rights at stake as well. The dilemma being, whose rights take precedence. I don't know what the law says about that. Intuition would seem to imply those of the farmer do. But the law may have different thoughts about that. Does the farmer knowingly agree to not sell before signing the contract? If so, then it's a little hard to defend the farmer in that situation.

         So maybe the issue isn't the right to sell or not, maybe the real issue occurs earlier in the transaction. Does the farmer have other options from how to buy his seed? If so, are those options comparable to the corporate options? If so, then no harm, no foul. If they are not equal, why not? And if not, that seems like a business opportunity to me.

         I'm not defending Monsanto or their business practices. Neither am I attacking them. I do worry about GM seeds and foods, and wish that the FDA would require labeling, but beyond that I'm not making any judgments until I know more.

         I enjoyed the piece. I'm going to read the guy's blog because I"d like to know more about how our food is produced. I'm glad CNN is running this series. Hopefully it will be educational (for me at least).

         January 18, 2013 at 4:18 pm | Reply
         • Brian
           

           To expand on the quick point I made in the article, it would be very odd (at least where I farm) to have land sell and the farmer who planted a crop not harvest it. We lost a rental farm this fall, but we aren't off that farm until March. I could put fertilizer on that farm, do some tillage, and maybe even spray for weeds but what would be the point? Ground is sold or changes rental tenants at all times of the year. Again it would be somewhat bizarre for the current tenant to not finish out a crop that was already in the ground growing. I suppose it could happen, but I don't personally know of a case.

           January 18, 2013 at 5:57 pm |
     • AceRyder
       

       Yes, if you have a contract with someone to do something, you can't just sell your way out of the contract.

       If you put in a new AC system in your house and contracted with someone to pay for it in installments, you think you can just sell your house and void your obligation?

       January 18, 2013 at 4:00 pm | Reply
       • loreeeeeee
         

         It gets worse. If you own a house with a spouse, and get a divorce watch out!

         No divorce agreement can remove the loan obligation. So, if you have a divorce decree saying the spouse will make payments, and you quitclaim the deed to that spouse, yo u are STILL legally responsible for the loan.

         January 18, 2013 at 4:17 pm | Reply
       • Iconify
         

         Ah, I think I get it. So it's not really about Monsanto so much as it's about contract law. That makes sense to me.

         January 18, 2013 at 4:22 pm | Reply
114. thinquer
     

     Clue: Monsanto serves ORGANICS in their cafeteria. What does THAT tell you. They are keeping health costs down. Its all about the bottom line.
     I am voting with my wallet, and shop at my local organics market.

     January 18, 2013 at 3:49 pm | Reply
     • SlowMoneyFarm
       

       Some of the companies they own sell organic seed too.

       January 18, 2013 at 4:39 pm | Reply
115. Jim
     

     Can Monsanto, or any big Ag company say that their GM foods have not modified proteins in food that are no responsible for increasingly high allergies to food? A single amino acid change can be the difference in how someone's immune system receive that antigen. But who cares about this or the fact that it took millions of years to adjust the foods we eat and now in a couple of decades we have adjusted hundreds of foods we thrive off.

     January 18, 2013 at 3:49 pm | Reply
     • Jim
       

       *are not

       January 18, 2013 at 3:50 pm | Reply
     • deadlyserious
       

       Can any study show that GM foods have had any effect at all on food allergies?

       January 18, 2013 at 3:51 pm | Reply
       • Jim
         

         It would be more efficacious to do a study prior to doing harm. That is how science and medicine work. But when profits are what you seek, these things mean little. You wouldn't inject a new drug unless it had been tested? I am sure Monsanto has the answer to these questions, but like most private research they will cherry pick what they publish.

         January 18, 2013 at 3:56 pm | Reply
         • deadlyserious
           

           So are there any studies at all, here or in Europe, that support the idea that GM foods have any effect on allergies?

           Unless there is a compelling reason to believe that this is a natural consequence of genetic modification (it doesn't appear that there is), then there's no overriding need to commission studies on the subject. Not to say that they shouldn't be done, but that they shouldn't be performed as a matter of course unless there's a scientifically sound reason to believe that this is a consequence of these crops.

           January 18, 2013 at 4:05 pm |
       • Jim
         

         In Europe GMOs are tested for human safety, this is not true in this country. It should also be noted that many of the foods we eat are banned in Europe b/c of this testing, but this is America and science seems to mean little when it gets in the way of profit and "only" the health of our population is a concern.

         January 18, 2013 at 3:59 pm | Reply
         • TravisK
           

           Jim,

           Actually all the herbicide tolerant and Bt grain that the US produces is approved by the European Food Safety Authority for import for both animal feed and human consumption. And these products are tested for human consumption in the US.

           January 18, 2013 at 4:29 pm |
         • Jim
           

           While they are tested for toxicity they are not tested for immunogenicity.

           January 18, 2013 at 4:38 pm |
     • Jim
       

       So you would allow pharmaceuticals on the market w/out testing? Basic immunology shows that modification of a protein, even in the slightest of ways, can change that protein to become immunogenic. This should be sufficient to warrant the study of GM foods prior their release into the food supply, but that would cost money. There are papers that have shown GM food to be immunogenic. The problem is that people have to have certain genetic predispositions so large studies are difficult but that doesn't mean we should ignore the growing incidence of Crohn's, Celiac and other autoimmune diseases. Big Ag has shot themselves in the foot with peanut butter and it won't be long before wheat becomes out of style. A recent study showed that 1/100 were allergic to Gluten, gliadin more precisely. How far will we go until we realize that the food we are making comes at a severe price.

       January 18, 2013 at 4:12 pm | Reply
       • John Danielson
         

         I would eliminate the FDA entirely. There is no reason any medicine or treatment should not be allowed. Rather, if the treatment or drug is risky and doctors don't want to be sued, they won't use the new treatments until they are tested. Some patients who have tried every other option will opt for a risky treatment even with a waiver, and there you find out whether treatments are safe.

         This is where I would make trademarks mandatory as well – individuals as well as companies get a permanent, lifetime mark, and everything they make would bear this, with a registry kept of complaints against their products. If your products are crap, anyone can look it up and choose other options. Falsifying a mark (failure to include that of anyone involved in a product) would be a federal felony – you live with your failures on your name forever and never get to start over.

         Simply put, capitalism can solve nearly everything with minor regulation to stop blatant anti-competitive practices.

         January 18, 2013 at 4:34 pm | Reply
     • Brenda
       

       Jim, I have often wondered lately why all of a sudden I am allergic to dairly products. After consuming it for years and years– all of a sudden whop- cant do it anymore. hmmmmmm, also my son- who is 23 is developing allergies to all kinds of foods. We've gone organic- but its just weird and scary. That is living truth as well. We really DO NOT know the consequences of this- we are all the guinea pigs of this. That is really truly what I think. We will be growing our own food as much as we can. I just feel sorry for all of the people out there that just believe whatever they hear or read.. even the farmer- until it is too late. And they are living the real truth- with new cancers, and other new diseases no ones heard about before. It is a sad thing.

       January 18, 2013 at 6:33 pm | Reply
116. AtlJack
     

     In my grandfathers day, chickens moved freely on the farmland. Under corporate farming, chickens have their beaks removed, they care confined to cages where they can't even turn around, and live lives that can only be described as torture.

     And these factory farms have spent millions to stop any change in these barbaric practices.

     Difficult for me to not see corporate farming as evil.

     January 18, 2013 at 3:48 pm | Reply
     • deadlyserious
       

       Back in your grandfather's day, black people didn't get to vote, and women couldn't say "No". And kids died from polio.

       I prefer my day.

       January 18, 2013 at 3:50 pm | Reply
       • deeg24
         

         retarded reply... maybe it's possible to not lynch blacks AND not cut beaks off of chickens??

         January 18, 2013 at 4:01 pm | Reply
         • deadlyserious
           

           Maybe it's possible to make an argument that isn't founded in the belief that if the past sounds more idyllic, then the methods used in that time must have been better.

           January 18, 2013 at 4:13 pm |
     • SlowMoneyFarm
       

       How many chickens did your grandfather lose to predators? How many chicks drowned, run over, killed before they were old enough to recognize danger? How many lost to cold in the winter? Some areas can have birds outside year round – others cannot. And with the volume America wants, it's tough to do outside. We have options for those who want it, but not all do!

       January 18, 2013 at 4:44 pm | Reply
117. Sharon
     

     I honestly don't know a lot about GMO or crops but I'm betting a number of other people who have commented here don't either. How many of you live near farmland? How many have ever really farmed? Or even grown a family garden?

     Here's what I understand. GMO is really no different than breeding techniques that have been used for years to breed healthier animals, different animals, different strains of crops. It just means that they are accomplishing things a bit quicker. I live in Iowa. Guess what, I'm kind of surrounded by farmland once I leave my city. I can tell you which corn crops were planted with corn modified to be drought resistant this past year & which weren't. I can tell you which fields have higher yields in extreme heat because of those modifications. And I can tell you that if we weren't actively working to produce better yields in different conditions for different soils we would run out of food on this planet. Right now we do not have enough to feed everyone, if we took away all of the advancements in genetics and kept everything strictly organic millions more would starve. That's reality.

     I don't trust that farmers always have the right answer, I see plenty of our rivers & streams polluted with farm run off and hog lot spills. But for people who have never been on or near a farm to claim they know everything and to write off this man's opinion piece as Monsanto PR is just plain ignorant and rude.

     January 18, 2013 at 3:47 pm | Reply
     • loreeeeeee
       

       Quit feeding most of our food supply to cows, and we'd never run out of food. ;)

       January 18, 2013 at 4:19 pm | Reply
       • Vonda
         

         Trust me, you REALLY don't want to eat field corn, especially at 15-16% moisture. LOL.

         January 18, 2013 at 7:11 pm | Reply
     • Brian
       

       Thanks, Sharon, for you thoughts. You are right about not trusting all farmers. Like any group of people, there are bad apples among us. I don't think anyone is a big fan of more regulations, but some of these guys need to face tougher consequences for the things they do that affect others.

       January 18, 2013 at 4:26 pm | Reply
118. cj
     

     I dont disagree that GE seeds and the corporate control is an issue....but the author plays around with his statistics, pointing out that 'corporate farms' only around for 2% of the total number of farms...ignoring that the corporate 2% produces 12% of the nations production.

     He also plays it of that 'family partnerships' are just little family farmers. Yes 50% of this nations production comes from the largest 2% of our farms, the vast majority being 'family partnerships' that are bigger businesses than 95% of the 'corporations' out there. Those 'family farms' are the rich and they are getting richer.

     January 18, 2013 at 3:46 pm | Reply
     • Brian
       

       USDA skews these numbers in my opinion, but it's the data we have to work with. My farm is in the top 6% of gross farm sales last I checked, but a "farm" is defined as an entity with $1000 dollars in annual sales. There are probably reasons for that, but at $7 corn I've got seven farms of gross profit in every truckload of corn I deliver. And there are farms in my neighborhood much bigger than mine owned an operated by family members and a few hired hands. We have one full time employee on our farm and I think we could run nearly twice the acres without major changes.

       January 18, 2013 at 4:23 pm | Reply
119. deadlyserious
     

     Can we have a new rule?

     No one gets to post ridiculous and unsubstantiated rumors about GMO crops without a biology degree and a study citation. Can we all agree on that?

     January 18, 2013 at 3:44 pm | Reply
120. deeg24
     

     Hmm... okay. Posting an opinion article by a farmer that GROWS GMO SEED is fair enough, and FROM THAT PERSPECTIVE then I would tend to agree – "Monsanto isn't evil" from that perspective. But this is a little like asking a party booster to write an opinion piece on their own political candidate's views... if you're going to grow plastic food, then why not go with the best plastic seed manufacturer? By analogy, there's nothing wrong with the oil companies if I'm a firm believer in the burning of fossil fuels as our future. But if I'm committed to the cause of promoting bicycle transportation, and then Exxon bullies that cause b/c they want to world to burn their fuels, then that's a problem... I think the real issue with Monsanto is the war they wage against ORGANIC farming, and the lawsuits they bring against such small ORGANIC farmers who end up with their HEIRLOOM seeds corrupted by Monsanto's junk... Asking a "Monsanto Youth" Farmer for his opinion piece isn't worth the time to read it... why not just read a brochure put out by Monsanto's public relations division?

     January 18, 2013 at 3:43 pm | Reply
     • Brian
       

       If you'll take my word for it know that this was first a post on my personal blog nearly a year ago. When its popularity surged at the beginning of 2013 I asked the editor of Eatocracy if I could tune it up a bit and have it reposted here on a larger platform. Eatocracy (where I had already written about the 2012 drought) was kind enough to accept my offer.

       January 18, 2013 at 4:10 pm | Reply
121. shawn poland
     

     evil or not, they sell poisons and push poisons on the people! you can keep your gmo, not interested! youtube 'The World According to Monsanto'. there is several others but thats the first one that comes to mind. also youtube 'patent for a pig'. monsanto trying to hurt the little farmer in favor of industrial farming.

     January 18, 2013 at 3:38 pm | Reply
122. Castorrated
     

     I personally know this farmer. I have known him and his family for more than 20 years. While I am not a farmer, I know many who are. Including family members. I have worked on a lot of these farms. Some with livestock and some without. I have never met a Monsanto rep. I have never been in direct communication with a seed rep of any kind that I know of. I have handled seed. I have handle herbacides and pesticides. I have hearded cattle and tended after elk and hogs. (Have tried to ride all three.) I can personally attest that Brian IS NOT under corporate control. I can personally attest that any of the farmers I know ARE NOT under coporate control more than they want to be. And Brian will tell you...if I thought differently, I would say so. I don't mince words. But I am sure that many of you will think that Monsanto, Dow, Tyson, Brian, or the government paid me to say this. Oh, BTW, he is that pasty. I could tell you a story about golfing with tanning excelerator on. It wasn't pretty after a couple hours. But I am sure there is a different place on the internet to talk about that. Also, he has an old truck that is getting worked on more than it is in the field.

     January 18, 2013 at 3:36 pm | Reply
     • U.N. Owen
       

       So the guy that has no problem applying chemicals to his own body to get a tan should be trusted with growing the food we eat and with the health of his workers? Am I understanding that correctly?

       January 18, 2013 at 3:39 pm | Reply
       • Brian
         

         Come on now. That was something stupid I did in high school. Making the leap from something I did one day 15 years ago correlating to how I choose to farm is a little much.

         January 18, 2013 at 3:47 pm | Reply
         • U.N. Owen
           

           Okay, I'll assume you learned something in 15 years. I retract the statement. But remember I am assuming.

           January 18, 2013 at 3:48 pm |
         • Brian
           

           This is the part where you tell me something stupid you did in high school. :) Just kidding!

           January 18, 2013 at 3:59 pm |
     • Brian
       

       Thanks, Josh, for that comment. My truck is doing fine by the way. You should try out sun lotion more often. I've seen you with some pretty nasty burns over the years!

       January 18, 2013 at 3:43 pm | Reply
       • U.N. Owen
         

         Did you consider "Josh" may have not wanted to use his real name?

         January 18, 2013 at 3:47 pm | Reply
         • Brian
           

           I'm thinking he'll be alright. If not, I'm meeting up with him in a couple weeks and he might take it out on me then.

           January 18, 2013 at 4:01 pm |
         • Castorrated
           

           Brian can call me Josh. Just don't call me late for dinner! Hey-Ooooo!

           January 21, 2013 at 3:34 pm |
123. U.N. Owen
     

     I have two concerns with Monsanto. The mechanics of BT corn concern me with how the toxin kills pests. If I am correct the toxin is a crystalline structure that ruptures the bellies of pests. Now my two concerns are that I wonder if it is killing the honey bee since these toxins where originally found in the soil and not up high on the plants and if these structures make it into the food we eat like high fructose corn syrup in soda which then in turn creates hazards for us. So my concerns are honey bee populations dieing out and cancer of the stomach due to inflation from the B.T. toxin. I would like to see studies done on those topics.

     January 18, 2013 at 3:33 pm | Reply
     • Brian
       

       You aren't far off in describing how Bt kills insects. Very specific insects I might add, and Bt reacts entitely different in the human gut. Bt has been in use in organic farming, with biotech now allowing crops like corn and cotton to express the toxin. Of course we have to plant refuge acres when we use Bt crops with plants that don't carry the Bt gene. The lastest refuges have 5% of the seed in a bag of corn being non-Bt instead of the 20% of separate refuge required by the EPA just a couple years ago. For more info on Bt look here http://www.biofortified.org/2012/10/bt-in-blood/

       January 18, 2013 at 3:58 pm | Reply
     • LabGirl
       

       The toxin of BT exists in nature as the product of Baciilus thuringiensis, an bacterium found in the environment. I have used it (as "Milky Spore", a bacterial preperation) for about 20 years to control lawn grubs and starve my moles onto my neighbor's lawn. It works, and I can tell you my yard has scads of bees and butterflies. It is very specific in its action and on what type of bugs it acts on. It has NO activity outside of the insect kingdom, making it safe around people, pets and ponds. It also has no effect on most of the insect kingdom, including beneficial insects. For more info: http://www.biocontrol.entomology.cornell.edu/pathogens/bacteria.html

       January 18, 2013 at 4:02 pm | Reply
       • U.N. Owen
         

         You say you use it on your lawn, again that is low when considering where things flower and that is where you find bees. I find it too risky to use these new strains. The risks out way the benefits in my opinion and I would not buy conventional corn.

         January 18, 2013 at 4:07 pm | Reply
     • SlowMoneyFarm
       

       Bt is in the environment and is used in organic programs as well.

       January 18, 2013 at 4:50 pm | Reply
       • U.N. Owen
         

         E. Coli is in my body's environment but to imply that location was not important is absurd. B.T is in the soil putting it where bees fly above the ground is what concerns me. Every time some one writes that B.T. Is in the environment I get a little suspect that maybe that reply is in some play book but it could only be some thing being regurgitated maybe both but not neither.

         January 18, 2013 at 6:37 pm | Reply
         • SlowMoneyFarm
           

           And without e. coli we would die. But the fact remains that, yes, Bt as well as e.coli and for that matter salmonella are all around us. With organic application it is also above the ground – and many don't seem to know it is applies as an organic treatment. There are also chemicals used/allowed in organic cultivation. As someone using mostly organic methods, should I not point it out so folks can say we lie too? Or point it out and be criticized? Can't please everyone! :-) Have a good day.

           January 18, 2013 at 7:10 pm |
     • What?
       

       Try this one:

       http://entomology.umd.edu/files/entm/documents/mhwg/bee_NTO_paper.pdf

       or this one:

       http://www.gmo-safety.eu/archive/441.maize-compatible-honey-bees.html

       January 18, 2013 at 8:15 pm | Reply
124. orion7x
     

     Propaganda Horse pucky!

     January 18, 2013 at 3:33 pm | Reply
125. Freedom Fascist
     

     Yeah, thanks for the article. It's not evil when a company vies to completely control our food supply...is it? How about the fact that Canada/US government are in backroom talks right now looking at selling water rights to Nestle? haha...this is a joke. If you actually think giving corporations rights/patents and the paper work to destroy anybody who wants access to food and water without paying a huge mark-up than you don't have freedom and never deserved it.

     January 18, 2013 at 3:26 pm | Reply
     • RonFromNM
       

       My thoughts exactly, well written.

       January 18, 2013 at 3:36 pm | Reply
     • Joao
       

       "Yeah, thanks for the article. It's not evil when a company vies to completely control our food supply...is it? "

       Hey, just don't buy their products. As long as it is done legally, what business is it of yours? Now who is trying to control whom?

       January 18, 2013 at 3:42 pm | Reply
       • KurtSteiner
         

         Legality will certainly be the question someday. Competition-limiting monopolistic practices and all that.

         January 18, 2013 at 3:59 pm | Reply
     • Thankyoubasedevidence
       

       Please provide evidence for your claim? Because, if you have inside information on a "backroom" deal, that's a pretty hefty claim that requires some sort of evidence to help you seem legitimate and not some crazy ranting :) At least the OP gave some links to other places and stated references with their opinions.

       Oh! By the way, your concept of freedom.... seems a little skewed, particularly when you say others don't deserve it.

       January 18, 2013 at 3:54 pm | Reply
126. Anna Maria Marino
     

     Wow...just how much money did Monsanto pay CNN for this article. I have lost what little confidence I had in CNN reporting.

     January 18, 2013 at 3:20 pm | Reply
     • JackAlias
       

       My day was going along fine until I read this article. What a crock of bull.

       January 18, 2013 at 3:33 pm | Reply
     • avid reader
       

       You lose confidence because someone tells you the truth and it's not what you want to hear? We also have a farm and what this gentleman is reporting is totally accurate. Quit being quite so paranoic and appreciate both the quality and quantity of foods American Farmers are able to put on your table and for far less expense than most of the rest of the world pays.

       January 18, 2013 at 3:43 pm | Reply
127. JL
     

     Is this article truth, media hype or Monsanto spin?

     January 18, 2013 at 3:19 pm | Reply
     • Brian
       

       This post is my personal opinion of a tech agreement I have signed. To me it's truth, but the reason I provided a link to a copy of the actual agreement is so people like yourself can read it with your own eyes and come to your own conclusions about the issue. All I can do is put the info out there and hope people trust that I did actually just pull this document out of my file cabinet one day when I decided to write a post like this. Thanks for reading!

       January 18, 2013 at 3:36 pm | Reply
128. vongtama
     

     Dear Dawgfish, Brian and other farmers who are trained in their field:
     Thank you for this article. It was educational. I am a Board Certified Radiation Oncologist. A cancer specialist. The education you received, the training you received was as rigorous as the 26 years of school I went to. So we are educationally equal. what I will say to this article and to you is this: we do not know the long term effects of GMO. The causes of cancer from environmental causes take 20-30 years to develop. This is well known in the cancer community. (I tell my patients this when we give them radiation for treatment. radiation itself causes cancer in 20-30 years in 1-2% of patients. (in those cases, if untreated they wouldn't make it that far.) GMO is touted to be is an acceptable form of what was done for 1000s of years, hybridization. this is not hybridization. it has been well documented in lab tests that transmigration of DNA from GMO strains occurs and creates future progeny that are not at all the same as their parents. thus one cannot say that these future strains would not be harmful. in fact, laboratory tests have shown that immune function is impaired in rodent subjects when exposed to GMO food sources. this hasn't been shown in humans of course. yet.
     the main intrinsic response of people who are angry are intuitively correct in my view. their way of expressing it is not. Brian has a viewpoint that I understand and appreciate from a business standpoint, however he does not understand the HEALTH effects, the LONG TERM health effects. He could not because, well, that's not his job.
     Remember this from Hippocrates: "Let thy food be thy medicine. Let thy medicine be thy food." If my food has Roundup in it, what kind of medicine am I taking?

     January 18, 2013 at 3:18 pm | Reply
     • chazmart
       

       @vongtama Please point out the peer-reviewed studies that do show long-term effects of GMOs on rats. Otherwise, your medical degree and training aren't worth anything. That's the problem with MDs, they think they're scientists but most couldn't set up a properly controlled experiment to save their lives. Any good scientist would have posted the citation in the post, instead of rambling on for 500 words.

       January 18, 2013 at 4:06 pm | Reply
       • vongtama
         

         since you are spouting, you didn't read my paragraph. I said there are NO ARTICLES ABOUT LONG TERM EFFECTS BECAUSE GMOS HAVE NOT BEEN STUDIED LONG TERM. I hope you can read that now that it's in caps. Instead of insulting me, you should read what I wrote. it's not inflammatory. totally based in a balanced opinion.
         here are you articles.
         enjoy.
         http://www.biolsci.org/v05p0706.htm
         http://research.sustainablefoodtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Final-Paper.pdf
         http://ww.w.rapaluruguay.org/transgenicos/Maiz/Genetically_Maize.pdf

         January 19, 2013 at 3:23 am | Reply
       • vongtama
         

         http://www.biolsci.org/v05p0706.htm
         http://research.sustainablefoodtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Final-Paper.pdf

         January 19, 2013 at 3:27 am | Reply
       • vongtama
         

         there you go chazmart!

         January 19, 2013 at 3:27 am | Reply
129. Susan Burns
     

     This is the third opinion article in a pretty short period of time that CNN has posted that has been aggressively pro-Monsanto. I guess they're hoping people who read this don't talk to the farmers who actually grow the food they eat every week and will mindlessly eat whatever poison is handed to them. I DO talk to the farmers who actually grow my food every week, so I can tell you this article (like the two pro-Monsanto opinion pieces that preceeded it) are garbage, brought to you by the deep pockets of Monsanto. CNN, you should be ashamed for printing and promoting this garbage.

     January 18, 2013 at 3:10 pm | Reply
130. Gopherit
     

     Monsanto's GMO and herbicide technologies have their positive and negative points. Regarding GMO crops it is apparent that without them the drought which has affected large parts of fhe U.S. would have had more disatrous consquences regarding the food supply and resulting availability and prices for consumers. In general, GMOs have resulted in greatly increased yields and the ability to grow a given crop in areas in which that formerly was not possible.
     RR and other GMO technology haave reduced the number of trips and operations which farmers formerly had to undertake to control weeds and insects.Fewer implement trips means less fuel burned, less or no dangerous insecticide spayed or used, less labor cost, less soil compaction, and less wear on machinery, which in part translates into more affordable food.

     Many of the potentially negative and negative consequences have been widely discussed. There have been no long term tests of GMO products on humans and they generally have been approved as if the FDA has little or no regard for the public, but rather is driven by companies such as Monsanto and much of the agricultural industry. Companies such as Monsanto claim that their GMO processes are merely speeding up the provess of selective crop breeding, but it is unbelievable that, for example, corn would ever evolve on its own or selectively to include flounder (fish) genes so that corn can be grown in more northerly locales and with shorter development times. RR technology has encouraged the growth of RR-resistant weeds which are spreading rather rapidly. Some can be controlled with other herbicides but some cannot, so to control those farmers must employ mechnical cultivation (old technology) or even hand weeding. Monsanto and other developers' GMO crops have encouraged monoculture, for example, corn-on-corn cropping which results in the need for more needed imputs such as fertiliser and also results in increasing numbers of GMO-resistant insects. Monsanto and other GMO developers have been accused of predatory practices in developing countries which reportedly have resulted in poor farmers becoming beholden in many ways to such companies. The increasing use of GMO crops in many situations has reduced genetic variety, making the world's food supply possibly vulnerable to being devastated by single or multiple events to which the displaced plant varieties had been resistant or tolerant. If such a situation occurs and other consequences related to how Monsanto and other such companies operate then people, especially those who would experience starvation or economic deprivation would be justified in labeling Monsanto and those companies as evil.

     For the consumer in the U.S., one fallout from the increasing use of GMOs has been the deliberate efforts by Monsanto and others to deny and stifle consumers information which would allow them to choose what they buy. Whenever ballot measures have been proposed to mandate or even allow food products to be labeled to indicate whether they contain GMOs Monsanto, Bayer, and others have poured millions of dollars into publicity campaigns to persuade voters that such information initiatives should be turned down. Since money buys such results, in that instance more of the labeling of Monsanto as evil is at least partially justified.

     January 18, 2013 at 3:08 pm | Reply
131. Renait
     

     Everyone is entitled to an opinion. However, in this instance, if you are wrong (and I sincerely believe you are), then we will ALL pay the price for the rest of ETERNITY.

     January 18, 2013 at 3:07 pm | Reply
132. ar
     

     ..you reap what you sow!!!

     January 18, 2013 at 3:06 pm | Reply
133. DZ
     

     Why not interview the landowners who's crops were contaminated by Monsanto's products. Monsanto sued many people and took their land. Let's also look at the corn crops in South America that have been contaminated by Monsanto products. The people there are still eating the same amount of corn and literally starving because it has no nutritional value. Since Monsanto started modifying these seeds the worlds organic crops are going extinct. That's not good for anybody.

     January 18, 2013 at 3:06 pm | Reply
134. No Drinking the Kool-Aid
     

     Thank you Brian the Farmer
     I appreciate you confirming for me the following:
     1. why I buy organic
     2. why I ensure what my children eat is REAL food. Not genetically modified

     Mr Scott, you are obviously drinking the Montsanto Kool-Aid. While I find this tragic, I am not surprised. I have read alot of research about how most Mid-West farmers do buy into Monstanto.
     Over 90% of US corn is genetically modified (I stopped eating and buying ANY corn 5 years ago)
     Over 95% of US soy is genetically modified (I stopped using any of this product 3 years ago...switched to Almond Milk)
     I believe these types of farmers will find it increasingly difficult to sell their crops in the next decade

     January 18, 2013 at 3:01 pm | Reply
     • Brian
       

       And if in ten years that's what the markets dictate you'll see a change in farming practices. By all means please vote with your food dollar. I may be in favor of biotech, but by no means does that mean I'm against other practices.

       January 18, 2013 at 3:13 pm | Reply
       • KurtSteiner
         

         That's pretty convenient considering that most people have zero idea if what they're buying is GMO or not. Maybe someone should introduce a food labeling bill, huh? I'm sure Monsanto would be behind it 100%.

         January 18, 2013 at 3:19 pm | Reply
         • Brian
           

           I wouldn't be surprised at all to see biotech companies hesitant about a labeling law. I guess we've already seen that with Prop 37. I'm not against labels although I did think Prop 37 left too many questions unanswered. I think we will have some sort of label in the next few years. There needs to be discussion of what that label should say. Right I kind of like something such as "May contain biotech ingredients." I don't think a skull and crossbones is the asnwer.

           January 18, 2013 at 3:27 pm |
         • deadlyserious
           

           Yes, I'm sure any company would love to have a giant label on their food that makes the mob think that they used human embryo stem cells to grow the crop.

           I can't imagine why any company wouldn't want to lose sales over public hysteria.

           January 18, 2013 at 3:41 pm |
         • KurtSteiner
           

           It'll be over Monsanto's dead body. Monsanto never said anything about wanting to tweak certain aspects of the bill. They just spent millions to kill it.

           Obama made big promises about GMO labeling before being elected the first time. You could hear a pin drop on this issue during this last election. In my opinion, it will never happen. Congress and the president are beholden to the millions they get from these big corporations. It's just funny how Monsanto is afraid of letting the people knowing what they're eating.

           January 18, 2013 at 3:53 pm |
         • KurtSteiner
           

           Deadly serious,

           Then why doesn't Monsanto help push their own version of a labeling bill then? If they are so confident in their GMO products, it shouldn't be a problem. Why hide the facts?

           January 18, 2013 at 4:08 pm |
         • deadlyserious
           

           I'd imagine it's for the same reason that Whole Foods isn't pushing for a bill that enforces stricter labeling policies on "organic" and "free range" food. Because it's terrible for business.

           January 18, 2013 at 4:17 pm |
         • KurtSteiner
           

           Well, at least we've established that a better-informed public contrasts with Monsanto's interests.

           January 18, 2013 at 5:02 pm |
     • deadlyserious
       

       And why are you scared of genetically-modified crops?

       We've been doing this for centuries (selective breeding, anyone?), so your only issue appears to be an irrational fear of accelerating the process in a lab. If there are any conclusive studies done that show ill effects of genetically modified foods, I'll be the first one calling for stricter regulations. But at present, the only study done showed that rats who are already extremely prone to cancer get cancer when they eat genetically-modified foods.

       January 18, 2013 at 3:19 pm | Reply
       • Label My Food Please
         

         When did we selectively breed corn with fish?

         January 18, 2013 at 3:33 pm | Reply
         • deadlyserious
           

           Never. We also haven't successfully used fish genes in genetically-modified crops, either. That was an experiment. You know, those pesky things that scientists do when they want to see if something works.

           January 18, 2013 at 3:37 pm |
       • Crow
         

         Something to consider is that hybrid and GMO are 2 different things. hybrid seed cannot be used to replant the next year because it will revert to less vigorous or worthless plants. GMO products have genes such as the tomato with a cod fish gene than can grow in cooler conditions. While I and other successful organic market gardeners use non-GMO seed and non-hybrid seeds, the ability to save seed cuts expenses significantly. No amount of natural 'evolutiojn' will ever make breeding between a codfish and a tomato a reality. Not withstanding, a company has NO right to patent life and those that do so are evil. Period..

         January 18, 2013 at 3:52 pm | Reply
         • deadlyserious
           

           Any biotech company has the right to patent experiment protocols. They have the right to patent the products they create through their research.

           And again, the "fish-tomato" was a failed experiment. It has never been commercially bred. So it seems a little disingenuous to use it as a scare-tactic.

           January 18, 2013 at 4:12 pm |
135. Vonda
     

     In the past, there was a yield lag, true. It was never 50% in anything we grew, however. And in the past few years, the plant breeders have come a long way in reducing or even completely negating the yield lag. The increased profitability comes from equal, or nearly equal yields with fewer inputs. (in the case of Bt crops, yield is often higher than conventionals, depending on insect pressure in a given year). It is one of our tools to increase efficiency.

     January 18, 2013 at 3:01 pm | Reply
136. Tracy
     

     Wow! I am going to need to take a shower after reading this to get the filth off me.
     Modifying corn so that you can spray it (and your workers) with roundup was designed to save the world or just sell more Roundup? Making corn into a pesticide that kills butterflies? Now sugar beets... and next. Wheat??? Remember when the US grew so much wheat we used to give it to the Soviets but stopped because (for some reason) Big Ag wanted corn and soy? When Monsanto gets its hooks into wheat, we ill be growing more of that again. Just don't eat it. And just for fun google "Human Hair Bread" That should add a jolt to your day.

     January 18, 2013 at 2:58 pm | Reply
     • Dan
       

       "Modifying corn so that you can spray it (and your workers) with roundup" Please tell me where workers are being sprayed-where is this information from?

       January 18, 2013 at 10:15 pm | Reply
137. Shadwell
     

     Monsanto is such a great company and GMO foods are really good for you. So good, most are banned in Europe.

     January 18, 2013 at 2:55 pm | Reply
138. Farmer
     

     An agricultural scientist's perspective:
     I think both sides could make viable arguments based on facts:

     As someone involved in the agriculture industry, I have to highlight the fact that biotechnology has offered us new tools to deal with the world's ever increasing demand for food and fiber. Although I do not think that biotech is the silver bullet for the world's problems, it can definitely be part of the solution. The ability to transfer genes inter and intra species allows us to respond to the industry's needs. Traits like herbicide resistance, although may increase pesticide use in SOME instances, they do reduce the labor required to mechanically remove weeds. Therefore, blanketly condemning the technology may not be fair. We need to accept the fact that a large number of farmers do see value in some of these technologies and they are willing to pay a premium for them.

     With that said, there are some real issues with GMOs. The fact that a farmer who would want to save his own seed could be considered to have infringed on a firms patent, if pollen from a neighbor's farm with GM crops drifts onto his farm fertilizes his plants and the GM trait gets fixed after a couple of generations is in my opinion unfair. Also, the issue of labeling is rather puzzling, people buy the products they buy for mundane reasons, in the case of GM crops, the public may discriminate against foods that contain GM products but is that any reason to deny the public information? Why not label it and pass the cost to the consumers? Afterall, information blackout will only raise suscpicion.

     This debate over GM crops is giving Ag an unnecessary a black eye and tarnishing the good name of the noble and one of the oldest professions. It's about time the public understand

     January 18, 2013 at 2:54 pm | Reply
     • deep blue
       

       Montesano has backed down from that. I read an article recently that a Montesano lawyer recommended a judge only consider use of Montesano biotechnology as patent infringement if Montesano pesticides were being used that would kill a normal crop (that is to say, if the farmer was knowingly taking advantage of Montesano's pesticide resistant genes). Now, that lawyer's statements are not legally binding, so they should be taken with a grain of salt.

       January 18, 2013 at 3:00 pm | Reply
     • deep blue
       

       Montesano has backed down from that. I read an article recently that a Montesano lawyer recommended a judge only consider use of Montesano biotechnology as patent infringement if Montesano pesticides were being used that would kill a normal crop (that is to say, if the farmer was knowingly taking advantage of Montesano's pesticide resistant genes). Now, that lawyer's statements are not legally binding, so they should be taken with a grain of salt

       January 18, 2013 at 3:01 pm | Reply
     • deep blue
       

       I have more of a problem with the idea that we are making a plant resistant to a poison so that we can spray that poison on it.

       January 18, 2013 at 3:03 pm | Reply
       • KurtSteiner
         

         Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Lol. Well, if you make the poison, it does.

         January 18, 2013 at 3:39 pm | Reply
139. deep blue
     

     Thanks for writing this, Brian.

     January 18, 2013 at 2:52 pm | Reply
140. Erlo
     

     I wonder how much it took for this guy to be paid off...

     January 18, 2013 at 2:51 pm | Reply
141. Ray
     

     Clearly Mr. Scott has a positive relationship with his corporate owner. I would suggest he look a little farther than the tip of his nose, though, to better understand how Monsanto treats non-white farmers, particularly in Asia and Africa where they are forced to use only Monsanto products. These farmers made a subsistence living, with any profit being used to pay for additional Monsanto products. Remember: The seeds used today do not result in produce that contains growable seeds... so Monsanto has a monopoly and guaranteed revenue stream from year to year. It's modern-day slavery.

     Think about this: What happens to the worlds ability to grow food if our seeds no longer can create more seeds? Sowing the seeds of our own destruction.

     January 18, 2013 at 2:51 pm | Reply
     • Brian
       

       No seed companies are using terminator gene technology. They could, but they have chosen not to. Every seed I grow can germinate. This is why I don't plant popcorn following a dent corn crop. I can't tolerate regular corn kernels in my popcorn or my crop could be rejected at the popcorn plant. The only way I can get volunteer corn out of a popcorn field is to do it by hand. Which I have done when we get in a pinch getting crops rotated, etc year to year. And at that point I'm just trying to find corn plants that aren't in rows or are in clumps or just happen to appear out of place. Until the kernels develop you can't really tell by looking what is popcorn and what is dent corn. Some would even argue employing terminator genes would calm some of the fears people have about crops moving into wild environments.

       January 18, 2013 at 6:09 pm | Reply
142. Technologist
     

     What amazes me is the number of people willing to slam GMOs, but don't actually know what that even means. I'd bet that 90%+ of the readers here think that genetic modification is where a scientist goes in and changes a gene from 'A' to 'C' to give the affected item a new property, like resistance to insects.

     If that's what you think, please desist from commenting. You're soiling the Internet.

     January 18, 2013 at 2:50 pm | Reply
     • Label My Food Please
       

       A genetically modified organism (GMO) is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. Genetic modification involves the insertion or deletion of genes. When genes are inserted, they usually come from a different species, which is a form of horizontal gene transfer.

       January 18, 2013 at 3:05 pm | Reply
     • Some Stupid Liberal
       

       I don't think I can take another CNN article seriously again, ever. Do they honestly think we're that sheepish, just as to accept this mambo jambo about Monsanto not being evil, just because some tool who works on a farm says so? You gotta be kidding me. How do you contend that they're not the reason behind the health problems that hinder the lives of millions of americans. Get your monSATAN gmo's out of my food supply.

       January 18, 2013 at 3:17 pm | Reply
     • Jim
       

       By modifying genetic material we thus modify proteins within the food we eat. It took thousands of years for us to adapt to the proteins we know eat. Unfortunately big AG believes this is not an issue. Yet we continue to see increasing levels of food allergies. It simply takes one amino acid change in a hundred of a protein that allow our bodies to recognize something natural or foreign. While, only certain people are more apt to have certain genetic predispositions toward these changes, and thus large studies will only find a few what they will call "outliers" these individuals will suffer from long debilitating diseases. The field of medicine could help combat these issue if big Ag would allow us to study the modifications they make. We would also be better to study these effects if we were privy to knowing what foods are GM. If big Ag believes there is nothing wrong than put this product is GM. The consumer should be allowed to make a knowledgeable buy. If they believe GM foods would not sell then they should seek alternative means or allow for open study on their crops. Autoimmune diseases will continue to grow as a result of GMOs and if you don't believe so than you don't understand the fragility of the human immune system. A recent study showed that 1/100 patients are allergic to gluten and particularly to gliadin. It would be interesting to know when this protein was modified and see if it correlates to the introduction of a GMO. Unfortunately for the public and to the dismay of the medical community we may never get this answer as we have sought to increase our harvests sparing no cost and without thought.

       January 18, 2013 at 3:30 pm | Reply
       • What?
         

         You seem highly concerned about the possible allergenicity of the GM crops. If you know as much about the 'mechanics' as you should by what you are writing, then you know full well that a "single" amino acid change may or may not have any effect at all, but you also know that it isn't really that simple now, is it? There's also the larger issue of conformation and interaction with receptor sites.

         If you will do the research, I believe you will find that the gene that was used to impart glyphosphate resistance came from the common pigweed – a plant which is, in and of itself, edible.

         January 19, 2013 at 8:02 am | Reply
       • What?
         

         EDIT: Should be "glyphosate", not "glyphosphate" – 'happy fingers'

         January 19, 2013 at 10:56 am | Reply
143. crodeo
     

     Monsanto and its products are also why autism is on the rise. Keep using these unnatural products and you are as evil as an abortionist.

     January 18, 2013 at 2:49 pm | Reply
144. KurtSteiner
     

     Since Monsanto is really such a lovey dovey company that we just don't understand, why would they spend millions to fight things like the California labeling law voted on last November? Surely they believe we should have all the information we can get about what we're eating.

     January 18, 2013 at 2:49 pm | Reply
     • Technologist
       

       For the same reason P.T. Barnum apocryphally stated "Our salmon is guaranteed not to turn pink in the can!"

       Labeling often causes discrimination between choices, usually for unsubstantiated reasons. Or, as in this case, based on anecdotal evidence.

       If folks from Monsanto refuse to eat their own corn, then I think you may have something to be concerned about. (Think of the scene in Erin Brocovich where the power plant owners won't drink the water from the well...) I haven't seen any documentation of quid quo pro, nor any information on huge numbers of Monsanto workers refusing to eat their own product. (I'm not the most checked-in person, though. It may be out there, but it has eluded me.)

       January 18, 2013 at 3:48 pm | Reply
145. John
     

     GMO seed produce substantially higher yields. Also require less pesticides, herbicides & fungicides. In certain cases,less water.
     If you look at any large AG chemical producer you will see that their chemical portfolios have declined 25% or more in the last 5-7 years.

     Truth is knowledge & knowledge is truth. Both can be found below.

     http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/adoption-of-genetically-engineered-crops-in-the-us.aspx

     January 18, 2013 at 2:49 pm | Reply
146. Label My Food Please
     

     "Let's make everything grown organic...just tell me which 4 billion people you want to get rid of. Less acres world wide each year, more mouths to feed each year. Only one answer (unless you opted to remove 4 billions mouths)...increased yield per acre. How is that done....technology. Meeting adjourned."

     MYTH: GM crops increase yield potential
     TRUTH: GM crops do not increase yield potential – and in many cases decrease it

     GM crops are often claimed to give higher yields than naturally bred varieties. But the data do not support this claim. At best, GM crops have performed no better than their non-GM counterparts, with GM soybeans giving consistently lower yields.

     Controlled field trials comparing GM and non-GM soy production suggested that 50% of the drop in yield is due to the disruption in genes caused by the GM transformation process. Similarly, field tests of Bt maize hybrids showed that they took longer to reach maturity and produced up to 12% lower yields than their non-GM counterparts.

     A US Department of Agriculture report confirmed the poor yield performance of GM crops, saying, “GE [genetically engineered] crops available for commercial use do not increase the yield potential of a variety. In fact, yield may even decrease.... Perhaps the biggest issue raised by these results is how to explain the rapid adoption of GE crops when farm financial impacts appear to be mixed or even negative."

     January 18, 2013 at 2:40 pm | Reply
     • KurtSteiner
       

       Thank you for that post.

       January 18, 2013 at 2:47 pm | Reply
     • Tracy
       

       Thank you! My thoughts exatly.

       January 18, 2013 at 2:50 pm | Reply
     • deep blue
       

       Broad generalization. Some GMO's are resistant to pesticides, allowing stronger pesticides to be applied to yeild less insect damaged crops. Others increase crop yields directly.

       January 18, 2013 at 2:56 pm | Reply
     • JST9090
       

       The amount of misunderstanding and misinformation is alarming. YIELD POTENTIAL is what a crop produces in the absence of any environmental pressures (disease, drought, insect pressure, imperfect soil conditions, etc.) Biotech may slightly reduce yield potential but it greatly improves yield and farm efficiency if stewarded correctly. By conferring insect resistance to the crop you reduce pesticide application and improve yields. By confering drought tolerance, you improve water use efficiency in dry years. By conferring glyphosate tolerance, you reduce the need for alternate (more harmful) herbicides and greatly reduce weed pressure in the field again increasing yield.

       Read about Mark Lynas's apology. He was a staunch anti-GMO activist who helped shape much of this public opinion and – after turning to the science – was so convinced he was wrong that he issued a public apology.

       January 18, 2013 at 3:07 pm | Reply
147. The Master
     

     It's not that you buy or sell to who you want the evil the Monsato does it with the 'inteilectual property' onvolved with their products. If Monsato find plants from it's seeds on your property, THEY SUE THE FARMER OR STRONG ARM THEM INTO CONTRACTS!! This has been well documented by PBS Frontline.

     January 18, 2013 at 2:40 pm | Reply
148. CaliFarmer
     

     WOW! This is the text book definition of "Corporate Shill".

     January 18, 2013 at 2:37 pm | Reply
149. krs000
     

     And what about the farmers who don't want to be accomplices in Monsanto grotesque perversion of corporate-sponsored "horticulture"? The ones whose farms become accidentally tainted because of farmers like you? can you control the birds and the bees and all of the other critters who carry your GMO pollen away to other non-participating lands? gross. if you need to have corporate sponsorship at least be responsible for your actions and grow your frankencorn in an encapsulated bubble.

     January 18, 2013 at 2:34 pm | Reply
     • KurtSteiner
       

       Funny how that issue gets overlooked, isn't it?

       January 18, 2013 at 3:01 pm | Reply
150. kevin
     

     Monsanto is evil, this is pure propaganda. The farmer probably avoided being sued by being involved in this sad attempt to put a smiley face on Monsanto.

     January 18, 2013 at 2:34 pm | Reply
151. patiat
     

     This dude happily sold out to Monsanto. Of course he doesn't see them as evil. But they are.

     January 18, 2013 at 2:34 pm | Reply
     • Sam
       

       How are they (Monsanto) evil? I haven't seen a single shred of evidence that suggest that they are commit evil acts?
       Please elaborate and provide evidence...

       January 18, 2013 at 2:50 pm | Reply
       • No Drinking the Kool-Aid
         

         Sam
         Type into Google...you know "Google"? The search engine?
         Type the word "MONSANTO"
         you will find extensive bullying tactics about Monsanto, the extensive NPR, PBS Frontline and well documented articles about how this company functions.
         Monsanto has a history of suing non-compliant farmers and farmers who do not drink their Kool-Aid
         I feel dirty after reading Brian Scotts sell-out article of his Monsanto love-fest.
         ew.

         January 18, 2013 at 3:11 pm | Reply
       • KurtSteiner
         

         Sam, since you seem to think that Mother Monsanto wants what is best for humanity, why did they fight the California labeling law so hard? Seems like a better-informed public would be a good thing.

         January 18, 2013 at 3:14 pm | Reply
       • Teeg
         

         David vs. Monsanto

         January 19, 2013 at 8:19 pm | Reply
152. suj
     

     You signed a contract written by a big corporation that manipulates plants genetics. Nothing else needs to be said.

     January 18, 2013 at 2:27 pm | Reply
     • Joe Gerrity
       

       You're amazing. How did you manage to get all that ignorance so high on that horse?

       January 18, 2013 at 2:37 pm | Reply
       • suj
         

         your lack of knowledge about monsanto, its association with farming, family in general, as well as farming practices were well made with your comment.

         January 18, 2013 at 3:41 pm | Reply
         • Dan
           

           Please verify your background and education on agricultural practices!

           January 18, 2013 at 10:05 pm |
     • JST9090
       

       Have you heard of breeding? Y'know Gregor Mendel and his garden of beans or peas or whatever? BREEDING MANIPULATES PLANT GENETICS! Biotech if done correctly is only a more efficient and targeted approach to what breeding and natural selection accomplishes naturally over many any years.

       January 18, 2013 at 3:09 pm | Reply
       • suj
         

         go back to sucking candy. that's where your mentality belongs.

         January 18, 2013 at 3:42 pm | Reply
       • Label My Food Please
         

         Yeah, why should we wait years for a fish to breed naturally with corn??

         January 18, 2013 at 3:45 pm | Reply
         • SlowMoneyFarm
           

           What commercial variety is this fish-corn strain?

           January 18, 2013 at 4:58 pm |
153. Chelsea
     

     Farmers like this one are the problem. Soon people will see that GMO seeds are horrible and only intended to protect profit. I hope we find out who he supplies to so I can add them to the list of brands I wont buy.

     January 18, 2013 at 2:26 pm | Reply
     • John Danielson
       

       Do you start a convenience store, lawn mowing service, internet provider, or a bank because you're trying to improve society? No, you do it for money. People farm to make money, and if they didn't, they'd do something else. Anything they do to improve yield is "trying to protect profit", and they'd be stupid not to try.

       If GMOs in foods killed people, the companies making them and farmers using them and manufacturers using them and retailers selling the end product would all be sued into oblivion. Every person on the planet might commit a crime someday, maybe we should arrest ourselves in advance to prevent it...

       January 18, 2013 at 4:18 pm | Reply
       • Teeg
         

         Your naivete is showing. Why do you think GMO producers don't want their products labeled as being or containing GMOs? It takes time to correlate the negative affects of these types of poisons. Give it another 10 years.

         January 19, 2013 at 8:25 pm | Reply
     • Brian
       

       Chelsea, you're in luck. I've written a post on my own blog entitled "Where Does My Harvest Go?" You and I both would have to dig deeper to find all the end users, because other than popcorn and the soybeans I grow to sell as seed, I don't always sell to the last link in the production chain. In a massive global market, the places my crops end up could change from day to day.

       http://thefarmerslife.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/where-does-my-harvest-go/

       January 18, 2013 at 6:17 pm | Reply
154. Kevin H
     

     We are a Republic with a Democratic form of government. As such our commerce is considered laissez-faire and the result is caveat emptor. My concern is this Monsanto is a multinational – they are beyond any one government's control. They sell to farmers who are in fact agribusiness people. Most are small farmers. Farmers traditionally were the most intelligent Americans and those that the Founding Fathers thought would essentially run the country. I have a lot of respect for farmers because my relatives at one time or another have all tried farming. But today we're talking about something entirely different. The scale and nature of genetically engineered and modified strains is not proven with longitudenal studies. In other words we don't really know what will happen long term to our bodies, to the soil and to our own genetic make-up as a result of eating these foods. One of the concerns some bioethicists have is that by reducing the opportunity for mother nature to eat part of the harvest we're interfering with some natural cycles here. Another issue is that we weaken genetic strains which in turn could conceivably weaken our own immune systems. Food is processed by the human body and part of it is absorbed into our blood streams, our muscles and so on. We don't fully understand how this process relates to genetics. Are there different impacts on the body from genetically engineered food on the body over hundreds of thousands of years. We now know for certain that eating byproducts (waste) from petrochemicals has a very bad effect on the human body. What we don't know is what effect low levels of the same chemicals might have on us. Human growth hormones fed to dairy cattle we know has an impact as well as the chemicals fed to chickens that are raised in agribusiness environments (as opposed to free range chicken). We know that fish raised in environments where they're fed genetically engineered grains has an impact on their size and on the nature of their muscle mass. So what impact will this have on humans over several generations? The Swedes are concerned enough about seed locking, the modification of seed so it can't be re-used – that they've created a seed farm. That seed farm is guarded under high security in a very remote area. Several of these seed farms store seed from various plants to insure biodiversity should the worst happen. But that doesn't forestall potential problems from these foods short term. We thought pesticides were fairly innocuous. Today the US is the only nation in the G8 that still allows low levels of pesticides in our foods. We also allow other adulteration. Personally I do not trust genetically locked grain. I think that the fruit from the grain should be capable of reproducing given the right natural conditions. Locking the grains o that it can only be used once gives a dangerous degree of control to mega corporations like Monsanto. Recall that Monsanto was one of the largest producers of pesticides in the US. I have trouble believing that were their internal science white papers released we wouldn't all wonder about their super grains. I'm sorry but I think farmers should rethink their position.

     January 18, 2013 at 2:24 pm | Reply
155. Lana
     

     LOVE the way you write about our story so that everyone can understand exactly what it is we do and why!

     January 18, 2013 at 2:24 pm | Reply
     • Jim
       

       I agree Lana. This is an excellent article from a man who obviously knows what he's talking about. I learned a lot from this.

       January 18, 2013 at 2:42 pm | Reply
156. John
     

     Let's make everything grown organic...just tell me which 4 billion people you want to get rid of. Less acres world wide each year, more mouths to feed each year. Only one answer (unless you opted to remove 4 billions mouths)...increased yield per acre. How is that done....technology. Meeting adjourned.

     January 18, 2013 at 2:23 pm | Reply
     • Tom
       

       That doesn't really make much of an arguement, since we have mountains of used food going to waste/rot every year. Additionally, resturante throw away unsold food rather than donate so they can ensure their profit models are in place.

       January 18, 2013 at 2:48 pm | Reply
       • What?
         

         And here all this time I thought "donations" to qualified charities were 'tax deductions', which meant a lower taxable amount, which meant lower taxes paid on the same income and, therefore, more money in one's pocket in the end.

         Thank you for correcting me on this.

         January 18, 2013 at 3:18 pm | Reply
       • Porter
         

         No, restaurants throw away unused food instead of donating it for two reasons: the threat of being sued for food poisoning and because health boards across the country have made it illegal to give away "used food" (not scraps or leftovers, but anything that has been prepared or cooked but unsold) Please do not go blaming restaurants for obeying their local laws or being afraid of severe lawsuits.

         January 18, 2013 at 3:21 pm | Reply
     • Teeg
       

       GMOs and organic are two very different things. I would prefer organic, but would take non-oganic over GMOs. There is actually a reasonable supply of food, there is a problem of world-wide distribution

       January 19, 2013 at 8:30 pm | Reply
157. Jim
     

     But if my farm is next to your Monsanto farm, and your seed blows onto my land Monsanto thinks they now own my crop and can sue me. They can even make me destroy my seed bank if they believe it is contaminated with their seed.

     January 18, 2013 at 2:22 pm | Reply
     • Sam
       

       Only if you have acres upon acres of Monsanto seed planted with out proper license, may be you should read up on how a plot of land is planted and how the buffer rows are created and the distance from the nearest neighbor.

       January 18, 2013 at 2:56 pm | Reply
     • Dan
       

       Jim do you have specifics on this? I have never heard of it thanks!

       January 18, 2013 at 10:01 pm | Reply
158. Katrina R.
     

     I consider myself intelligent and rational. I look at the facts, the context, the intentions, etc. before rendering a decision. I've done that with Monsanto, and what have I concluded-Monsanto is power hungry and actively engaged in manipulating all the channels available to it e.g. (intensive lobbying, establishing long-term connections via "forged" (pun intended) relationships with the powers that be, "lavishly" donating to academic institutions to gain the scientific imprimatur-anyone who truly knows sceicne realizes that it is not actually that black & white-and literally inventing problems (like invasive species. oh please) to develop new marketing opportunities. You may not choose to call it evitl, but in my opinion, it is. They assume, or pretned to assume, that everything they do has some higher moral purpose, when in reality, that "moral purpose" is a PR pitch. Their only purpose is to gain market share and approach near monopoly so that they can control prices and consolidate power. These are not entirely evil aspirations. HOwever, it becomes evil when you dabble in toxic products and outrigth poisons and willfully manipulate the sceitnific and political regulatory channels to your advantage to the detriment of the public health. That is why Monsanto is evil. Thy do not care about the public health one iota. IN order to profit, they must convince the public that the posions they peddle are safe when almost every single independent analysis of their pesticides and GMO seeds demonstrates otherwise. Monsanto does not want to know the truth, and it actively tries to conceal or :manage" the truth so that it can grow revenue and gain more market share. This is evil. Companies have a MORAL responsibility to produce products that will not poison people or the environment without their informed consent. If there is a "need" for such products, then be upfront about it and make your case on the merits. I perosnally do not believe that pesticides and GMOs are necessary to feed the world in spite of their toxicity. Monsanto may very well beleive that. If so, however, they owe the public the truth-that the products they peddle are a lot more toxic than their paid-for science would lead peopel to believe.

     January 18, 2013 at 2:20 pm | Reply
159. Shawn
     

     It is your opinion; and it is a stupid one..

     January 18, 2013 at 2:19 pm | Reply
160. Charlie
     

     Stopped reading the article once the farmer acknowledged using Monsanto's EVIL biogenetically modified seeds. Way to continually poison our food supply with pesticide ridden garbage. I hope his farm suffers a 100 year drought! LOSER!

     January 18, 2013 at 2:19 pm | Reply
     • billybill
       

       That "evil" GE food and its creator have been said to have saved over a billion lives on this planet, I'm wondering how that is evil, or would you like to see population control through starvation, your are ridiculous.

       January 18, 2013 at 2:29 pm | Reply
       • wonderabout
         

         The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) urges doctors to prescribe non-GMO diets for all patients. They cite animal studies showing organ damage, gastrointestinal and immune system disorders, accelerated aging, and infertility. Human studies show how genetically modified (GM) food can leave material behind inside us, possibly causing long-term problems. Genes inserted into GM soy, for example, can transfer into the DNA of bacteria living inside us, and that the toxic insecticide produced by GM corn was found in the blood of pregnant women and their unborn fetuses.

         Numerous health problems increased after GMOs were introduced in 1996. The percentage of Americans with three or more chronic illnesses jumped from 7% to 13% in just 9 years; food allergies skyrocketed, and disorders such as autism, reproductive disorders, digestive problems, and others are on the rise. Although there is not sufficient research to confirm that GMOs are a contributing factor, doctors groups such as the AAEM tell us not to wait before we start protecting ourselves, and especially our children who are most at risk.

         The American Public Health Association and American Nurses Association are among many medical groups that condemn the use of GM bovine growth hormone, because the milk from treated cows has more of the hormone IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor 1)―which is linked to cancer.

         January 18, 2013 at 2:41 pm | Reply
         • Tom
           

           Wonderabout – very well said. It seems Monsanto is taking a page right out of Big Tabacco.

           January 18, 2013 at 2:54 pm |
161. CodeBlitz
     

     Not sure why this propaganda piece was written, but I will find out. Last I heard some new laws were passed allowing companies like Monsanto so sue bordering farmers if Monsanto seeds end up on organic farm lands. Also, it protects Monsanto from being sued when those seeds end up in Organic crops that can not be sold on the organic only market. Seems Monsanto is safe on both sides of the equation now and they want public opinion to steer clear from there typical EVIL tactics.

     January 18, 2013 at 2:15 pm | Reply
162. Randall "texrat" Arnold
     

     Monsanto attacks farmers for the seeds of OTHER farmers blowing onto their property. THAT is evil.

     Too much shilling in this article.

     January 18, 2013 at 2:11 pm | Reply
     • Chris
       

       Right you are. There are also 100,000 Suicides in India linked to Monstanto.

       January 18, 2013 at 2:17 pm | Reply
       • billybill
         

         You are gonna have to cite that source.

         January 18, 2013 at 2:29 pm | Reply
         • Kent Maxwell
           

           Here's your source: http://www.naturalnews.com/030913_Monsanto_suicides.html

           January 18, 2013 at 3:16 pm |
         • Guest
           

           Here are some links:

           1. http://www.firstpost.com/living/indias-farmer-suicides-film-indicts-us-corporate-greed-482009.html
           2. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1082559/The-GM-genocide-Thousands-Indian-farmers-committing-suicide-using-genetically-modified-crops.html
           3. http://ramanan50.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/monsanto-causes-three-lakh-farmers-suicide-in-india-movie/

           1. When a corporation has to fight labelling, it arouses my suspicion. What is there in it to hide, if you are condident about your product. Treat the Customer as an intelligent person and let them decide what they eat.
           2. When you force farmers from developing countries to buy into seeds every year at exorbitant prices, Monsanto causes their social and economic net support to fail leading to suicides. Agreed, Monsanto is a corporate company with their eyes on profitability but it should not come at a social cost.

           January 18, 2013 at 3:45 pm |
163. EXCUSE ME???
     

     Why is it that we only hear from ONLY Mr. Scott and no other corporate farmer on these issues??? Does anyone take notice that this is the same person answering all these questions?? Corporate farms ARE run by big money.. lock stock and barrel... its been proven! Monsanto designed specialized corn to lower the sperm count in men..proven... said it was their contribution to regulating the population on the planet.
     You Mr. Scott are trying to mislead everyone concerned. I have lived on a farm, I know how it works. BIG AG is petroleum based and run by corporations like Monsanto which started back in the earlier part of the 1900s. Quit lying to us and just tell us the truth for a change! Expert?? Naaaaa Monsanto bought and paid for? Oh yeah!

     January 18, 2013 at 1:35 pm | Reply
     • Brian
       

       I don't think it's too strange for me as the author of this article to reply to comments on said article. This is the same practice I use on my personal blog. If you would care to read all the comments you'd see there are already several farmers who have responded. I suppose you have to make the leap and take my word for it, but there's that link up there that takes you to a copy of my tech agreement I pulled from my file cabinet for the sole purpose of putting it out there for anyone to read for themselves. That way people can come to their own conclusions about it.

       January 18, 2013 at 1:44 pm | Reply
       • Charlie
         

         Deosn't matter what you say. You're crops are laden with pesticides (reason you use Monsanto seeds) and your article has NO credibility. STOP POISONING the US!!!!!

         January 18, 2013 at 2:21 pm | Reply
         • Lana
           

           Charlie, On what information are you basing all your anger? I am curious to know. Farmers are the BEST stewards of the land. If we don't keep it productive, we are out of a job, and many, MANY people are out of food. It is NEVER to our benefit to contaminate the land or poison the people who support us. I'm wondering from where your poisoned thoughts have grown.

           January 18, 2013 at 2:29 pm |
       • wonderabout
         

         Since you are the author then you are part of the problem and NOT part of the solution to healthy food.... NO ONE willingly eats food that has been saturated in herbicides. Monsanto is NOT the good guys and neither are you. The mono-crops, continued exploitation of the land, water, and air will in the not too distant future threaten our food security. Sorry but most of us are not buying your BS.... that paycheck from Monsanto must be a nice perk – but you are selling the rest of us down the proverbial stream without a paddle.... your support of Monsanto threatens the next generations.

         Monsanto is responsible for more than 50 United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund sites, attempts to clean up Monsanto Chemical's formerly uncontrolled hazardous waste sites.

         Monsanto's deadly legacy includes the production of Agent Orange, DDT, PCBs, and dioxin. Now massive aerial spraying of Roundup in Colombia is being used by the US and the Colombian government as a counter-insurgency tactic, contaminating food crops and poisoning villagers.

         GMO crops and their associated herbicides can harm birds, insects, amphibians, marine ecosystems, and soil organisms. They reduce bio-diversity, pollute water resources, and are unsustainable. For example, GMO crops are eliminating habitat for monarch butterflies, whose populations are down 50% in the US. Roundup herbicide has been shown to cause birth defects in amphibians, embryonic deaths and endocrine disruptions, and organ damage in animals even at very low doses. GMO canola has been found growing wild in North Dakota and California, threatening to pass on its herbicide tolerant genes on to weeds.

         On two occasions, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has caught scientists deliberately falsifying test results at research laboratories hired by Monsanto to study glyphosate. In the first incident involving Industrial Biotest Laboratories, an EPA reviewer stated after finding "routine falsification of data" that it was "hard to believe the scientific integrity of the studies when they said they took specimens of the uterus from male rabbits". In the second incident of falsifying test results in 1991, the owner of the lab (Craven Labs), and three employees were indicted on 20 felony counts, the owner was sentenced to 5 years in prison and fined $50,000, the lab was fined $15.5 million dollars and ordered to pay $3.7 million dollars in restitution. Craven laboratories performed studies for 262 pesticide companies including Monsanto.

         Monsanto has stated that the studies have been repeated, and that Roundup's EPA certification does not now use any studies from Craven Labs or IBT. Monsanto also said that the Craven Labs investigation was started by the EPA after a pesticide industry task force discovered irregularities.

         A major UN / World Bank sponsored report compiled by 400 scientists and endorsed by 58 countries concluded that GM crops have little to offer to the challenges of poverty, hunger, and climate change. Better alternatives are available, and the report championed organic farming as the sustainable way forward for developing countries. One of the best options is organic Permaculture.

         In 1999, a review of Roundup Ready soybean crops found that, compared to the top conventional varieties, they had a 6.7% lower yield. This so called "yield drag" follows the same pattern observed when other traits are introduced into soybeans by conventional breeding. Monsanto claims later patented varieties yield 7-11% higher than their poorly performing initial varieties, closer to those of conventional farming, although the company refrains from citing actual yields. Monsanto's 2006 application to USDA states that RR2 (mon89788) yields 1.6 bu less than A3244, the conventional variety that the trait is inserted into.

         This concentration of corporate power drives UP costs for farmers AND consumers. Retail prices for Roundup have increased from just $32 per gallon in December 2006, to $45 per gallon a year later, to $75 per gallon by June 2008 – a 134% price hike in less than 2 years. Because gene technologies can be patented, they also concentrate corporate power – by 2000 five pesticide companies, including Monsanto, controlled over 70% of all patents on agricultural biotechnology. And this concentration again drives up costs. According to Keith Mudd of the U.S.-based Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM), "The lack of competition and innovation in the marketplace has reduced farmers' choices and enabled Monsanto to raise prices unencumbered."

         January 18, 2013 at 2:58 pm | Reply
     • agsalesman
       

       Actually, I have also, as a farmer, taken extensive time to explain what we do in my blogs, http://www.agsalesman.blogger.com, and on my YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/agsalesman No, I'm not "bought and paid for", I have a choice, and I'm proud of the choices I make. So no, Brian is NOT the only farmer out talking about this. For a list of more farmers (orgainic, conventional, big, small) who are also sharing their story, visit http://www.agchat.org

       January 18, 2013 at 1:45 pm | Reply
       • Suzie Wilde
         

         If you scroll a little ways down, you can also see my reply and my blog http://kissedafarmer.blogspot.com/ . There are about a dozen different farmers who have commented on this article. Just use the scroll down function on your mouse.

         January 18, 2013 at 1:59 pm | Reply
       • Jim
         

         There was nothing in that article that led me to believe he had any right to his crops once he chose their seeds. I guess he, and others, justify it by knowing they are going to have the highest yields and make the most money they don't mind selling out the "man". Everything he said, basically he sold his rights in order to protect his investment. It is very similar to a physician whose practice is bought up by a big hospital. He no longer has the right to refer where he wants, bill how he wants etc... Bottom line is this gent got in bed with Monsanto and is happy to allow them to molest him and his farm.

         January 18, 2013 at 3:38 pm | Reply
         • What?
           

           Soooo . . . Monsanto tells him where he can sell his crops, and to whom? Monsanto also tells him what his yields must be? Monsanto dictates what he can receive as a "price" for his crop when he sells it? What happens if he gets less than 'set' price – does Monsanto make up the difference? Or if he sells it for "too much", does he have to turn around and give the excess to Monsanto?

           Can you possibly make a more idiotic argument?

           January 18, 2013 at 5:26 pm |
         • Brian
           

           I don't see where you're getting that I've sold out to protect my investment. Where's the protection from Monsanto. They don't guarantee me anything as far as results. I don't care what farming practices you employ, Mother Nature is going to dictate how good your crop is in any given year. Good or bad she wins every time. Now I can choose to buy crop insurance (an issue worthy of it's own full post), but that doesn't have anything to do with a seed company. Here's a link to where my harvest gets delivered http://thefarmerslife.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/where-does-my-harvest-go/

           January 18, 2013 at 6:27 pm |
     • SlowMoneyFarm
       

       Farm size doesn't make a difference in the ability to write blogs and articles. While there are many things Brian and Jeff and I do differently (the other two comments right here) there are many things that are common ground also. I'm not sure what he's hiding – he's shown the documents, even answered the age, price, miles and where he bought his truck and it still isn't enough? The size and type of farm varies, as does the customer base – but everyone strives to do the best we can with what we have to work with. ~ Jan

       January 18, 2013 at 2:05 pm | Reply
     • Ryan Goodman
       

       Mr. Scott's not the only farmer replying to comments on this article (a quick scroll will prove that) and he's not the only one trying to answer questions online. Here's a link to articles I've shared on Eatocracy that will help you to find other farmers online – http://eatocracy.cnn.com/tag/ryan-goodman-special-to-cnn/ Plus, here's a list on my blog of dozens of farmers online and willing to answer your questions if you're willing to listen – http://agricultureproud.com/blog-roll/

       January 18, 2013 at 2:15 pm | Reply
164. stanley
     

     Thanks; Brian for all the work you do to set the record straight.

     You should hear the names people call me for being contacted to Tyson. Slave ,sharecropper. extra.

     I try to explain to then that I chose to to be contacted because it works for me and I like it, I was not forced. and that there is good and bad in any business or job,and as for Tyson requiring me to do upgrades, it's not a problem for me, I want do them before they ask anyway, because the upgrades help me to be more efficient and take better care of the animals and any good farm or business needs to continually improve to do a good job.
     But they often walk away, thinking I just don't know better, because, they seen Food Inc. and are sure they know the truth :(

     January 18, 2013 at 1:27 pm | Reply
165. Kristie
     

     Mr. Scott, thank you for your straightforward, candid, and transparent piece. I am very proud to have grown up on a family farm, and to be able to continue our family farm with my husband. I applaud your bravery – thank you for being a voice of agriculture. It's not easy to have conversations with people who aren't willing to listen or who attack you. I am compelled to add a positive comment to this post and II believe that more of us need to stand up for agriculture. As farmers, my husband and I are very proud to help provide food for our state and nation. As consumers, we are very fortunate to have choices in what we are able to purchase because of the variety in production agriculture.

     January 18, 2013 at 1:03 pm | Reply
166. Jeff
     

     Great blog. I am not a farmer, in fact I am the first generation of my family that wasn't born & raised on a farm. I'm glad to hear that all the information I've heard and read is predominantly false.

     January 18, 2013 at 12:39 pm | Reply
     • Brian
       

       Gotta, ask. Which info are you talking about?

       January 18, 2013 at 1:04 pm | Reply
167. dan
     

     This farmer likes how he does things and that is okay. He addresses only one side of the small farmer issue. There re farmers out there who have other stories, who have had problems just trying to do their kind of farming outside of the biotech and who have been subject to aggressive actions. The criticism of Monsanto expansion takes note of the global activities towards small farmers, in Argentina, in India, all over – and not just the contractual structure in the US. The perception that Monsanto et al have undue influence comes from having the Monsanto rider in our legislation, our politicians actually threatening the EEC to push the Monsanto agenda. The company has too many exemptions, and is subsidized by taxpayer money, which is unbelievable. Add to that the environmental degradation, and increasing evidence that there are health effects related to GMO's, the issues tend to get consolidated around Monsanto and its affiliates. I was forwarded an email from a researcher in biotech who totally believes in what he is doing, but he wrote that he alse believes that Monsanto is too big! I think that when people attack Monsanto using the small farmer argument, it is just a shorthand for the multiple issues surrounding Monsanto and its monopolistic trend. I will not buy GMO's because I do not want stuff embedded in my food, etc etc. and I do want to have the choice of labelling. It is ;fine by me for Brian to do what he does, but i want the choice to not buy his product and have things labelled. If our food is properly labelled (every individual apple or tomato at the store is now labelled, how hard to add one or two more digits?) then we should let market forces dictate if people want to buy Brian's product. However, Monsanto et al put out a whopping $47k, tax deductible to them, to put out deceptive advertising, not to save consumers money, but to keep them ignorant in order to get their money in a captive market. When poster write about the hate, I think this is part of the frustration and powerlessness people feel in the face of big money, and in the face of being forced to subsidize something they don't want to. I am sorry it makes farmers like Brian feel attacked, he does not address at all the experience of farmers who choose not to go his way, for many reasons logical to them and their businesses. There is ample and increasing evidence of Monsanto's bullying practices that some insiders might not experience.

     January 18, 2013 at 12:36 pm | Reply
     • Bob
       

       Good post! It's good to read this farmer's perspective, and he has a right to do it the way he wants, but as someone who's living depends on his current practices, he's not in a position to be critical of the negatives Monsanto and the rest of big ag's strategies are placing on the populace in terms of fighting labelling and harmful health effects of some GMO's.

       January 18, 2013 at 1:37 pm | Reply
     • Vonda
       

       Re: labeling. We already have labeling: it's called organic. I can't imagine the money spent and headaches that would be caused from trying to keep GMOs separate from (and the ensuing scandals when someone made a mistake and the supply was contaminated–rice, 2006). Have you ever been through a line at the elevator, or dealt with harvest equipment and transport? I will absolutely grow what there is a market for–that's how I make my living–but I can't see where the positive outweighs the negative on labeling EVERYTHING. Especially when we already have the organic option if you wish to avoid GMOs in your food.

       January 18, 2013 at 1:48 pm | Reply
       • ColinO
         

         Unfortunately, the 'Organic' label is not really regulated. Organic can be placed on a lot of food products, so long as it meets a bare minimum of requirements. And it CERTAINLY does not mean that the food you are buying is Non-GMO. From his perspective, all of his practices with these companies are above board, and maybe they are, and that's fine, but that doesn't change the fact genetically modified food poses SERIOUS health risks to society as a whole. So I guess the question is more about morality and ethics...how can you be willing to grow and sell food stuffs that many studies are shown to have serious health risks?

         There is a reason people want the labell, and it's a good reason, people WANT to know what they're eating. They want to know if their food is natural, and where it comes from. They want to know if it has been touched by bio-engineering. Is that truly so unreasonable? Are you actually saying you want to deny people that right? There's a reason you don't want to put that label on the product, it's because if people knew what was in the food, that it was GM, then perhaps they wouldn't buy it.

         January 18, 2013 at 2:15 pm | Reply
         • Vonda
           

           If growing 100% conventional was more profitable, that's what I would do. It doesn't matter to me. As it is, the majority of what I grow is genetically engineered because it is beneficial to my bottom line to do so. I don't farm for the fun of it. I love it and am passionate about it, but would cease to grow a crop if there was no money to be made. We are no different from any other business.

           Also, I don't have a problem with people knowing what is in their food, but I am highly skeptical of the practicality and cost effectiveness of doing so. And while we're at it, consumers need to be educated about what GMO is and is not. It is not seed "soaked in Round-up". The plants do NOT have herbicides inside them–they are resistant to damage when sprayed. You can still harm them by spraying at the wrong time or using too high a rate. Bt *is* inside the plant, but it is totally natural, and is used by the organic industry as well. You can breed for herbicide resistant plants the old fashioned way, but it will take longer. Bio-tech is a short cut. And for every study saying GMOs are bad, there is at least one saying otherwise. You are more than welcome to believe what you want and pick the studies that suit your beliefs. I'm good with that. Just don't be one of the people spreading lies about agriculture. The replies on this one blog post are alarmingly FULL of them... :-P

           January 18, 2013 at 2:52 pm |
         • carolyncares
           

           The organic label is the only food label that has set standards and rules in place. We've been farming organically since 1998. It took 36 months and loads of paperwork and many inspections to receive our certificate. We have to fill out extensive paper work every year, and we are inspected every year. We have to show where every load of crop was sold, what our soil tests are, and receipts for everything we used (seeds, and manure mostly). We have to write down the dates that we plant, what variety and the source of the seed, when we dragged, when we cultivated, when we used the flame weeder (corn only), and when our workers walked through and did the hand weeding. Every thing is documented. If they spot check us, and there are chemical residues in the tissue samples, we lose our certification. For us that would be devastating.
           Brian has done a good job of explaining what he does, and has tried to be open about things. I have no problem with his methods of farming, and he has no problems with mine. We both want to provide you with a choice. If you don't want to eat GMO products, you can buy foods with the certified organic label.

           January 18, 2013 at 11:28 pm |
168. Vonda
     

     We farmers can't win for losing. We are accused often of being secretive about what we do, and then when someone tells the God's honest truth with cold, hard facts, he is accused of lying? WTH, people?

     Btw, our guys are off from mid November to the first of January. Other than that, we are all are working regularly, including many, many weekends during planting, harvest, and while irrigating. Guess what tho? My mom, dad, husband and I are doing office work in the winter while they are off, in addition to what we do through the crop season. Plus, I have a horse business on the side that is absolutely 365 days a year, and my husband has a "day job". We also have 2 young kids to raise. Don't tell me we don't work.

     January 18, 2013 at 12:04 pm | Reply
     • Kristi
       

       AMEN!!

       January 18, 2013 at 12:12 pm | Reply
     • Barb
       

       I don't think anyone is saying farmers don't work, Vonda. People, myself included, are just very concerned about the long-term effects of all this great 'technology" ie: synthetic substances and chemicals in our food supply. Of course the huge corporations, being entirely profit-driven, don't consider the potential grave effects on the earth and human health.

       January 18, 2013 at 3:26 pm | Reply
       • Vonda
         

         Someone in an earlier comment said farmers only work 2 weeks out of the year and spend the rest of the time figuring out how to grab more taxpayer money. Or something to that effect. It kind of gets old hearing crap like that.

         January 18, 2013 at 7:03 pm | Reply
169. Kevin
     

     Brian does a very good job at explaining in his blog. I too am a farmer. I primarily grow corn and soybeans in Wisconsin (GMO and NON-GMO). I also am an agronomist working for a small independent Ag retailer where I sell seed, fertilizers and chemicals (plant protectants) I am not forced to plant or use any product that I do not wish to use. I do sign Technology agreements as well. They do suggest a lot of things, but as long as you do not save the seed for replanting, you can do what you wish.. As far as a company forcing you to buy certain chemicals or products? That is false. They do have incentives to "bundle" purchases. Almost every company use those tactics, it is in no way binding you to do it.

     January 18, 2013 at 11:58 am | Reply
170. Mark
     

     Simply amazing the anti-GMO comments...proof that people will believe anything you throw at them. However, I'll make one point on all of them: go to ANY article, website or blog that makes the same general comments on GMOs that Brian has made and you'll get the same posts: Agent orange, Monsanto is the devil, seeds soaked in chemicals (I find that one laugh-out-loud stupid), super weeds, GMOs cause cancer...and this one is the best: if you are pro-agriculture using these new technologies you are a "shill".

     Well, I want to call DLG and those ilk out as well...you are shills for the anti-GMO crowd. You continually spout your drivel, and from looking at the consistency of the wording, I'm sure you are being paid to do it. You come up with the same old stuff, the wording seldom changes, and the timestamps show that you all get the memo to type something out at the same time.

     Now who is the shill?

     January 18, 2013 at 11:55 am | Reply
     • Barb
       

       Then what I want to know... is who is paying off these "non-GMO shills"?? The big, glaring differnce between the sides is this: Monsanto/Big Ag have a profit-driven agenda. The Organic/Natural/non-GMO foods movement is entirely driven by concern for human, animal and environmental health.

       January 18, 2013 at 3:22 pm | Reply
     • Obi_donkenobi
       

       Uh, that would be you, shilling for the ag corps. Right-wingers always say, "let the market decide," but then fight tooth and nail to resist providng info about their products (aka, "labeling"). They do it in Europe, and surprise! Nobody buys GMO foods – that's what the market decided in Europe. Prop 37 innocently tried to get labeling of GMOs into law in California, and was hammered/defeated by tens of millions of corporate dollars to squash that measure.

       I don't know if GMOs are good to eat or not – nobody does; the technology is too new to test for long-term effects. But if I prefer to not eat them, don't I have the right to know which foods do or don't contain them?

       January 18, 2013 at 3:46 pm | Reply
171. Beth
     

     How do you justify the use of Round Up and other chemicals harmful to humans and wildlife once it reaches water? And speaking of water: my third generation family farms have seen first-hand the serious depletion of water resources that are necessary to irrigate these crops. So we stopped. Sure, we make less money and work harder this way. But we leave a better legacy for our children, grandchildren, and all who might depend upon the health of this land.
     My father already has Parkinson's Disease, caused by exposure to pesticides.
     Just having a family farm doesn't necessarily make you a good steward.

     January 18, 2013 at 11:33 am | Reply
     • Brian
       

       Beth, I'm lucky enough to live in an area where I don't have to irrigate anything. There are irrigation rigs around on sandy soils, but Indiana is nothing like the plains states. I'm really not that familiar with irrigation since I don't have first hand experience. Nutrients and chemicals running off in water should be a concern for any farmer regardless of production method. Even in a organic system manure can be an issue, especially with phosporous. We use some manure too. If I have stuff running into drainage ditches, that's literally money down the drain. I don't want to lose my nutrients, etc. I don't think anyone could prevent all losses, but on our farm we are starting to plant cover crops in order to boost yields, conserve soil, scavenge nutrients, and improve soil health. Check out http://www.plantcovercrops.com.

       January 18, 2013 at 11:45 am | Reply
172. Alecia
     

     That's nice that you do have more freedom than most think, but all those GMO terms and pesticide names have made me lose my appetite.

     January 18, 2013 at 11:32 am | Reply
     • Barb
       

       Exactly, Alecia!

       January 18, 2013 at 3:30 pm | Reply
       • Stacy
         

         One of the primary boons of GMOs such as Roundup Ready is the need for reduced herbicide application because Roundup and other similar glyphosate herbicides control almost all weeds. Without this, multiple different herbicides (and possibly extra herbicide applications) would be needed to control the many different types of weeds (grass and broadleaf) in one field.

         January 18, 2013 at 6:30 pm | Reply
173. Kendra
     

     Kudos to you, Brian! I am a farmer's wife in Texas and you hit the nail on the head. It saddens me to see the hatred spewing from the mouths of those who attack our way of life. But I've come to realize that those same people will never change. They are as stiff-necked as they accuse us of being. Keep up the good work – those who want the truth will be eager to hear it – those who don't – well, they never will.

     January 18, 2013 at 11:30 am | Reply
     • Brian
       

       Thank you, Kendra.

       January 18, 2013 at 6:30 pm | Reply
174. sheepwriter
     

     When farmers attend winter crop management meetings, there are usually numerous seed companies that have informational booths and technicians to help farmers select the best seeds for their operations. Farmers don't have to purchase from a particular company, but often stick with a company that sells what works on that farmer's farm.

     Technology means farmers can use fewer chemicals, and in many cases, less tillage which means less erosion and better water quality. Why deny farmers the use of technology when every other successful industry in the world uses it?

     As far as large acreage – what if you own a small pizza restaurant in town and it becomes so successful that your children want to continue the business? An expansion might be necessary so that there will be enough revenue for more than one family. Farmers are no different...if sons and daughters want to continue farming the family farm, they'll likely need more land in order to support multiple families as well as pay for the equipment necessary.

     Please take the time to learn about technology in agriculture...it's the reason you're eating today.

     January 18, 2013 at 11:30 am | Reply
175. Jebbers
     

     Please answer the following questions
     1) Do you have to use a stronger insecticide/herbicide then you did 10 years age? % wise how much stronger?

     2)How is the worm population in your soil

     3)Has Monsanto sued farmers who did not use Monsanto seed, but have cross polination in there corn.

     January 18, 2013 at 11:24 am | Reply
     • Josh
       

       What? Question 3...how would he know any more about that topic than you? He signed a contract with Monsanto...he isn't in their legal department. That's like me asking you if you have an ATT contract, and when you say yes, I ask you how many lawsuits have been filed against the company for various reasons. If you want to know, do the research.
       Having said that, while I am not a big fan of Monsanto's stranglehold on our food supply, I hardly believe they are evil. And everyone who bellyaches about it...well, 95-98% of them anyway, are hypocrites, because the corn grown by these farmers under contract with Monsanto, is a part of every aspect of their life.

       January 18, 2013 at 12:23 pm | Reply
       • ColinO
         

         That information is easily accessible. As a big farmer, and one who deals with Monsanto, I'm sure he'd be well aware of major legal cases such as these that are occurring in his 'field.' They affect him.

         And those people are not hypocrites. They simply have no choice, because it is in (practically), everything. It's not easy eating a corn free diet, I know, because my family does. We meticulously go through ingredients to make sure what we're eating is corn free. No corn, corn starch, corn syrup, etc. Not to mention things like Dextrose (guess what, it's corn) or Vanilla. Someone might say, there's no corn in vanilla. Well, technically you're right, however, vanilla beans, in the extracting process, are soaked in Ethyl-alcohol, which comes from, you guess it, corn. The list goes on and on. You seriously can't call someone a hypocrite for that.

         January 18, 2013 at 2:26 pm | Reply
     • Kim
       

       Family Farmer? Really? You can't tell me that you are using less pesticides when my well is polluted with them. We have predominately corn and soybeans around us (yeah, I know what corn and soybeans look like in the field) and they are sprayed no less then 2 – 3 times a year. No-till is wonderful, if you weren't dumping 500 gallons of toxic pesticide on the fields to get the winter weeds and groundcover off every spring. Then you go back in early spring and/or late summer and spray again. Less, how can this be less? I have less birds, less bugs, and less bees at my place then every and you can not tell me that is a good thing. I have more and more friends that are turning up gluten-tolerant, allergies, and other intolerance that were never even heard of 20 yrs ago, that's better? Brian is not a family-farmer, he is Big-Ag at the core.

       January 18, 2013 at 12:49 pm | Reply
     • Jebbers
       

       Ya, I spray a field that kills EVERYTHING but the GMO plant and its good for me. The worms are dead, every other plant is dead, and how about the birds that drink the water runoff close to spray time.

       Do you know how many steps away Monsantos DC office if from the White House, Like 2 blocks, Wake up,

       January 18, 2013 at 2:42 pm | Reply
     • Brian
       

       Rates vary based on conditions, but going by the specified label rates for each product is the best option. That being said, some pretty high rates have been put on weeds that still continue to put up a fight. We can't rely on one mode of action like Roundup. Not all herbicides, insecticides, fungicides kill in the same fashion. It's important to rotate these methods and we strive to do that on our farm. Biotechnology is great, but we can't forget basic agronomy if we are going to keep these tools viable.

       I don't have worm data handy, but I can tell you I see earthworms all the time. Sometimes after a rain, the roads are littered with worms crossing the road. I'm not sure why they do this, but I'd like to find out. I was digging into our ryegrass cover crop this week and found earthworms in each scoop. http://www.plantcovercrops.com

       I can't speak on Monsanto's behalf about lawsuits. I'd like to think the only farms they have sued are farms that have been accidentally "contaminated" but knowingly took measures to harvest and replant those seeds anyway. I cannot state that as a fact though. I don't work there as some commenters would like to think.

       January 18, 2013 at 6:48 pm | Reply
     • paul
       

       That is one of the reasons GMO crops exist – there are less volumes needed, and less toxic, farm chemicals being used because of GMO crops. Bt is a naturally occuring insecticide, it has been added to the stalks and roots of some crops to keep bugs away. Now many crops are using 1/2 or less amount of insecticides as they used to. For weeds, we used to have to mix 3-4 different products, some of them harsher and long lasting in the soil, to try to control the weeds. Now, we are able to use less hazardous, less toxic herbicides. Herbicde and insecticide use started after WWII, and really took off and covered most crops by the 1960s. We are in a much better place today, than we were back in the 1960s. There were some truely dangerous, terrible pesticides back then, no one would want to go back to that. The GMO crops let us use safer and less products.

       I am not aware of Big M going after someone that had pollen drift issues. Thay have gone after people that intentionally tried to create an intentional cross-pollination so they could create their own gmo crop from the intentional cross pollination. That Percy fella from Canada comes to mind, if you really look into the case as it unwond, he got 90% cross pollination in one year – that not an act of wind driven pollination, that was as it turned out, an intentional act.

       Now, I myself don't care for anyone holding a patent on life forms, but that is the law we have today, and what we live under. I think many farmers will join you if you wish to get that law changed. But today, it is what it is, and we work with the laws we have, as Percy and the other few that tried what he did should have done. You do understand, these few are not your heroes; they were trying to stal the GMO techonlogy for themselves and create their own GMO crops.....

       Just a different perspective. takes a little research but you can find these facts for yourself if interested. You certainly don't need to like GMO products, or use them. Glad we have choices and options and good for that. Hating on farmers, or hating on one company seems a bit odd tho, and not very productive.

       January 19, 2013 at 2:55 pm | Reply
176. spynnal
     

     I take no issue with our farmers and the choices they make. More power to them. Personally, I try to avoid GMO's when possible (which is not often, given their proliferation), and I think more and more people will try to in the future, much like other countries have. That's a personal choice, nothing more.

     I do wish our farmers nothing but the best for their hard work. But I think the will suffer in the long run as more people embrace non-GMO products.

     Either way, farmers have every right to run their farms how they chose, and people should not attack them for doing so.

     January 18, 2013 at 11:13 am | Reply
     • SlowMoneyFarm
       

       If consumers want other options *and buy them* then people will grow them. If there is demand great enough that farmers already growing these choices sell out and more is needed, there will be other farmers rise to fill the demand.

       January 18, 2013 at 1:53 pm | Reply
177. Sweet Home Minnesota
     

     Because I am married to a conventional crop farmer I understand the language used in this article. I understand the effectiveness of GMO's, hybrids, weed control, and such.
     Being raised as a city girl by a mother who bought everything Organic, raw milk, homeopathic meds, and the like, I can ALSO understand the concern the commentators here have. I can see how you would assume that Brian is a "hand puppet" of Monsanto. What I don't understand and what I don't like seeing is the down right disrespect some people here have for today's modern farmers. Almost every part of business utilizes new research, equipment, technology to become more efficient in our growing world. We all have to! We have to adapt and change to be successful.
     Farmers using GMO technologies, to me, is no different than medicine creating new drugs to combat AIDS or Cancer. Being proactive to try and eliminate a bigger problem.
     It's also difficult to really get a feel for someone through an on line conversation. I have met Brian and many others who have commented here and I am happy to call them all friends. Before you assume they are all Big Ag evil doers, remember that they are humans, with families, just like the reast of America.

     January 18, 2013 at 11:07 am | Reply
     • Paul
       

       Your analogy of modern medicine developing drugs for AIDS and cancer as a good thing falls flat when you consider the abysmal record of pharmaceutical companies bringing medicines to market that are extremely dangerous, even deadly and are often approved under very suspect R & D methods and often out right fabrications of research. Ever here of thalidomide or the thousands of FDA approved drugs that have been recalled over the last fifty years?

       January 18, 2013 at 12:10 pm | Reply
       • Josh
         

         How do you take a point like that, and skew it to make a point about pharmaceutical companies? She wasn't defending them, or saying that they do no wrong. She was making an example of technological progress. You are just as bad as the others when it comes to complaining. Yeah, you may not agree with GMOs or Monsanto, and I'd agree with you on some of that...but to say there's no benefit to GMO, and to spew rhetoric you heard from documetaries like King Corn and others is foolish.

         January 18, 2013 at 12:27 pm | Reply
178. Suzie Wilde
     

     Great, straight forward article Brian, from a cotton farmer in Texas who has eliminated all insecticide usage on our farm thanks to GM cotton. Not one drop was used the past 3 years. As far as Round Up goes, we are just to cheap to buy it and always use a generic glyphosate. You can see our operation at http://kissedafarmer.blogspot.com

     January 18, 2013 at 11:00 am | Reply
179. Kristi
     

     I rarely engage in these types of debates because most people will say things here they'd never dream of saying in person. But I had read enough of people's farmer bashing! I farm with husband's family (2500 acres & 100+ cow/calf pairs) and am shocked at the number of comments on here that are negative to the way in which farmers work and make a living. You can choose to disagree with Monsanto and GMO's but to attack the farmer himself is disgusting. How many of you complaining put food in your mouth today? How many are wearing clothes? How many got up at 6 am in single digit weather to feed and check on animals? How many have REALLY ever gotten dirty and exhausted from WORKING? Not working out in a gym, but actually PHYSICALLY worked (and by the way when you do that, more than your fingernails are dirty)? Until you have done those things you are not very credible to me in your petty arguements. There will always be a variety of farmers and farming practices and I think that is part of what makes it so great! We have choices....including whether you want to produce your own food if you want to complain about how someone else does it. And, by the way Brian's agreement is ligit.

     January 18, 2013 at 10:44 am | Reply
     • BEEEEEE
       

       My argument is how can you fine farm owners be so happy to be in business with one of the leading heath and environmental offenders. Lets not forget that the big M has harshly affected a lot of your brethren As a consumer I do my best not to fund Monsanto or Brian. Your heart of America speeches are mute. I do have the up most respect for farmers who hold strong against such companies. While I know i cant completely avoid their products Ill will go out of my way to make sure others understand. So if I have to hijack an opinion piece so be it. Oh and I get up at 5AM and walk out in what ever whether mother nature has decided for the day and I play with my dogs before I go to work outside.

       January 18, 2013 at 11:39 am | Reply
       • Josh
         

         Here we go again...good lord. It's impossible not to buy something directly or indirectly related to Brian and Monsanto...corn IS everything. And the argument is valid that Monsanto has put the future health of people behind other motives. But answer me this, what was the alternative at the time this started? We had a serious boom in population, and farming was already on the downturn. Farmers were in a tight spot, and Monsanto lended them a hand. You can sit on your tower and act like you would never do something like that, but you'd be a liar, because you obviously can't grasp the thought of choosing between signing with Monsanto, or trying to do everything by yourself and running the risk of losing everything and not being able to provide for your family.

         January 18, 2013 at 12:31 pm | Reply
     • beachfitsc
       

       The part of Monsanto that family farmers deal with is such a small part of the company. People have issue with Monsanto other than what they do with family farmers. Kristi I grew up in farm country and worked on farms. I understand that your job is 365 days a year. I understand that your income is hard to get and not guaranteed. It sounds like you are tired of it. I don't read anyone bashing farmers and I think they should be able to choose to farm how they want, however to act like Monsanto is legit in all their actions and to shine a positive light on them is misleading. Yes, they may be that way with your farm and other "family farms" in the US, however they are not forthright or admirable in their actions with others or their lack of concern with the health of people they provide products for. Let people farm with with GMO seed, a lot of people don't care and are happy to buy those products. However, don't fund against legislation for labeling GMO products. It leaves people like me, who won't touch them, in the dark. My grandpa was an organic farmer and that's the way I'd like to live. My parents grew up in the chemical farming age, and I think there is a negative difference in their lives and health. Creating GMO's and insisting they are safe when you do not know is not responsible, they same way creating a new drug and insisting it is safe is not. By the way, I have a gym, where I work from 6:30 am til 8 pm taking care of other people. My kids are forced to be there too, much like your kids probably spend most of their time on the farm. At least they are with you. I don't have to work there 365 days a year. I can close on a holiday, but my athletes who depend on me can and do text me any time, and unlike animals and crops who must follow my mandate, they do not always follow my advice on cue. Taking care of people is more complicated than taking care of animals. I work hard physically and then do more work late at night administratively, but I also understand how hard your job is. That's part of having your own business. There are also many benefits to living on a farm that other people don't have. My kids can't run around outside in the grass by me opening up my front door. We have to go to a park.

       January 18, 2013 at 1:57 pm | Reply
180. agsalesman
     

     I farm with my family about 3 hours north of Brain in Michigan, farm a similar number of acres, and use similar production techniques. In no way, am I beholden to Monsanto, Dow, or DuPont. I choose to do business with then because they have the best product to offer for my farm. I have bought seed from other family owned seed companies, and to be quite honest, their product didn't work as well for me. I work in the field every day, in some way shape or form, and have complete control of every aspect of my farm. Please feel free to check out my farm blog at http://www.blogger.com/agsalesman or my video channel at http://www.youtube.com/agsalesman

     Regards,

     Jeff VanderWerff

     January 18, 2013 at 9:22 am | Reply
181. Ryan Goodman
     

     There are many folks in this comment stream who have commented without reading the article or listening to the things Brian has to share. You ask for transparency from farmers and when one shares his experience and opinions you call him a liar and claim he is paid off by Big Ag. Get off your high rockers, open your eyes and be willing to accept there is more out there than what you've heard from anti-modern Ag technology groups. Even if you don't agree, at least be willing to listen to what the farmers have to say. How do you expect more transparency from farmers when you attack them for trying?

     Brian is a great family guy, an honest farmer, and I've had the privilege of meeting him in person. I thank him for sharing this information, knowing the naysayers would remain negative. I'm not a crop farmer, but through conversations with farmers like Brian, I've learned a great deal more about other sectors of Agriculture. I encourage others to do the same.

     Thank you Brian! Great job putting your thoughts and experience on paper.
     –Ryan

     January 18, 2013 at 8:33 am | Reply
     • Terry Ward
       

       It's difficult to read properly when one has "GMOs -Are-Murdering-Us-In -Our -Beds" tattooed on the back of one's eyelids.

       January 18, 2013 at 9:39 am | Reply
182. Kat
     

     When you sign an agreement to anything, you become a slave to it.

     January 18, 2013 at 8:28 am | Reply
     • boucherfarms2011
       

       Kat, All due respect but if you take the time to read the agreement we farmers make, (like the one Brian has linked to), you will find that it is reasonable and does not bind us farmers to much at all. As Brian said, we agree not to replant the seeds we grow. The thing is, we dont want to anyway. Seeds that are kept back and regrown do not yield near as much as seeds that are new. This has been proven time and time again on my and other farmers farms. If you have any questions about farming, I encourage you to ask farmers like Brian or myself as opposed to getting all of your info from the internet. Afterall when your car breaks down you call a mechanic right? Thank you and have a great day!

       January 18, 2013 at 9:14 am | Reply
     • What?
       

       A contract is a contract. If you don't like the terms, don't enter into the agreement. Nobody's holding a gun to your head.

       It's that simple.

       January 18, 2013 at 9:41 am | Reply
       • Brian
         

         Exactly correct.

         January 18, 2013 at 9:44 am | Reply
         • Jim
           

           But in the world of competition and profit it may feel like a gun is to your head. This is particularly true when faced with losing a farm due to a drought. Monsanto Sweeps in with their seeds and you will probably use them in a time of hardship. The problem is that once you do this you are owned. So in essence there may not be a gun to your head but your livelihood may be at stake. Big Ag is what PEDs are to sports. At least athletes don't taint the modify they food supply.

           January 18, 2013 at 3:44 pm |
     • CRAIGT
       

       That is just a plain and simple ignorant statement. You obviously have zero understanding of contracts, slavery or both
       1. A contract is entered into willingly, there is an element of choice, the choices may not all be great but that doesn't even begin to compare to being kidnapped and shoved into the putrid hold of a ship with no agreement or even understanding of what is happening.
       2. A contract can be broken. there will be penalties, such as a fine or loss of ability to do business with that company in the future. You will NOT be hunted down with dogs and whipped or have your children sold away from you.

       January 18, 2013 at 11:19 am | Reply
     • Josh
       

       Go back to your liberal Poli-Sci classes and stay there. You aren't a slave when you sign a contract...this isn't a movie.

       January 18, 2013 at 12:34 pm | Reply
     • Dan
       

       "When you sign an agreement to anything, you become a slave to it." Have you ever borrowed money? Perhaps to buy a car or a home? Were you a slave to the lending institution? Have you rented a living space? Were you a slave to your landlord? How about credit card companies? Please tell us more!

       January 18, 2013 at 8:46 pm | Reply
183. daringrimm
     

     The comments here are interesting.. Like Brian, I am a "real farmer". My father-in-law is a real farmer too, he farms organically, and he dislikes Monsanto, but he does not have near the level of hate I hear in these comments.. it all just confuses me. Brian and I farm very similarly, although I'm a couple of states west, I don't raise popcorn and I raise cattle as well as grow crops. I haven't signed one of these Monsanto agreements for several years because I don't purchase seed from Monsanto. No conspiracy there that I know of, just business decision that other products from other companies offer me more of what I want. They have the same basic agreement that Brian outlined above though. If Monsanto paid Brian or I to say/write this, they must have forgot to actually send the check! This is simply how business is done in a modern farming environment.

     January 18, 2013 at 8:02 am | Reply
184. Aryua Shahtheidd
     

     Sounds like a great deal of paranoia & propaganda in the comments & the article.

     January 18, 2013 at 7:16 am | Reply
185. fred c. dobbs
     

     Talk about a truck load of Bull Sh!TT , this guy is a MONSANTO STOOGE, talk to any grass roots farmer, and they HATE MONSANTO with a PASSION, real farmers have been cleaning and saving seeds for over a 100 years. MONSANTO has put more Farmers out of BUSINEES the DROUGHT.

     January 18, 2013 at 1:53 am | Reply
     • boucherfarms2011
       

       Fred, since the adoption of Hybrid corn seeds decades ago, "real farmers" like Brian and myself have stopped saving seeds. Why you ask? The answer is simple. Hybrid seeds simply yield much much more than non hybrid seeds. When you plant a hybrid seed (which has nothing to do with GMO because its not GMO) the resulting seeds produced are not hybrid seeds. Planting those harvested seeds will indeed result in more seeds to harvest, but not near as many as if you planted a new hybrid seed. To be clear, companies like Monsanto are not MAKING us farmers purchase seeds from them annually, we want to, it is our choice to. Thank you and have a great day!

       January 18, 2013 at 9:20 am | Reply
       • What?
         

         No, I believe you're lying, too.

         After all, I'm sure that my extended family who have grown corn and soybeans over 50 years saved their seed bags from year 1 and rebagged (and sealed) their seed in those same paper bags for all these years. I mean, all you guys have your own equipment for sewing the seals on those bags every year, don't you?

         I have to batting at least .800 on what I said would happen in my original post.

         January 18, 2013 at 9:38 am | Reply
       • What?
         

         P.S. – I hope you picked up on the sarcasm in my other reply.

         January 18, 2013 at 2:17 pm | Reply
       • Dan
         

         Thank you boucherfarms2011!!!!!

         January 18, 2013 at 8:42 pm | Reply
     • Josh
       

       Show me a statistic that says Monsanto has put more farmers out of business than the Drought. I know you're ultra hip and enviro-conscious, but try removing your head from 100% organic ass and do some research. People are entitled to opinions, I get that. I don't get why people take that phrase,and use it as an excuse to spew BS rhetoric all over discussion forums. Try sounding educated and proper when you comment, and people might take you seriously. No?, then I'll leave you to your documentary facts and propaganda.

       January 18, 2013 at 12:38 pm | Reply
186. boardwalk2nj
     

     It is my understanding that the genetically altered seed is soaked in Round-Up before it is sold. If so, it does not sound like a farmer has much choice in choosing the product to control weeds. I'm sure it saves $. I have read that fields which are planted using their seed and Round Up may be contaminated and dangerous to living creatures that may wander into the area. (Don't need barbed wire or traps for those cute little animals and perhaps a child or 20....saves $ in the long run, I guess). I have not seen any medical studies on the physical impact to humans who ingest these produce, plants, grains, rice etc. Or of drinking the milk of cows that were fed the genetically altered corn and grain. Where are the studies? Why is our country one of the only to prohibit or not require that the consumer knows where their food originates and information as to it's safety? Could it be that the corporate lobbyists and our representatives do not care a whit about the health and well-being of you or me? Feeding the masses foods that may cause catastrophic health consequences seems beneficial to only those who are reaping the financial benefits from selling the foods and the pharmaceutical firms that will stand to profit as our symptoms arise. The funeral directors may make a killing as well.

     January 18, 2013 at 1:31 am | Reply
     • farmnwife
       

       Your understanding is completely wrong & don't believe everything you read.
       Seed is never "soaked" in RoundUp. Roundup only works when sprayed directly on a growing plant.
       If you want to be an informed consumer than do it. Nothing is stopping you but your own bias.

       January 18, 2013 at 9:06 am | Reply
       • What?
         

         But . . . but . . . he/she read it on the internet, so it has to be true, right?

         January 18, 2013 at 9:33 am | Reply
     • boucherfarms2011
       

       boardwalk2nj, Thank you for commenting. First, let me introduce my self. My name is Matt Boucher and I farm in NC IL. I have been farming all of my life and have been a seed provider to other area farmers in my area for about 8 years now. I support all forms of production including Organic, NON GMO and GMO and see benefits and drawbacks in all of them. Let me address a few things. First, our seeds we plant are never soaked in Roundup or anything else. If they were, the moisture would cause them to swell up and begin to germinate before they were even shipped to the farm to be planted. As for the healthfulness of GMO crops and the testing behind them, GMO is arguably the most tested form of food products there ever was/is. The fact is, GMO has never been proven to harm anyone or cause anyones death. Yes, there has been speculation, but there has never been any direct link saying YES GMO is to blame. Keep in mind, I do support Organic and NON GMO production as well, so I am not being biased here, Im merely stating the facts. I hope I have informed you a bit more on the subject and that you have a great day ahead. Thank you!

       January 18, 2013 at 9:33 am | Reply
187. E. CASTRO
     

     This article is obviously paid by big Agriculture corporations. If anybody was smart enough, they would know that Monsanto was the creator of "agent orange", agent orange was used in the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese people's children are still been born with down syndrome or other disorders. Keep this "poison" away from our U.S. crops.

     January 18, 2013 at 1:30 am | Reply
     • agsalesman
       

       That is a complete falsehood. Monsanto never had anything to do with the production of agent orange, and the dioxion compounds that were the cause of birth defects have been banned for 40 years.

       January 18, 2013 at 9:16 am | Reply
       • Label My Food Please
         

         Check your facts. From http://www.monsanto.com – Monsanto manufactured Agent Orange from 1965 to 1969

         January 18, 2013 at 5:35 pm | Reply
     • Kat Kinsman
       

       Just wanted to clear something up - this article was not "paid for" by anyone. CNN doesn't work that way, and neither do I as the editor of the site. I can put up pieces about pancakes, cookbooks, chefs, restaurants - and they'd probably even get more pageviews.

       I like to start discussions and let people with different points of view have a platform so we can all get facts and insight. I don't get paid extra for running a certain kind of article. I just think it's better for the world at large if we all can have a civil, informed conversation.

       Thanks for reading.

       January 18, 2013 at 10:14 am | Reply
     • Josh
       

       Rhetoric...nonsense..all of it. Castro, congratulations on copy and pasting facts from documentaries and fringe conspiracy writings. Show me a source that proves that, and I'll believe you. No? Didn't think so.

       January 18, 2013 at 12:41 pm | Reply
188. Brian
     

     What is this "farmer" trying to say? I get the impression he is setting up a straw man. Who told him he had to be a farmer? I happen to live in Iowa and have an uncle in Union county who is a grain farmer. He works a week in the spring and a week in the fall. He spends the other fifty weeks of the year using computer programs that guide him through government price support and subsidy programs.

     January 18, 2013 at 1:00 am | Reply
     • DLG
       

       And gets paid if it grows or not......I know many farmers that work a total of 12 weeks a year... Aad gets paid no matter what...probably drives around in a new truck that he riders at there'd of November right so h can seek it in before end of year... Farmers the great fleeces of the American society!

       January 18, 2013 at 1:10 am | Reply
       • Josh
         

         Paid no matter what? How many seasons do you think someone could realistically produce zero yield and still stay in business? Subsidized or not, they would drop that farmer and nullify the contract...as I'm sure there are clauses stating that you have to take care of your crops. Don't be ignorant.

         January 18, 2013 at 1:03 pm | Reply
     • boucherfarms2011
       

       All due respect, but if farming were that easy, everyone would do it. Personally, my 900 acre grain farm is a full time job. Yes, we may work very hard in the spring and fall, but we also work all winter and summer long prepping for those times of the year as well. Saying that we work only 1 week in the spring and 1 week in the fall is like saying a professional football team only works on sundays (at their games) not counting all of their practice dates. Also as a farmer, I do not have time to sit there and go through GOV programs to get free $ as you have insinuated. I dont want free $ but our Government does subsidize certain parts of farming in order to help stabilize our nations food supply and food security. I wish they would have to do this, but I assure I work for what I have, always have and always will. I hope this clears up some of the information out there. Have a great day!

       January 18, 2013 at 9:41 am | Reply
     • Dan
       

       Dear Brian- did you follow this person around for a full year? Did you track their daily activities? Perhaps this person worked more hours in 12 weeks than you do in 52, had you considered that? Do you take vacation time from your job? Are you entitled to time off but a farmer is not? I would welcome a person to follow me for a year, I can promise you I put in more than 2000 hours working before harvest even begins.

       January 18, 2013 at 8:35 pm | Reply
189. Joe
     

     My guess is that the guy in the picture isn't even a farmer. Ever seen a farmer *that* pasty white?

     January 18, 2013 at 12:42 am | Reply
     • DLG
       

       Lol.. Hard to tan when you drive arou d an an air conditioned cab all day!,, Don't let them fool ya!,

       January 18, 2013 at 12:58 am | Reply
       • boucherfarms2011
         

         DLG, if you have a problem with us farmers having air conditioned cabs with radios and such, take a look at yourself first before you point the finger. Does your car have air conditioning? Does your car have a radio? 99% of the people in this country would answer yes to that. Secondly, if you think AC is not necessary for a farmer to have, Ill ask you to do one thing for me: On a hot day, sit in your car, windows rolled up, and running, but DONT turn the air on. Now, lets see how long it takes for you to get so hot that you cannot stand it anymore. How long would it take before it turns into a unhealthy situation? Moral of the story, its hypocritical to think that you can have something that a farmer cannot.

         January 18, 2013 at 9:46 am | Reply
     • Brian
       

       Trust me I am that pasty. Sun lotion and hats are my friend. I've had a few bad burns in my day, and I hope not to get more.

       January 18, 2013 at 9:33 am | Reply
       • Renee Theobald
         

         He needs to read your blog, "What's a Farmer supposed to look like??" I've gotten that all if my life...you don't look like a farm wife–maybe a farmers daughter but not a farm wife Lol! The pasty white comment just shows the lack of knowledge about farmers/farming in general.Keep on keepin' on Brian–good article.

         January 18, 2013 at 9:53 am | Reply
       • Kevin
         

         I myself, am sensitive to the sun. I have to watch how much exposure I get due to a sun stroke I suffered form when I was younger, working on the farm. I always wear a hat, try to stay in the shade, and the cab on the tractor makes it possible for me to continue farming. If I spend a day in the sun without proper shade or water, I suffer for a few days afterwards.

         January 18, 2013 at 11:46 am | Reply
       • Dan
         

         but but but you don't have overalls and a pitchfork (sarcasm) Excellent article Brian, spot on with our farm!

         January 18, 2013 at 8:29 pm | Reply
         • Brian
           

           My grandpa wears overalls everyday. He has a rack of them at home like super hero outfits linedd up. I've never owned a pair myself. Check out one of my older posts "Not Your Stereotypical Farmer" http://thefarmerslife.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/not-your-stereotypical-farmer/

           January 19, 2013 at 9:49 am |
         • Dan
           

           My grandfather wore overalls as well, just not for me I guess!

           January 19, 2013 at 10:41 pm |
190. Al
     

     Can be dangerous to get dirt under your fingernails these days.

     January 18, 2013 at 12:12 am | Reply
     • Dan
       

       So do you?

       January 18, 2013 at 8:26 pm | Reply
191. Ron Gaskin
     

     Very interesting about you having your freedom of choice but do your neighbors adjoining your farm have a choice about their heirloom crops getting genetic contamination from your GMO'd crops? No. Furthermore, your neighbor farms could be prosecuted for technology theft for having their crops "infected" with your plants Monsanto genes! What gives you or Monsanto this freedom? Big Money. Why would i want a soybean plant that can tolerate a spray of a fat soluble herbicide like Roundup? Roundup is a known carcinogen. How much Roundup is in your soyben oil? Who monitors the Roundup levels in human consumption soybean oil? No one! I suggest giving up a 1000 acres and get on the cultivator like I used to on the farm. That would be some work and time away from the internet.

     January 18, 2013 at 12:04 am | Reply
     • DLG
       

       Bravo Mr. Gaskin.

       Soy=in everything corn syrup= everything...

       Please think people! I wonder what the long term effects of RR are...

       January 18, 2013 at 12:09 am | Reply
     • stefletcher
       

       Thank you Ron!

       January 18, 2013 at 12:45 am | Reply
     • SlowMoneyFarm
       

       Personally I would not hesitate to farm next to Mr. Scott. Clearly the amount of record keeping and other things show a willingness to be considerate of other farmers. He addresses that directly actually. And a couple years ago when I had questions about popcorn Mr. Scott stepped up with answers to help – which I have not forgotten, and it was before he was "famous" here.

       A willingness to work co-operatively makes a big difference. Aside from that, there are easy ways to keep his GMO corn from 'contaminating' my heirlooms. There are few crops that are GMO, so if we were neighbors, I could plant a hay field or vegetables or sorghum or sunflowers or many other options in a 200' band next to his field as a buffer. Because corn is gravity fertilized, there then is not an issue of it contaminating my field. And if I want to plant heirloom corn and save the seed, well then I guess I'd have to work out something with Mr. Scott so that we could plant our corn more than a couple of weeks apart. Now I would think he probably would be reasonable in planting that adjoining field first or waiting a couple weeks to plant it last so I could plant. The window of opportunity for fertilization then insures we both have the crop we want.

       Of course, those of us growing nonGMO crops have to work much harder to find markets. Most people, whatever the claims are on articles like this, don't in action support heirlooms so it takes more effort for me to find customers then it does for Mr. Scott, who takes it to the local elevator and, I believe, sells it as GMO corn (yes, labeled). I appreciate those who are active in making their own food choices without making choices for others. Those who want to make choices for others....we still have quite a few 2013 shares available! Isn't food choices awesome?

       January 18, 2013 at 1:29 pm | Reply
     • Dan
       

       Ron are you no longer farming? " I suggest giving up a 1000 acres and get on the cultivator like I used to on the farm. That would be some work and time away from the internet." Why is this the way you USED to farm? Please explain.

       January 18, 2013 at 8:26 pm | Reply
192. memsomerville
     

     Thanks for the details about how you and your family do this. There's so much misinformation out there and, sadly, in the comments here. It only makes it more clear how important it is to hear from the people actually doing the work to produce the food we rely on.

     It's really helpful to have it all spelled out, and for people to see the actual agreement document. I wish that evidence and facts mattered more in this discussion.

     January 17, 2013 at 11:30 pm | Reply
193. wagfarms
     

     I find it funny that someone who is being transparent and as real as possible is being condemned by people that won't even use their real names to demonize him. The key to feeding our ever-growing population will be to continue to allow everyone who is purchasing food a wide variety of choices in the markteplace.

     Claiming there are no choices? I hardly think so. In today's instant-gratification and search-engine-driven world, there's no way you cannot research any choice you want to make.

     Thank you, Mr. Scott, for putting yourself out there, and for answering questions asked by those that are actually interested in learning.

     January 17, 2013 at 11:09 pm | Reply
     • DLG
       

       Because wag farms is a real name right? Suppose you take your CRP check to the bank too? The American taxpayer is subsidizing the the American commercial farmer to kill you! Smell a bag of commercial wheat flour after its been in a warm room for a while I assure you it WILL smell like chemicals herbicides and round up... Mr. Scott is being as transparent as Monsanto Dow whom ever...I'm sure he accepts their nice luxury trip and kickbacks.,, cathartt jackets for free.. Must be nice. And yes I am educated and do know. I live in the middle f the heartland an have moved here from the outside.. So yes before you pipe up I have an educated opinion. About it and have been in the food service industry for 25 Yeats and hold bachelors degrees in food and baking arts and have taught in the post secondary level.

       January 17, 2013 at 11:23 pm | Reply
       • wagfarms
         

         Wagfarms is a real name, although if you'd like, you can just call me Val. I am a taxpayer and a farmer, and no, I do not have CRP...sorry to disappoint you. I DO use commercial wheat flour, and it sits at room-temperature until I use it. I have never had it smell of anything other than flour. I apologize if you felt as if I were attacking you directly, I can assure you that it wasn't my intention. Yet, if you are so dead set against the information that Mr. Scott shares, then why even read it? Conversations can be held only when two people are willing to hear each other. You appear to have no desire to listen.

         January 17, 2013 at 11:36 pm | Reply
         • DLG
           

           I would in fact listen if perhaps the article that was written had actually been truthful. And the American farmer also needs to come clean about what and how they are farming. The pesticides that farmer is putting onto commercial ag and into our bodies is killing us. Fortunately there are some younger new farmers that are realizing this. Mr. Scott not being one. The farmer needs to clean up there act pun intended.

           Now put that wheat flour in a warm spot in a sealed closed container for a few days..like a glass jar and. Report back to me about that and warm is 75 to 80.. Inform the American people what you are doing to them and yes..I use 100% non GMO 100% chemical free wheat flour..in a commercial application so it can be done

           if the American farmer would stop worrying about having to feed the entire world we wouldn't have to gmo seed for higher yield longer shelf life the addition of gliadin which has been shown to increase diabetes.. I see how the system works with my own two eyes and it's as corrupt as the loosing party.

           January 17, 2013 at 11:54 pm |
       • Ruby
         

         Ever try farming?

         January 17, 2013 at 11:52 pm | Reply
         • DLG
           

           Yes, actually your point being?

           January 17, 2013 at 11:55 pm |
         • Chase
           

           There is no GMO wheat. Unless you consider Plant breeding to be a GMO. If you do you're an idiot.

           January 18, 2013 at 12:42 am |
         • DLG
           

           As an FYI lots of commercial flour is "blended" and enriched there causing it I becoming contaminated with a GMO source I.e. soy flour. Hybridization interesting conversation. You start modifying plants in an matter omething is bound to happen..

           January 18, 2013 at 12:53 am |
         • What?
           

           @ DLG

           You really should quit while you're behind.

           If one is selling "wheat" flour, it cannot be blended with soy flour. If you're supposedly using flour in a "commercial" operation, you should know this. Otherwise I question exactly what kind of operation you are running.

           If you're going to 'trash' hybridization now, you're just showing yourself to be a complete idiot. Plants, and animals, have been hybridized for 1000's – that's right – of years to improve the genetic stock of the organism. Whether it's improved disease resistance, improved drought resistance (or flood resistance, in some cases), improved yield, improved heat resistance (animals, especially), or whatever, improvements have been made via hybridization in the vast majority, if not every single instance, of the plants and animals we use for food today.

           January 18, 2013 at 9:27 am |
       • Kevin
         

         DLG, I truly feel that you are the one who is not educated. I have read your inflammatory remarks all over this comment section and you are the one that needs some education. Start with educating your self with the Farm Bill. Then educate yourself with our food system.

         January 18, 2013 at 11:41 am | Reply
       • Dawgfish
         

         You are so comiccaly misinformed it is almost unbelievable. Do you really think farmers are agricultural products manufacturers are out to harm the public? I promise you that even though you " live in a small farming town" I am more educated on agriculture, these products so-called dangerous herbicides like Roundup, and famers in general than you will ever be. We want to use the products because the save us money and let us grow a better quality product. Do you understand how stringent EPA regulations are and how much research goes into the production of safe pesticides? I do because while I was in college workign on my degree in crop science and my master in plant protection and pest management I worked on a independent pesticide research farm where we tested these products and their effects on the evnvironment, such as resiue levels, soil movements, and effecacy. There are no products used today (at least in the US) that when used properly cause ill effects on people, animals, or the environment in general. Get educated before you start preaching. It's people like you who beleive every scare story and lie that comes out the media that create problems for the decent people tyring to make a living in this county. And, Farm-aid is a great concept and they have done a lot of good, but seriously how much do Willie Nelson and Dave Mathews know about farming. Let's be honest. Thanks.

         January 18, 2013 at 2:45 pm | Reply
         • vongtama
           

           Dear Dawgfish:
           I hear you are well educated. so am I. I am a Board Certified Radiation Oncologist. A cancer specialist. The education you received, the training you received was as rigorous as the 26 years of school I went to. So we are educationally equal. what I will say to this article and to you is this: we do not know the long term effects of GMO. The causes of cancer from environmental causes take 20-30 years to develop. This is well known in the cancer community. (I tell my patients this when we give them radiation for treatment. radiation itself causes cancer in 20-30 years in 1-2% of patients. (in those cases, if untreated they wouldn't make it that far.) GMO is touted to be is an acceptable form of what was done for 1000s of years, hybridization. this is not hybridization. it has been well documented in lab tests that transmigration of DNA from GMO strains occurs and creates future progeny that are not at all the same as their parents. thus one cannot say that these future strains would not be harmful. in fact, laboratory tests have shown that immune function is impaired in rodent subjects when exposed to GMO food sources. this hasn't been shown in humans of course.
           the main intrinsic response of people who are angry are intuitively correct in my view. their way of expressing it is not. Brian has a viewpoint that I understand, however he does not understand the HEALTH effects, the LONG TERM health effects. He could not because, well, that's not his job.

           January 18, 2013 at 3:12 pm |
       • Paul
         

         As an educated man concerned about this topic, I would expect you know there is no gmo wheat in the USA marketplace; in fact it is only being tried as an experiment, not for full release yet in Australia.

         So, you bag of moist warm wheat will smell of several naturally occurring molds, but it will not be smelling of roundup, and it will not be a gmo grain.

         I'm sure you do know that, with your 25 years experience?

         January 21, 2013 at 12:29 am | Reply
     • Meep Zorp
       

       Sure. All we have to do is whip out our handy genetic testing and chemical kit to make sure that what we are eating is pure and wholesome food. Or we can read the label that says it is made from GMO foods. Oh, I forgot, neither exist and the labeling has been squashed by the big guys at every turn since people wouldn't eat it if they knew it was GMO. Give me a break.

       January 17, 2013 at 11:55 pm | Reply
       • DLG
         

         Exactly!

         January 17, 2013 at 11:57 pm | Reply
194. LL
     

     This farmer needs to educate himself before he starts a blog and writes an article on CNN. Shame on him & CNN!

     January 17, 2013 at 11:07 pm | Reply
     • Chase
       

       I'm sure he needs to educate himself on how he makes a living.

       January 18, 2013 at 12:45 am | Reply
       • DLG
         

         Why? When your tax dollars pay him

         January 18, 2013 at 1:12 am | Reply
         • Chase
           

           You know nothing about the farm bill do you. This is a complete waste of time

           January 18, 2013 at 9:14 am |
195. Salvarsan
     

     Anybody who "farms" 2,300 acres *is* BIG AG.

     January 17, 2013 at 10:58 pm | Reply
     • DLG
       

       Not really...

       January 17, 2013 at 10:59 pm | Reply
196. DLG
     

     Take a look at this guys web page....look at his pictures... You see that new truck his tricked out shop.. Look in the back ground. YES you the AmERICAN taxpayer are subsidizing all that.. Idl love to have a new truck every 18 months or a floor jack in my private heated garage....While milk goes to 7.00 a gallon and he's actually gloating about the stinky soybeans that where rotting not being docked as they where sent off to market.. And THTS going into your food system. This guy should be ashamed if himself!!! BE aware!!!!

     January 17, 2013 at 10:56 pm | Reply
     • Brian
       

       I'm not sure what truck you're looking at, but mine is the white Chevy four door. I bought it in 2010. It's a 2004 model. It had 223k miles on it when I purchased it from Libertyville Chevrolet for $10,900. My dad drives a 2004 as well. That new shop? Everything but the heated floor and spray foam insulation was built by us with our hands. The framing behind the walls? Recycled 2x4s we gathered while tearing down our old hog buildings after we quit raising hogs. Car lifts are surprisingly inexpensive and ours has probably paid for itself in labor by performing my own repairs on my high mileage truck.

       January 18, 2013 at 9:43 am | Reply
       • Josh
         

         Thank you, Brian. Thank you for taking the time to set some records straight. Where does this guy pay 7.00 a gallon for milk? I, personally, am not a big fan of Monsanto...but I am in no position to criticize anyone who does business with them for farming, because you guys raise the corn that...well...does everything. It's nice to read an article from someone who regularly deals with them, instead of the select farmers they pick to show up in documentaries.

         January 18, 2013 at 12:59 pm | Reply
       • Daddio7
         

         My last new truck was an 88. I drove it 16 years then got a 98 Silverado. Of course I don't work anymore so it sits in the drive way most of the time outside of the occasional trip to Lowes.

         January 21, 2013 at 4:28 pm | Reply
197. Candace Clough
     

     Great honest article about real farming, ppl need to wake the heck up and realize the world needed to be reliable fed and biotechnology is the always going to be the best new way to make that possible. I'm so thrilled to see this farmer give an honest assessment of business operation,,, for the rest of you, rebeccas on sunnybrooke farms, you are living in fantasyland

     January 17, 2013 at 10:54 pm | Reply
     • Just want to the truth
       

       Candace,
       I sure woud prefer to know the truth rather then your supposition of it. There is more then enough food to feed the world without the bio-engineered food created by Monsanto and other corporations. If you think for one minute this is about enough to feed the world, you need to do your research. The food doesn't get to the people who need it because of governments, politics and greed-not because there isn't enough food. Money drives that machine, if the poor don't have the money, then they only a very small portion of the food available to feed them. This is all about money, the corporation producing these seeds that they patent so that they control try to control all your food supply, they just want your money. And the control over your very food, the stuff that makes it possible for you to have life. Think about that deeply. They control the food supply and can decide what they charge for it and how you can be fed. Scares the hell out of me and if you're a thinking person, I believe it would do the same for you.

       January 21, 2013 at 1:47 pm | Reply
198. Janie
     

     Wow... how much did Monsanto pay you for THAT disgusting and deceitful peice of crap? But then, I guess some of the American people ARE stupid enough to buy into this Nazi Propaganda. People like this are the reason there are super weeds taking over our crop land and destroying it, as well as the rise in cancer rates and abdominal diseases as well as poisoned water and land. Not that they care... they don't care if they poison every man, woman and child in the country, as long as they make a profit. How sick!!

     January 17, 2013 at 10:50 pm | Reply
     • Josh
       

       Ignorace...Like I told the rest of them. This isn't a movie. There isn't a room of fat cats in expensive suits smoking cigars, laughing about how they are destroying the world for profit. You want to do something about it? Find a way to maintain our crop levels without GMO. No? didn't think so. Do away with GMO completely, and you're looking at global food shortage, famine...extinction. But no, you don't think of that. You just complain on the internet.

       January 18, 2013 at 1:17 pm | Reply
     • Brian
       

       $0.00

       If you want to follow beyond this post on my blog, facebook, or twitter (@thefarmerslife) you'll see that I promote practices like rotating crops, conservation tillage, cover crops, and not relying on one form of herbicide or insecticide for all situations. No farm is perfect, and we should all be striving to get a little bit better at what we do each day. Right now the thing I'm most excited about on our farm is cover crops. I believe they will go a long way towards my farms sustainability and profitability.

       January 18, 2013 at 3:32 pm | Reply
199. DLG
     

     Whom are you actually kidding? Lol.. You as a farmer are poisoning the world!!! I live I. A small farm town... And I must say this farm community is the crookedest town!!!, the government CONTROLS you!! The control the price... Stop trying to be the poster boy for Monsanto. You have either drank to much of their kook-aid or gone on one of their fancy trips...Folks on the coasT Wake up!!! Your tax dollars are paying farmers to kill you with chemicals!!!! You are just a statistic in the eyes of Monsanto. TOTAL RUBBISH!

     January 17, 2013 at 10:48 pm | Reply
200. Emily
     

     Unbelievable! A pure Monsanto advertisement in an article form! Shame on you CNN, the supposedly "news" network.. Jesus Christ!!!

     January 17, 2013 at 10:39 pm | Reply
     • Meep Zorp
       

       Amen to that.

       January 17, 2013 at 11:51 pm | Reply
     • Josh
       

       Keep on fighting the good fight. FYI, that shirt you're wearing...brought to you, in part, by Monsanto. Cheers!

       January 18, 2013 at 12:51 pm | Reply
     • deep blue
       

       How dare CNN post an opinion article that takes a side? Where do they get the audacity?

       January 18, 2013 at 2:48 pm | Reply
201. andrew
     

     Sounds to me like he’s totally in control…NOT.

     January 17, 2013 at 10:25 pm | Reply
     • jvandeburg
       

       What small business owner is? Get real, yourself. Do you honestly believe that any business in this country operates without similar relationships?

       January 18, 2013 at 11:36 am | Reply
202. JohnM
     

     Thanks so much for your article. It's very refreshing to hear from an actual farmer regarding what he knows best. I am one of those city folks who wouldn't know a soybean from a pinto bean by looking at a field. However, that isn't because I don't want to or don't care. Maybe we need to hear from a lot more farmers about what really goes on out there on America's farms. Personally, I find it truly amazing that America produces so much food so reliably. I'm sure there are far more people who feel the same way I do. Perhaps you can enlighten us on why corn syrup is subsidized so it can compete with the price for subsidized sugar. Why are we making ethanol from corn when there are better crops to use? And why do we pay twice as much for peanuts as the rest of the world? These policies don't seem like good ideas. Are we misinformed about that stuff, too? Perhaps you can enlighten us!!

     January 17, 2013 at 10:22 pm | Reply
     • What?
       

       You may not be able to identify a crop growing in the field – but, then, you aren't on here trying to pass yourself off as someone who "knows" about these things, either. You aren't the kind of person I was making reference to at all. It is nice to see someone admit what they don't know and ask for more information. If there were at least 100 million more like you in this country we'd be a lot better off.

       January 18, 2013 at 9:18 am | Reply
     • Mike Haley
       

       Hi John,
       Its refreshing to read your comment. I just wanted to drop you a note to let you know there are several farmers online that want to talk with individuals who have questions like yourself. If you are interested check out http://knowacaliforniafarmer.com or this database of farmers who have blogs from accross the world http://bit.ly/FollowFarmer

       January 18, 2013 at 9:29 am | Reply
     • Brian
       

       John, I can't answer all your questions. I'm not a peanut or sugar beet grower, so I don't feel I'm in a position to speak for those who are. When you talk about corn subsidies I'm going to guess you are referring to crop insurance. I pay out a lot of money for insurance the federal gov't (you the taxpayer) foots the bill to the insurance provider for about 2/3 of my premium. I'm not really a great fan of that program, but it's the hand we are dealt for the time being. It's really too bad that Congress couldn't get some reform done with a new Farm Bill in 2012. But maybe asking Congress to write up a Farm Bill every five years is too much. ;)

       January 18, 2013 at 3:23 pm | Reply
     • What?
       

       JohnM, I will preface this by stating that I am not an 'expert' on the subject, but I believe what I am about to type is entirely correct. Further investigation will either corroborate this or prove me wrong.

       First – the main reason corn is used in the U.S. is because the process for converting starch to ethanol is much, much easier than converting cellulose to ethanol, because it's easier to break down the starch. And, after all, this process is extremely familiar to a considerable number of people in the U.S. – so much so that many of them have a thriving "private enterprise" performing just that chemical reaction. ;)

       Second – Brazil uses sugar cane to produce ethanol. They have a very good system for doing that, although I suspect it is probably rather heavily subsidized (?). We don't grow nearly enough sugar cane here to be able to do that. If they are using the "juice" from the cane, they are still producing ethanol from "sugar".

       Third – a grass called 'switchgrass' apparently shows great promise as a source of ethanol, but this will be a process that converts cellulose to ethanol. This process is not yet commercially viable, at least not on the same economical basis as converting starch to ethanol, so it isn't in large-scale practice yet. Hopefully, someday soon it will be. [ Cellulose is harder to break down into it's constituent glucose molecules than starch is, because the molecules are linked with a different molecular bond that is harder to break than the bond in starch. ]

       January 18, 2013 at 7:28 pm | Reply
     • paul
       

       Thank you JohnM for a reasonable conversation.

       Sugar is subsidised in the USA in a way that doesn't cost taxpayers a whole lot. It involves all sugars, from sugar beets, sugar cane, and corn syrup. I'm not aware of a special subsidy for corn syrup. Most of the cane sugar in the USA is leaving – you can search for the 10 year plan to get rid of most cane production in Florida, the state is buying back the land from the producers, and for the most part cane sugar is leaving the uSA.

       Ethanol is a in-between effort to slightl stretch our fuel supplies, mostly to clean up the air we breathe, and to get us interested in switching to alternative fuels. Most alternative fuels need totally new fueling, and totally different engines. It become a chicken or egg deal, how do you get there from here? Ethanol is able to be ised as a 10% solution to the problem, without changing our current vehicles and fuel stations. Ethanol is not a solution, but it is a good part of trying to get to wherever that solution is. In the USA, corn is a much better producer of ethanol than any ther crop we can grow at this time. We grow lots of corn, more than we need. We are used to growing and handling it, and storing it. As mentioned, sugar cane is actually being phased out of the USA for eco reasons. So, corn is really the only choice in this country at this time to make ethanol. We are looking for better alternatives – switch grass, or corn stalks, or other fiberous materials. But so far the low sugar yield per ton has prevented those crops from being ecconomically or energy positive. Corn ethanol no longer has an ethanol subsidy. It provides a 25-30% net energy return, as well as ecconomically viable.

       I don't know anything about peanuts, northern corn and soybean farmer here. All us farmers are pretty independent spirits, but the original article here is how it is on most of the family owned farms in the USA. We all have different opinions, and different farms, but we are trying to make more grain, and raise families, and run a small business just like anyone else. The govt is far more of a threat to us and our way of life than any company in the USA.

       January 19, 2013 at 2:23 pm | Reply
203. Scottie Ewing
     

     Wow, and here I thought I was going to read an inspiring story about how a small family farm was succeeding against the will of GM farming and Monsanto. What a disappointment. You sir, are a huge puppet and sell out and must think that the average reader is stupid enough to buy your lies. Nice attempt.

     Scottie Ewing

     January 17, 2013 at 10:16 pm | Reply
     • Josh
       

       This is an OP piece...what does he have to gain from this? I'm sure Monsanto calls Brian regularly to promote them...like they really need any form of PR. A company with 14 Billion in sales and a current Net margin of over 16%, with an EPS of around 5 dollars...I'm sure they were reaching out to Brian here in order to clear up all the myths about their company. Must be nice living in a delusional state of mind, where the world is like a movie with evil entities purposefully taking over every major commodity and resource and exploiting it blatently. I'm sure Dr. Claw has stake in Monsanto...

       January 18, 2013 at 12:48 pm | Reply
204. BEEEEEE
     

     Why your at it why don't you inform the public of about Monsanto environmental records. Must be nice being involved with such a pleasant company.

     January 17, 2013 at 10:12 pm | Reply
205. Gene Lane
     

     Well, let's see...the main article is by a Monsanto shill, and the first response is blatantly ridiculous in their "support" for the "dirt under their fingernails" real farmers. Good lord! Does Monsanto(Bayer, Dow, Syngenta, etc.) have to stoop to this crap to try and turn the tide of exposure on their poisoning of the food system? This is as laughable as it gets...

     January 17, 2013 at 10:05 pm | Reply
     • What?
       

       I rest my case.

       January 18, 2013 at 9:10 am | Reply
     • Hogan's Goat
       

       " article is by a Monsanto shill" Ever get dirt under your fingernails, 'Gene?' I bet you work in an office and live in a condo. Lots of people hate Monsanto like lots of people hate WalMart and Target because they undersell the small places. Business is competitive, and badmouthing the competition can make you wealthy. Don't be so easily fooled into seeing this as angels and devils. Farmers DO swipe resistant seeds, and Monsanto DOES bully people, but there's no use trying to portray either one as 'the villain.' As I always say, I'd love to see Monsanto broken up by the feds into smaller companies.

       January 18, 2013 at 4:26 pm | Reply
206. Dave
     

     many countries around the world are making Monsanto GMO's illegal to use. I guess they don't like all of the proof that GMO's cause Cancer.

     January 17, 2013 at 10:03 pm | Reply
     • Josh
       

       Scientific Empirical Evidence, or it didn't happen. Post it and I'll delete every comment on this thread, along with a formal apology.

       January 18, 2013 at 12:49 pm | Reply
207. dub
     

     This is a big pro Monsatan hit piece, move along

     January 17, 2013 at 9:58 pm | Reply
     • Josh
       

       You're a misinformed fool...move along.

       January 18, 2013 at 12:42 pm | Reply
       • DaTruth
         

         I watched a documentary of 2 neighboring famers. One decided to use Monsanto's products. The other did not. The GMO seed which Monsanto provided one of the farmers bred much faster, and some pollen from the corn which eventually grew spread into their neighboring farm of the farmer who used normal seed. The following year, Monsanto came out, performed "tests" on the crops of the farmer using normal seed, to determine if he was "stealing" their product. Low and behold, detectable levels of the GMO seed was found in the farmer's crop. Monsanto sued him for everything he has and won. They took a farm that had been in his family for multiple centuries.

         Monsanto is the corporate scum of the earth, and this article is nothing more then the paid-for ramblings of a delusional tool.

         January 18, 2013 at 2:25 pm | Reply
         • Hogan's Goat
           

           "I watched a documentary " Oh, now we have an expert. He watched something on YouTube. "DaTruth," has it occurred to you that Monsanto is so big that it has jealous competition that wants it to fail? I personally hate Monsanto and would love to see it broken up by antitrust prosecution, but I don't pretend they are owned by al-Qaeda or that they want to take over the world with giant talking tomatoes. You guys need to get a grip and stop sounding so crazy about standard agribusiness contracts.

           January 18, 2013 at 4:18 pm |
     • CodeBlitz
       

       YOUR ARE CORRECT SIR. These articles scary me because they usually occur right when these companies are trying to pass one over on the American people. Look for a roll back of some important food safety regulation or a slip-in of some ridiculous new law that protect Monsanto from cancer liability, etc.

       January 18, 2013 at 2:30 pm | Reply
208. What?
     

     You mean Monsanto doesn't "own" you – lock, stock, and barrel? Come on, now . . .

     You don't "have" to use Roundup(R) on your RR crops? Surely you are, at a bare minimum, kidding – if not outright lying to us, aren't you? Tell the truth now . . .

     You must be trying to mislead us, because all these people who wouldn't have a flipping clue how to raise corn if their life depended on it are constantly telling us "how it is", and how modern farming works, and how Monsanto and Dow and Bayer and [insert next favorite "Big Ag" villian here] control all the agricultural production in the U.S. 90% of them wouldn't know a soybean from a pinto bean if they saw them in a field – they probably wouldn't even know what was growing was beans at all, but they are the 'experts', the 'know-it-alls' who have all this knowledge and information about how farming is really done.

     Thank you for this article, and for providing a very real first-hand account of how things actually work. I can't wait to see how many people accuse you of being a 'bought-and-pair-for Monsanto homer'. It truly is amazing how many agricultural "experts" there are today who most likely have never had dirt under their fingernails.

     Keep up the good work.!

     January 17, 2013 at 8:43 pm | Reply
     • DaTruth
       

       You are a tool. I hope you got a good price for your soul. When their sentiments towards you change, I hope nobody offers you even a cardboard box to sleep in.

       January 18, 2013 at 2:27 pm | Reply
       • What?
         

         So anybody who REALLY knows something about growing our food who gets on here and tells the truth is a "tool"?

         That's interesting.

         By the way – could you tell the difference between a soybean and a pinto bean in a field? No? How did I ever guess that?

         By the way again – your 'intuition' is seriously lacking today.

         January 18, 2013 at 2:58 pm | Reply
         • Crow
           

           The difference in appearance between a pinto and a soy bean plant is striking. The 'truth' does not make a thing good. Diversity in crops, natural fertilizers. organic pesticides and standard varieties are the keys to good production. Nature does an amazing job of balancing good and bad insects. Hybridized and GMOs produce a uniform crop in size and quantity BUT taste is completely ignored with machine planting, harvest. shipping and storage being the main thrust of mega-agriculture. Every tomato doesn't need to be 3" across and taste like acidified cardboard. Therein lies the evil.

           January 18, 2013 at 4:06 pm |
         • What?
           

           @ Crow

           So you propose that the millions of acres of corn that "need" to be planted in the U.S. every year – let's forget what is fed to animals, since I suspect you are opposed to that, too – should be planted by hand? Really? You absolutely have to be out of your ever-loving mind. There were about 96 million acres of corn planted last year. I'll cut that to only 45 million and give you 6 weeks to plant it. Now you tell me how much manpower it would take to do that.

           "Standard varieties . . . are a key to good production" – I would hazard a bet that there is not a 'standard variety' out there, anywhere, that is of true original pure genetic stock. Different cultivars and varieties of plants interbreed – hybridize – in nature constantly, any time they come into contact with each other if given the chance. The hardier hybrids usually win out. Go back to your basic biology and re-read the information on "hybrid vigor" and "natural selection".

           And, lastly, if you think 'nature' does such a great job of balancing good and bad insects, go live in Africa a few years in the areas where desert locusts are prevalent. Or, if you want something "closer to home", try growing an acre of sweet corn with no pesticides in an area where Japanese beetles have invaded. Good luck with that.

           You want to be organic – be organic, and more power to you . . . but don't be stupid.

           January 18, 2013 at 7:56 pm |
       • Hogan's Goat
         

         " I hope you got a good price for your soul. " Another city kid who thinks seeds grow on trees and you get up early to milk the chickens, spouting something he read on a loony toons website.

         January 18, 2013 at 4:13 pm | Reply
         • Chief
           

           Exactly right.

           January 18, 2013 at 6:13 pm |
       • Chief
         

         Here folks, we have a true tool, the ultimate tool. DaTruth, go back to the supermarket where real food grows. Ya think? You are the ultimate Dewalt poster boy. If you know anything about the subject, perhaps the next time you could post something intelligent.

         January 18, 2013 at 6:12 pm | Reply