After Years in the Red, Farms Return to Non-GMO Crops to Regain Profits

[GreatGazoo]

18. It is production realigning with cost and revenue.

Theories and analogies, by definition, are one step or more removed from reality. They can bring in emotion, strawmen and grandstanding and cloud a simple issue.

Reality is: in the marketplace right now, July of 2015, GMO corn with chems and seed costs more to produce than it sells for. The taxpayer has been subsidizing that difference -- $8 bil for 2014 alone. Like everyone else, farmers are hard working, honest people who prefer profit from their own businesses over needing checks from the government just to cover their losses and try again next year.

This isn't about "flying cars" or "luddites" but rather about farmers finding resilience through diversity; the diversity of being able to choose from a variety of crop systems to control costs in an on-going difficult commodities market.

Farmers know the science of their business extremely well. They combine published research with their own tests and observations. Every farmer I know is testing new varietal and new methods. They record data and analyze results so their work has a lot of overlap with active scientists. A major difference is that farmers are in business for themselves so their science has to be focused ultimately on making money.

IMHO that takes even more brain power than doing lab science because it adds the complexity and fluidity of the worldwide commodities markets. You have to produce your crop for less than these prices (good luck!):

http://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/nx_fv020.txt