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

[GreatGazoo]

21. Good news -- No-Till plus non-GMO hybrids = much less pesticide use.

The sentence after the first one you bolded basically contradicts it: extra pesticide for either because thanks to GMO technology, weeds are now just a Round Up Ready as the GMO seeds.

That next bolded section is a mess because the author uses "herbicide" to mean "insecticide" (?) Bee killing neonic-coated corn seed is a whole other subject, another proprietary technology which, like Round-Up Ready GMO crops, has had unintended consequences and driven up costs for farmers.

Dammann stuck with non-GMO corn so hopefully he has worked out his issues with yield. Bt corn was designed to deter damage from corn borer but, just like with the amaranth and other weeds, Nature finds a way:

Insect resistance to Bt proteins is natural and expected.
In any insect population, a small number of insects already exist that are tolerant of – or resistant to – certain Bt proteins. Over time, and especially with particular farming practices, it is possible that too many insects in a field could develop a tolerance to a Bt protein and cause significant damage or destruction.

http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/insect-resistance-to-gmo-and-bt-crops.aspx

So non-GMO corn is now offering lower costs overall as GMO crop systems increasingly fail to deliver on their promises while putting the food system on a treadmill of new seed + poison pairings.