Myth: GMOs Help Family Farmers and Benefit the Economy

While purveyors of this technology, like Monsanto, reap incredible financial rewards, studies indicate that small farmers are being squeezed out of the industry or are forced to be little more than sharecroppers, perpetually in debt to the large companies that hold their crops hostage:
• In 2013, Monsanto sued 500 farmers for patent violations. Farmers who use their seeds are not allowed to save seed and reuse, but must buy new seed every year or face legal action.
• GM crops have caused seed prices of important US commodity crops to rise. Since 1995, soybean, corn, and cotton seeds have risen in price by 325%, 259% and 526% respectively.
• Crops contaminated with GMOs negatively affect trade relations as more and more countries ban the technology.
• Not labeling GMOs hurts the economy, makes the food industry less competitive worldwide, has a negative impact on food exports, imports, and jobs, diminishes tax revenue, and has a ripple impact on other associated industries. An ANH-USA sponsored study showed that the failure to pass mandatory GMO labeling in the state of Washington will cost 130,000 jobs in that state alone. Extrapolating those number nationwide shows the magnitude of the problem nationally.
• Countries like Russia and China have seen the economic impact of GMOs and have recently announced that they will be following the nearly 70 countries around that world that have banned GMO crops.

Exports of corn to China were down 85% in 2013 due to that country’s ban on GMOs. This represented a financial loss of $427 million for the US. Russia recently announced it would join the growing list of over sixty countries to ban GMOs—that is, over sixty countries that have been eliminated as trading partners for our crops.
In the summer of 2013, Japan and South Korea cancelled orders for, and banned imports of, soft white wheat from the US when GMO-contaminated wheat plants were discovered on a putatively GMO-free farm in Oregon.

7 comments

  1. I grew up on a family farm (we still own it ) and GMO have reduce pollution, erosion, much less chemicals were needed. Yealds went up.

      1. We grew mostly corn. There are 5 main type used in AG. POP WHITE DENT SWEET
        and INDIAN. We grew mostly DENT and have grow POP and SWEET. All 5 type
        were created by GM through breading. In side the 5 main type there are
        hundreds of varieties have different resistance to disease, yields,
        different number of day to maturity. different nutritional value and so
        on. All of this was available in the 1960. Since then these varieties
        and had additional tweaks.

  2. We grew corn. There are 5 main type used in AG. POP WHITE DENT SWEET and INDIAN. We grew mostly DENT and have grow POP and SWEET. All 5 type were created by GM through breading. In side the 5 main type there are hundreds of varieties have different resistance to disease, yields, different number of day to maturity. different nutritional value and so on. All of this was available in the 1960. Since then these varieties and had additional tweaks.

  3. But those are not GM by the criteria of this site. They are all produced by traditional breeding.

    1. yes this site is a bit nuts. They are for untested random GM but test and understood GM they are against. how stupid.

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