|
| Interesting question, but I don't see why it has to be the one or the other, you guys are way too influenced by the political and religious bipolarism that seems to rule every debate in the USA! And the media certainly do not help by reinforcing this bipolarism/bipartism (yes, I am making up these words.)
I think it's before all a personal choice, it doesn't mean you want to impose your personal choice on others, like you wouldn't want others to impose their own personal choices on you. The reasons behind these choices are really multiple, ranging from health concerns, the environment, finances, politics, etc. Whether these reasons are entirely or partially or not at all valid is yet another debate, but the thing is that you do what you think is right or best, so it should not matter what the community think of you if you are farming responsibly, conventional or organics.
You could ask yourself the opposite question: By growing conventional and/or GMOs, does it mean that you believe that there is something wrong with organics or non-GMOs farming practices? If you have the mindset that does, then I can see why you would assume that other people share the same mindset and ask the opposite question.
On top of that, organic and non-GMO buyers also have their own reasons, which may be similar or different from your reasons for growing organic and non-GMO if you were. I also think that you have much better market opportunities if you share some of these reasons with your customers than if you do it only for the money. Personally, I have no interest in buying (sometimes) organic produce from remote megafarms, even if I am reluctantly forced into this kind of purchase for different reasons. It's just that you never find conventional heirloom tomatoes and other diverse produce. I have no beef with the genetic engineering technology by itself, more with the ethical practices of Monsanto and with the overdosing of Roundup and the herbicide resistance it introduced, mostly. This just shows that even if genetic engineering could do some good, most biotech companies are solely driven by their own profit. For all their talk, they really have no "feed the world" or "help the farmer" agenda, only incidentally as long as large profits are maintained or increased. You need to evaluate their offer cautiously, especially thinking about potential long term consequences, because they won't do it for you. | |
|
Organic/non-gmo farming
