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Organic/non-gmo farming
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Gerald J.
Posted 2/8/2014 14:48 (#3673610 - in reply to #3673345)
Subject: Re: Organic/non-gmo farming



Organic and non-GMO are distinctly different concepts.

The fundamental premise of organic is that anything from the earth and not processed in a factory is good, any factory processing is bad. Which ignores problems of bacteria in manure and certain mined phosphate products can contain heavy metals taken out by standard chemical plant processing. And the problem that in most cases rock phosphate only gets a crop response in acid soil, so is virtually useless in the better growing neutral pH soils. All based on one man's concept, one Rodale. Because the use of factory made chemicals is not allowed organic growing is expensive requiring more hand labor and machine cultivation so the product is expensive.

Non-gmo crop avoidance is based on some consumers worried about "frankenstein" plants modified by laboratory gene insertion. But that prevents the use of the most modern herbicides which exposes the operators to harsh herbicides of yesteryear that have a proven propensity to shorten lives and that have always required certified applicators because of the hazards to applicators and neighbors. The non-gmo crowd of consumers don't consider field breeding and mixing to create unsafe changes in plant products, but are simply concerned or afraid of most anything new.

Sometimes the old breeds don't produce as well as modern breeding and GMO has developed, but there can be premiums found IF you can play the games of the wholesalers that buy crops. Nearly always you have to have a contract with that processor before you start to raise the crop. In some cases they will provide their own seed without letting the producer even know what it is and then will prescribe the farming process from field preparation to harvest, and then will take delivery only on their schedule, not when you harvest the crop. It will almost be certain that to get the premium, even if they don't provide the seed and a contact that you won't be able to deliver from the field like an ordinary crop, but will have to store and deliver on their schedule when they decide they want it. Sometimes if you have storage you can make a significant premium on ordinary crops just because of better prices away from harvest. Post is you can't simple plant non-gmo and automatically get the remored premium. It will take storing and probably long hauls IF the place paying the premium stays in business. At least one in Iowa was put out of business for shaky finances but the crew and facilities have returned under a new name and has a grain dealer's license again. At some points dealing with such can change a premium into a 100% loss if they paid for the delivered grain with a bad check.

In some crops and areas the convenience of GMO herbicides is accompanied by a yield drag and its more profitable to raise non-GMO and sell it as generic than to go for the premiums.

With gmo crops so universal in production agriculture its really hard to claim a crop grown organically or non-gmo is truly clean when delivered. Nearly 25 years ago I set out to be organic, but didn't get there. I concluded that with pollen drift that I couldn't honestly claim to produce a crop without GMO though I planted seed without GMO and followed all the procedures for growing such a crop. After about a decade of working in that direction, I bought jugs of glyphosate and went notill producing better crops.

Gerald J.
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