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NE Colorado | I read through most of the first page and nobody has really answered your questions so I will do my best to do so in some detail here.
First on the Celiac Disease portion, there was a study recently that found that only about 1/3 of the people who believe that they are intolerant to gluten actually are, so call that a fad or misinformation or whatever truly fits the bill but that is how it goes. Do people have it? Absolutely, but the number isn't nearly as high as the number of claims are. Secondly, there has been nothing change on the actual growing portion of production. We are 100 years this year and we have NEVER desiccated any crop and especially not wheat. And in the US I don't think the practice is used at all unless there is somewhere up north in the Dakotas or Montana where they might be wanting to windrow it, but even then the percentage of that would be incredibly low compared to the rest of the country combined. What has changed is how the mills work, and how fads have impacted them, white bread is a easy example. White bread can be made from red wheat and all that happens is at the mill they essentially strip it down to its bare parts and then start adding different portions of the flour back together, so that for this example there is no outer coating that is in the flour. To make it clear, it is not the farming practices that create issues with humans digesting wheat, if anything it is over consumption, there is a reason that we eat meat, and its because our bodies have never been able to digest the proteins in plants as efficiently as we can meat, and look at our society with how much flour is consumed in a normal day for a lot of people.
The next thing to that is anything that is "gluten free" is using a binding agent to hold it together because that is all that gluten really is. So in 30 years I will be curious to see what health problems arise from this due to the fact that the binding agent is actually the same binding agent that is used in chewing gum... just food for thought on that one.
In terms of the pressure on the industry, no it isn't going away but I believe the tide can be stemmed with education, just like you said, there is no GMO wheat, so we need to be using that as an advantage and get in front of people. All of AG needs to come together and say "here is whats real and here is how it effects your family and mine" on a number of issues. The real pressure is that the US is no longer the go-to destination for wheat. India was self sufficient up until a couple years ago because they learned how to grow wheat. After we embargoed wheat to Russia they figured out how to feed their people, and they took over a warm water port so their exports are huge. France pumps out wheat from a great location in terms of exports. And the US is the only country (if I am remembering correctly) that is on a 11% ordinary protein scale, everywhere else is 12%, so it makes it that much harder to export our grain. Also, the world doesn't feed wheat to livestock like they used to even in circumstances where they could save money I know of several large feedlots that don't even consider it due to the fact that corn is cheap, and they don't want to change their rations. Our biggest pressure is that we have lost world market share because other countries figured out how to survive without us, and feeding livestock with corn and beans has become the norm no matter where you are, and less wheat is fed every year. Combine that with blind consumerism and you get the pressure.
Hope that helps. | |
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Gluten Intolerance Wheat Farmers
