Due to massive government subsidies given to farmers to grow genetically engineered crops in the past, U.S. food manufacturers and farmers are now being caught blindsided by the sweeping demand for non-gmo and organic crops. In a twist of irony, this is driving a massive increase of organic crop imports from nations that are largely free of bioengineering.
Bloomberg news recently reported that:
โMost of the corn and soybean shipments become feed for chickens and cows so they can be certified organic under U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines. Organic poultry and dairy operators shun feed made with seeds from Monsanto Co. and other domestic suppliers in favor of foreign products even as the U.S. remains the worldโs top grower of corn and soybeans. As a result, imports to the United States of Romanian corn rose to $11.6 million in 2014 from $545,000 the year before. Soybean imports from India more than doubled to $73.8 million.โ
After countless years of the public voting with their dollars against GMO food and its associated toxins, the impact is now measurable on every level of the supply chain. At the top, Monsanto is sustaining continual financial loss, major chains like whole foods are being forced to go GMO free, and product manufacturers unwilling to switch are instantly losing market share.
A quick look at the trend confirms the sustained strength of growth in organic food sales is real:
- 2011: Americans spent $29.2 billion on organic foods
- 2012: Americans spent $31.5 billion on organic foods
- 2013: Americans spent $35 billion on organic foods
- 2014: Americans spent $39.1 billion on organic foods
It seems the American GMO experiment is facing hardshipsย having failed socially, financially, and medically. Farmers are seeing the writing on the wall and following the new โorganic, non-GMO gold rushโ and rapidly switching to meet demands.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced a $66.5 million grant, part of which will support the departmentโs Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI). One of OREIโs goals is to identify marketing and policy constraints to the expansion of organic agriculture.
According to Nathaniel Lewis, senior crop and livestock specialist at the Organic Trade Association (OTA):
โThe OREI grant will also help fund research on organic weed control methods, which are crucial. โWeeds are the number one barrier to farmers transitioning to organic from a cultural and technical perspective.โ
Perhaps the USDA, in its search to identify โmarketing and policy constraintsโ should review its own agency scientist and policy makers who have been attacked, suppressed, and threatened by the biotech industry for continually attempting to expose the dangers of GMO food and its associated toxins.
Additional Sources:
Nice little article except how much has it really grown when you take out the increase in the price of the product. I would also like someone to list the massive subsides that farmers are getting.
Kathy Mulholland-Isabell Very Concerned Seniorโข 10 hours ago
“I worked for the USDA-NRCS for many years. We had an inside joke: Why are rural mailboxes so big? To fit all the government checks. We watched as farmers and ranchers bought shiny new pickup trucks every year after the checks came out. It isn’t fiction, they even bragged about it in our offices. It was disgusting to know that even conservation payment money was being used in this way.”
FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015
The 2014 farm bill will prove to be the most expensive ever thanks to new subsidies Congress added on top of the already costly crop insurance program, researchers at the University of Missouri said in an analysis released this week.
The finding came in the U.S. Baseline Briefing Book issued annually by the universityโs Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute.
The new analysis confirms that the promised cost savings of 2014โs subsidy โreforms,โ which were much touted during the farm bill debate, are turning out to be pie in the sky.
Two new crop subsidy programs โ Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) โ are at the heart of the dramatic increase in payouts, the Briefing Book reports. The Instituteโs researchers estimate that the two new types of coverage will generate more than $24 billion in payments over the 2014-2018 life of the farm bill. Thatโs $2.4 billion more than the โdirect paymentโ subsidies the new crop subsidy plans replaced, which cost taxpayers $21.6 billion from 2009 through 2013.
The generous new subsidy payouts for 2014 crops will go out to growers this fall. Under the Risk Coverage program, most counties in Ohio, Iowa, Minnesota and Kansas are projected to receive payouts of between $60 and $200 an acre for corn alone. This is a huge increase from the average $24 per acre formerly paid for corn under the direct payment program. Corn growers in other states are also predicted to receive ARC payments, but in lesser amounts.
The Institute also predicts that crop insurance payouts will total almost $85 billion for fiscal years 2015-2024 โ a 27 percent increase over the $67 billion paid out for crop insurance over the previous decade, 2005-2014. Even under the previous farm bill, per-acre premium subsidies were larger than direct payments for most crops, and the new projections show that these subsidies will remain high in the coming years.
Meanwhile, budget cuts to conservation and other important programs that helped pay for the new farm subsidies have been very real. The Instituteโs projections make it painfully clear that last yearโs farm bill โreformโ was really more of the same.
http://www.ewg.org/agmag/2015/03/crop-subsidies-soar-under-2014-farm-bill-reforms
I think it is safer to be on natural foods, and cheaper to stay healthy long life than paying costly hospital bills.
Wow, crazy how things have swung the other way. Can we find a happy medium?