Musings: Gimme, Gimme

A friend sent me this Facebook thread with the comment, "bet you lunch you can't read it without laughing out loud."

Good thing I didn't take the bet:

Careful, Dustin. Once you move beyond a shovel and an o'o, you're officially an "industrial farm."

But hey, bring in Keone — the blind leading the blind. Though no doubt he would happily grasp any opportunity to grow his own tiny, grant-funded empire.

So he has no money or time. Welcome to the wonderful world of farming! But hey, surely somebody will just step in and make it all happen for him. Unless, of course, they're selfishly writing grants for their own purposes:

Yeah, that's the ticket! A kick-starter, go-fund-me approach to failed farming. Because you can't possibly make it if you aren't begging for handouts.

No, Shantee, what Kauai needs are realistic, hard-working farmers who do their homework and prepare carefully before sticking some animals on the land that somebody gave you and calling yourself a farmer. Smart and successful farmers start with a business plan, one that identifies equipment needs, anticipated income and expenses — before they start.

I don't know if it's  the entitlement mindset of so many millennials, or part and parcel of the dreamy view of farming that infects so many in the anti-GMO, gimme-gimme movement, but why do they think their ill-informed, unplanned, dubious actions should be grant-funded?

And how they gonna make it when the grants run out?

Meanwhile, real farmers are seeking greater understanding of what they do, and why, from the folks who populate these ill-conceived food and agricultural movements. As Modern Farmer reports:

Brian Ogletree

I think organic is great. We use chicken litter as one of our main fertilizers and all of our crop residue goes back into the ground. We are a no-till farm, which means we use a grain drill to plant the seed with the previous crop residue still standing. We use a rotation of soybeans in summer, wheat in winter, a non-soybean crop the following summer, such as browntop millet, cover crops the next winter, such as crimson clover, and then soybeans again the following summer. That every-other-year rotation keeps the disease and insect pressure down and makes the farm much more profitable.

With GMO soybeans we spray just one dose of glyphosate after planting. Then they form a canopy over the ground that outcompetes the weeds and we’re done with weed pressure from that point on. With the traditional [non-GM] soybeans, different types of chemicals that are based on chemistry from 30 years ago have to be used, which are less effective on weeds. So instead of applying just one application of an herbicide for everything, you have different chemicals for different types of weeds. And since they are less effective; you have to go out and reapply.

You also have to rely on more mechanical cultivation with non-GMO soybeans. That leaves the soil loose and exposed. With nothing holding it together, you get wind erosion and water erosion. To me, that is more damaging than using glyphosate. You’re losing your topsoil, and the chemicals are more likely to get into the watershed—when soil runs off it takes the chemicals downstream with it. Not to mention the fuel costs of doing all that cultivation.

A few years ago we tried some non-GMO soybeans, but easily used twice the amount of chemicals than with the GMO beans. A lot of people don’t understand the amount of chemicals and fuel that it takes to grow a non-GMO [soybean] crop. The whole reason these crops were developed is to be more efficient—to save money and fuel.

There are so many myths out there about GMOs, and what gets me is how many very well-educated people I’ve met who believe them.

Peter Stocks

I am a young farmer who recently returned to my family’s industrial corn and soybean farm in Illinois. I have a severely deformed right hand that is possibly related to my father’s exposure to pesticides. Glyphosate has never been linked to the type of deformity I have, but many past generations of chemicals have been. I would prefer not to have any exposure to these compounds, but we are paid an extra $1.10/per bushel premium for non-GMO soybeans. Not being able to utilize glyphosate forces my father, who still has a cavalier attitude towards pesticide exposure, to revert back to older, more dangerous herbicides, such as Paraquat.

Because glyphosate residue would damage the non-GMO beans, I am required to thoroughly rinse our sprayer tank multiple times per year when switching between chemical regimens. Many studies have indicated that cleaning tasks like this represent an acute source of chemical exposure. It is an unfortunate example of the perverse incentives created by an otherwise well-meaning group of consumers.

I suspect that many of the non-GMO commenters would accuse me of being a coward for complying with a production model I know to be detrimental. Often people speak of changing our farming methods like it is as easy as making a choice and waiting for the economics to settle themselves out. When I try to tell them about our farm’s conservation tillage practices or cover crop regimens they glaze over. When I speak about the enormous potential of decentralized biomass energy or recirculating aquaculture for fighting climate change they generally aren’t very engaged. When the subject turns to GMOs, however, they have a wealth of opinions.

The entire article is well-worth reading, in terms of helping people understand why farmers do what they do.