Supreme Court ruling re Monsanto's GMO alfalfa

[cmjust0]

As I said, my corn field cost me $2500 to grow and they offered me $900 for the entire 1025 bushel because it was high moisture and low weight.

The word of the day is "monopsony."

A monopsony is basically the exact opposite of a monopoly; many producers, one consumer. In your case, the consumer was whoever operated that elevator.. They were buying from you, and the next guy, and the next guy, and pretty much could offer you whatever they wanted to offer and you could either haul it back to the house and dump it over the hill...or take what you could get.

In a monopsony, the buyer holds all the cards -- especially when there's too much of the product in the market anyway.

Unfortunately, the end product farmers are producing is almost always perishable in one way or another, and everybody's product comes in at more or less the same time.. Moreover, when it comes in, most everybody takes it to a central location that boasts FAR more producers than buyers, at which point they have to try to cut each others' throats..

It's just a TERRIBLE business model for the producer.

The ironic thing is that all the focus today is on MORE PRODUCTION! GMO corn is a great example, actually.. Use GMO corn and you can produce MORE CORN! Yay!...as though corn prices suck because there's not enough corn.

How could that make sense to anyone?!?

If farmers were smart, they'd skip spending tons and tons of money on fertilizer and pesticide and herbicide and let their fields grow up in weeds and bugs with maybe a stalk of alfalfa or an ear of corn here and there.. Instead of working like fighting fire and spending $2500 to harvest 1025 bushels...do as little as possible and harvest 100. If everyone did that, what little corn was brought to market would actually be WORTH something.

It'll never happen, though.. Market rules dictate that it will never happen because it would require collusion, and collusion almost NEVER happens "in the wild," so to speak.. Collusion requires business people NOT to cut one anothers' throats, and there's always a backstabber in every group.. You could get every farmer in your state together and decide -- as a group -- that you're not gonna try real hard that year....but ONE would, because he'd see an opportunity to cash in.

Such is life.

Eventually, independent farmers are going to go away in favor of vertical integration.. Companies that need corn will grow corn, and the guy in charge of doing it will get a weekly paycheck just like the rest of the world. And he'll do it their way, with their preferred seed, planting and cultivating and spraying and harvesting on their schedule, etc..

Already happened to chicken and hog farms.. Kentucky's tobacco growers are generally working under contracts now.. More and more beef producers are working under contracts, too..

Sad, but that's how I see it.

 

[DrakeMaiden]

If you get a chance read "everything I want to do is illegal" by Joel Salatin. A lot of it is regulation. Part of it is that you have to be a marketer of sorts to sell directly. Some people do not have marketing skills.

It is on my reading list . . . which is entirely too long. :/

Seems like co-ops could take care of some of the regulation difficulties and a lot of the marketing problems. Maybe we just need more food co-ops.

 

[bibliophile birds]

It is interesting to note that folks who have spent their entire lives working and paying taxes into the treasury of the United States, are unable or unqualified to receive assistance from the federal government, but folks who have contributed nothing to this country can come here and get everything they want for free for an indefinite period of time and never have to lift a finger or work a day to be "qualified" for it. They come here and get welfare, medicaid and a whole slew of entitlements while hard working folks (such as yourselves in some cases) are NOT "entitled" to any assistance from our government despite the fact that your tax bill is paid.

well, illegal immigration is another thing you can think Monsanto and Big Ag for. now, i agree that people shouldn't come here illegally and be allowed to mooch off the system indiscriminately (just like i don't think citizens should be allowed to mooch indiscriminately), but the roots of the problem, and therefore the solutions, are seriously complex.

if you look back to pre-industrial agriculture days, thousands of Mexicans, other Latinos, and Afro-Caribbeans would come to the states as very welcomed and fairly treated seasonal workers. they would help farmers get their crops in, mostly by hand, and then they would return home to tend their own crops. it was a system that benefited everyone.

with the rise of chemical, industrial farming, these migrant workers were no longer needed, creating a vast instability in their communities. to make matters worse, American Big Ag companies were on the hunt for cheap farmland and they found a whole lot of it in those same communities. they pushed families off land they had owned for centuries (ahem: Chiquita) and subjected them to harsh working environments and inhuman treatment.

then you have the rise of indigenous crop destruction by imported disease and, now, GMO contamination. Mexico, the birthplace of corn and home to feasibly HUNDREDS of varieties of the stuff, is now being forced to IMPORT corn because US agricultural practices have decimated their crops.

like i said, it's not a simple problem. is the solution letting them all come here and leech off the system? no. but you have to see them as people with families that they love. families that they don't want to watch starve to death. if you were in their position, wouldn't you do what you could, even if it meant coming here illegally? there are a LOT of us who are working hard to allow people to stay in their home countries and survive, but it's hard work and there is a lot stacked against them.

among my social scientist colleagues, we have a saying: "You aren't safe unless your neighbor is safe. You aren't successful unless your neighbor is successful. And you aren't free unless your neighbor is free." that is true on a personal level and an international one. the problems of our neighbor countries have to be our own because, be it tomorrow or 10 years from now, they WILL become our problems, whether we like it of not. we can't hope to have a healthy, sustainable agronomy if we ignore the plight of those close to us.

 

[Wifezilla]

Seems like co-ops could take care of some of the regulation difficulties and a lot of the marketing problems. Maybe we just need more food co-ops.

Until the co-ops get too big for their britches and start bullying the producers ala Organic Valley Coop.

 

[DrakeMaiden]

True, WZ, but if there were more co-ops, then maybe it would at least give the farmers a few different options.

 

[Farmfresh]

Just to throw something else into this mix.

Immigrant farm workers' challenge

 

[me&thegals]

If farmers were smart

Ahhhh.... But farmers ARE already smart. Think about the skills required to work the land, fix equipment, care for animals, maintain fences, fieldroads and buildings, grow, harvest and market a crop, do the financing, refinancing, bookkeeping.

Farmers are smart.

They are part of an extremely sucky system, and not many people are willing to lie down on the railroad tracks and get run over to start the revolution.

As with many things in America, vote with your pocketbook. I will be attending my small town's farmer's market tomorrow as a grower. I KNOW many people in my town care about local, organic, supporting the neighboring farmer. But, I bet I will make very, very little in sales. So, while they may care in a cognitive way, that does me absolutely no good unless they care in a real way.

So, vote with your $. My conventional farming husband says all the time that he would be willing to undergo the complete transformation from conventional grain farming to organic vegetable farming if he knew people were willing to pay a living wage for their food. But, how many of us are?

As for Monsanto, my hubby says that their products rarely live up to their promises. The scary part of Monsanto is that they are developing a monopoly. My husband cannot stand them because of their disrespectful treatment of farmers and will not buy their products (plus, he says they only work in "perfect" conditions), but it is difficult for him to find other seed and he has to work hard to do so.

So, people, buy organic. No matter what you think about what "organic" means these days, for right now it is the ONLY way to guarantee non-GMO food.

If you are looking for feed for your animals (hay), then talk to your local provider and let them know you do NOT want to buy GMO hay. If farmer's current customers let them know that, I see no urgent reason that farmers would choose anyway to switch to GMO alfalfa.

 

[Mackay]

Edited to remove unhelpful comments - keep it civil

 

[me&thegals]

Mackay--I have no idea where that came from, but I don't have much respect for people who will not listen to opinions different from their own. Maybe it comes from being an organic grower married to a conventional farmer. When you love people with very different views, you come to understand that different opinions are not necessarily evil ones.

 

[Lady Henevere]

Eventually, independent farmers are going to go away in favor of vertical integration.. Companies that need corn will grow corn, and the guy in charge of doing it will get a weekly paycheck just like the rest of the world. And he'll do it their way, with their preferred seed, planting and cultivating and spraying and harvesting on their schedule, etc..

Whole Foods just announced it's going to grow some of its own produce. I guess they can just cut out farmer-landowners altogether in favor of employees.... http://food.change.org/blog/view/whole_foods_to_grow_its_own_produce