For farmers, GMOs may not be as valuable as perceived

After analyzing several large GM farms from a “10,000-foot perspective,” Grist’s Nathanael Johnson has gone back to eye level, in attempt to learn why farmers choose to grow GM crops.

“I emailed or chatted with farmers until I started to hear the same explanation, over and again,” Johnson writes.

For example, Johnson spoke with Harn Soper, a farmer from Iowa. “Harn Soper has a real-world laboratory to test the benefits of farming with genetically modified (GM) seed,” he writes. “Soper’s family owns seven farms near Emmetsburg, Iowa, with organic crops on 410 acres and GM crops on some 300 acres. The farms are all in the same microclimate: If a torrential cloudburst hits one farm, it hits them all. So Soper can compare the economics of one farming style against the other. And it’s clear, when the numbers are tallied, that he’s making a lot more money farming organically than farming with GM seed.”

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Read the full, original story here: “Are GMOs worth their weight in gold? To farmers, not exactly” 

Additional Resources: 

• “Golden apple or forbidden fruit? Following the money on GMOs,” Grist
• “Measuring the economic impacts of transgenic crops in developing agriculture during the first decade,” IFPRI