by
gmcropsfarmer2farmer
June 14, 2011
from
YouTube Website
Michael Hart, a conventional livestock family farmer, has been
farming in Cornwall for nearly thirty years and has actively
campaigned on behalf of family farmers for over fifteen years,
travelling extensively in Europe, India, Canada and the USA.
In this short documentary he investigates the reality of farming
genetically modified crops in the USA ten years after their
introduction. He travels across the US interviewing farmers and
other specialists about their
experiences of growing GM.
Visit
http://gmcropsfarmertofarmer.com/.
GMOs Failing Across America
"Farmer to Farmer" Film Reveals Disastrous
Failure
by PF Louis
August 08, 2011
from
NaturalNews Website
The mainstream media reports almost nothing about the downside of
GMO farming. Only the propaganda of creating more agricultural
abundance cheaply is broadcasted.
The above short video documentary "Farmer to Farmer
- The Truth about GM Crops" offers a glimpse into
the undisclosed downside reality of GMO farming.
Documentary
Essence
Michael Hart has been a commercial farmer in Cornwall,
England for thirty years. He is not an organic farmer, but he is a
proponent of agricultural diversity from family farms. He wants the
EU to avoid the GMO seed/herbicide trap.
His recently produced short documentary focuses on American farmers,
who have bought into the biotech industry's propaganda of higher
yields with less overhead.
The farmers he interviewed underscore
the same theme:
Monsanto has trapped them into a financial system of
patented seeds and herbicides that have resulted in faltering crop
yields with higher operating expenses.
Major Points
Discussed in the Video
Monsanto sells its
Roundup herbicide specifically for its
Roundup
Ready GM seeds. It's part of a rigidly enforced deal.
The deal is sold with the promise that
one post emergence pass (spraying after plants emerge) of Roundup
will be sufficient for high crop yields of Monsanto's patented
Roundup Ready GMO seeds.
At first this appeared to be the case. But within a short time,
Roundup resistant weeds began sprouting. Different combinations of
tank mixed herbicides had to be contrived and purchased in addition
to Monsanto's contractually required Roundup herbicide. Monsanto
even sold tank mixed herbicides as well.
Not only did one pass not work, but farmers also attested to
different combinations of herbicides with several passes, which
included pre-emergence and post emergence spraying to manage their
crops. The new weeds had become a plague. And GMO crop production
wound up demanding even more pesticide applications than non-GMO
commercial farming.
Because the biotech industry now funds most agricultural university
research, the farmers are concerned about the lack of attention
toward developing better pesticides that would minimize spraying.
When the composite chemical tank pesticides don't do the job,
Monsanto advises farmers to pull weeds by hand.
Many crop fields are well over a
thousand acres!
GMO farmers are contractually barred from saving seeds for future
crop planting. This violates a centuries old custom. They have to
buy new GMO seeds from Monsanto for every new crop planting. A non-GMO
farmer can save seeds to raise new crops. Even if GMO seeds are
cheaper, in the long run the non-GMO farmer saves money since he's
able to use seeds saved from prior plantings many times over.
Even so, prices for non-GMO seeds have increased substantially as
public (not patented) seeds are being crowded out of the market with
Monsanto's government granted ability to patent seeds that are not
genetically modified. Farmers hire professional seed cleaners to
clean and sort their saved seeds.
Monsanto harasses seed cleaners to
ensure they are not mixing Monsanto's patented seeds with farmers'
saved seeds.
American farmers realize the co-existence of non-GMO fields with GMO
fields is impossible. They've had to learn the hard way that cross
pollination and seeds carried by wind and migrating birds
contaminate their non-GMO fields. And Monsanto uses patent law to
prosecute farmers, who have been unwittingly contaminated by nearby
GM fields belonging to other farmers.
This type of intimidation forces non-GMO
farmers out of business.
Conclusion
Michael Hart has vowed to promote GMO resistance to EU farmers.
Beyond Hart's mission, health freedom
activists, who are concerned about GMO threat to human health,
should consider including disgruntled GMO and non-GMO commercial
farmers in an international coalition of GMO resistance.
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