GMOs | Civil Eats

As the US Pressures Mexico to Import GM Corn, Can It Preserve Its Traditional Varieties?

Lisa Held — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 09:00:42 +0000

In Mexico, a coalition of Indigenous, farm, and environmental advocacy groups have been working for decades to safeguard the genetic diversity of the crop that is a cornerstone of both their diets and their cultural and ecological heritage: corn.

Just two years ago, they celebrated a major victory, when President Andrés Manuel López Obrador issued the first executive order that directed the government to “revoke and refrain from granting authorizations” for the use of genetically modified (GM) corn in Mexican diets and for “release into the environment” by January 2024. While growing GM corn in Mexico has not been allowed for 25 years, millions of tons of the corn enter the country each year via imports. The order also called for a complete phaseout of the controversial herbicide glyphosate by that date.

“It leaves the door open to GM corn coming from the U.S., and that, from our perspective, still poses a risk.”

“With the aim of achieving self-sufficiency and food sovereignty, our country should aim to establish sustainable and culturally appropriate agricultural production, through the use of agroecological practices and inputs that are safe for human health, the country’s biocultural diversity, and the environment, as well as congruent with the agricultural traditions of Mexico,” López Obrador wrote in the order.

Now, however, in the face of U.S. pressure, Mexico is weakening the ban, which was in part intended to prevent genetically modified seed from contaminating native varieties.

Because the executive order was short on specifics, it was unclear from the start what it would mean for the 17 million tons of mostly GM corn exported to Mexico from the U.S. every year—used primarily for livestock feed. And since last fall, U.S. officials, including Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, have been meeting with Mexican officials to advocate for its reversal.

Vilsack and others said the recent order violated the free trade agreement between the U.S. and Mexico, a fact that some analyses of the agreement’s language dispute. As officials negotiated, preliminary reports suggested López Obrador’s government would stick to including corn used for livestock feed but delay the start date of the ban to 2025 to alleviate U.S. concerns.

Then, at the end of January, the U.S. agriculture trade chief demanded Mexican officials provide scientific evidence to support the bans on both GM corn and glyphosate by February 14. And finally, last week, the Mexican government issued an order that came with new clarifications. Officials said the ban on GM corn would still apply to corn used in flour, dough, or tortillas but not to livestock feed or industrial uses.

“It leaves the door open to GM corn coming from the U.S., and that, from our perspective, still poses a risk,” said Gustavo Ampugnani, the executive director of Greenpeace Mexico, in an interview with Civil Eats.

One 2004 commission focused on GM corn and biodiversity found clear evidence that transgenic DNA had been imported in U.S. corn.

Advocates worry that because the grain itself is a seed, those seeds will end up getting planted somewhere. Then the GM varieties, which are bred for traits including resistance to glyphosate and to include a protein that kills certain insects, will cross-pollinate with native corn varieties, called landraces.

“It’s not just hypothetical,” Ampugnani said, pointing to research from the early 2000s that found transgenic DNA in corn plants grown in Oaxaca. “The only explanation for this to happen was that the grain that we were importing from the U.S. was being used as seeds.” Past reports have shown those imported seeds can be viable, even when intended for use as feed.

Ampugnani and advocates from the many organizations he works with say that protecting the country’s native landraces is especially critical right now, given that economic, environmental, and other pressures on small- and medium-sized corn growers could lead to them abandoning farming.

“The ancient cultures who were living in Mexico and Central America domesticated the corn in such a way that you can find corn for very specific temperatures, soils, and altitudes in Mexico. So, we are talking about biodiversity. We are talking about plant diversity, but a special plant which is used for food as well,” he said. “So, from this ecological point of view, Mexico has to do as much as possible to protect these landraces from being contaminated with GE varieties.”

Critics of López Obrador’s ban say Mexico needs the corn imports to feed its citizens and keep the economy humming and that there is no evidence that shows GM corn is detrimental to the environment or human health. One 2004 commission focused on GM corn and biodiversity found clear evidence that transgenic DNA had been imported in U.S. corn—and that those genes were already present in and would continue to cross-contaminate Mexican landraces. But the commission also found that the introduction “of a few individual transgenes is unlikely to have any major biological effect on genetic diversity in maize landraces.”

Interestingly, in his original order phasing out GM corn, López Obrador cited reliance on the “precautionary principle” as a key component of international biodiversity treaties that “have determined that the authorities observe said principle to prevent serious or irreversible damage.” That principle basically holds that when evidence of harm is not conclusive, it’s better to be safe than sorry. But U.S. policy on genetic engineering and pesticide use tends to follow an opposite rule.

If the evidence of a crop or chemical’s harm is not bulletproof, agencies tend to allow its use until harm is sufficiently documented. With genetics and biodiversity, that approach could be especially risky, since the same 2004 commission found that “removing transgenes that have introgressed widely into landraces is likely to be very difficult and may in fact be impossible.”

“Right now, while we have authorities that are more like-minded, this is our opportunity to make it better.”

As the issue has continued to percolate, anti-GM advocacy organizations across the U.S., Mexico, and Canada have joined forces to protest the Biden administration’s stance and support Mexico’s original order. Groups in the U.S. have called the American stance “21st century imperialism” and pointed to an economic opportunity for U.S. farmers to respond to demand for non-GM corn.

On the ground in Mexico, Ampugnani said that their coalition was digesting the latest development and would be ready to come together to figure out their next steps next week.

“Right now, while we have authorities that are more like-minded, this is our opportunity to make it better,” he said.

Bee Breeding. In other genetic-diversity news, a new study conducted by researchers with USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) found an “alarming” lack of it among honeybees in the U.S., threatening the sustainability of the country’s beekeeping. In recent years, honeybees have faced a multitude of threats to their health and survival. Pesticide use, the loss of nutritious forage, climate change events like droughts, and pests and parasites have all contributed to a high rate of annual colony loss and lower honey production. In a press release, ARS researchers explained that a lack of genetic diversity makes U.S. honeybees more vulnerable to those threats. The researchers studied approximately 1,063 bees from hobbyist and commercial beekeepers in 45 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and two U.S. territories (Guam and Puerto Rico) and found the nation’s managed populations rely almost entirely on a single evolutionary lineage. Ninety-four percent belonged to the North Mediterranean C lineage, 3 percent belonged to the West Mediterranean M lineage, and 3 percent belonged to the African A lineage. The research team is now looking at solutions, such as diversifying breeding stations.

Corporate Climate Accountability. In April 2021, global meat behemoth JBS took out a full-page ad in the New York Times to announce a goal of becoming a net-zero company by 2040. “Bacon, chicken wings, and steak with net-zero emissions,” the ad declared. “It’s possible.” However, according to an advertising watchdog organization’s ruling, based on the company’s plans so far, it’s really not—and that means the company is misleading consumers. JBS is appealing a decision by the National Advertising Division (NAD) of BBB National Programs found that, despite its progress on setting climate targets, the company’s plans and current work to meet those targets do not match its bold climate claims.

It’s just one of many examples of how food—and especially meat—companies’ climate commitments are coming under increased scrutiny. In a new study out of Europe, researchers investigated the net-zero claims of Swedish fast-food chain Max Burgers AB and found the company’s promises had many of the same problems as JBS. It relied heavily on offsetting emissions while publicly conflating that strategy with real greenhouse gas emissions reductions. The company also promoted reduced emissions based on relative numbers (emissions per unit of food sold) while the company’s overall emissions tripled between 2007 and 2021. “We conclude that even seemingly progressive corporate net-zero pledges and claims become problematic if they distract from real reductions and justify carbon-intensive lifestyles,” the researchers wrote.

At the same time, a report released last week looked at the net-zero claims made by 24 global companies. The authors estimated that far short of net-zero, their pledges will only reduce emissions by 36 percent, because of an overreliance on offsets and a lack of concrete, immediate actions in place to match long-term targets. Companies across eight sectors including tech and consumer goods were included, but food companies—including JBS—had some of the lowest scores.

This is all happening as agricultural lobbyists are fighting to defeat a proposal by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that would require public food companies to report emissions throughout their supply chains.

Pesticide Protections for Farmworkers. Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it will rescind Trump-era provisions that weakened a standard meant to protect farmworkers from being sprayed by pesticides while on the job. As part of the Obama EPA’s update to the Worker Protection Standard in 2015, the agency established an “Application Exclusion Zone,” an area that is off limits to workers while harmful pesticides are being sprayed. Trump’s EPA shrunk the size of the zone and changed the rules so that it could not extend beyond property lines, which meant workers would not be protected from spray just over a field border. Now, Biden’s EPA reviewed the provisions and found that those provisions weakened the standard in a way that could harm workers. Agency officials are proposing reverting to most of the provisions of the 2015 rule; the new rules are available for public comment for 60 days. “Farmworker justice is environmental justice, and we’re continuing to take action to make sure these communities are protected equally under the law from pesticide exposure,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a press release.

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‘Percy vs. Goliath’ Is a Cautionary Tale of Corporate Control in Agriculture

Lynne Curry — Fri, 30 Apr 2021 08:00:50 +0000

In 1998, Percy Schmeiser, a canola farmer on the plains of Saskatchewan, Canada received a letter from the agricultural biotech company Monsanto, claiming that he was growing its patented seeds in his fields without a license. Genetically modified (or GMO) seeds were relatively new to the market, and the company’s Roundup Ready canola was resistant to Roundup, the herbicide Monsanto also sold. The new seeds came with the promise of increased yields and reduced pesticide use.

But Schmeiser and his wife, Louise, were seed savers, and unlike more than hundreds of other farmers threatened with a corporate lawsuit, they didn’t settle. Instead, they fought for the right to grow their own seed, claiming that the genetic material from Monsanto found on their farm had blown there on the wind. Their court battle reached the Supreme Court of Canada, resulting in a split decision. It upheld Monsanto’s intellectual property rights requiring the Schmeisers to surrender their 50-year seed stock, but the court ruled that the family owed the company no damages.

The feature film, Percy vs. Goliath, released today in theaters and streaming, dramatizes the couple’s six-year struggle against the multinational corporation, which was purchased by Bayer in 2018. Academy Award-winning actor Christopher Walken plays the stoic Schmeiser (who passed away in October 2020), Roberta Maxwell co-stars as his tenacious wife, and Zach Braff plays their determined lawyer.

The movie opens with the ferocious windstorm that may have transported the GMO seeds to the Schmeisers’ farm and Percy and his farmhand race to save their own seeds before they blow away. The scene suggests that the epic force threatening the survival of family farmers is not nature itself, but the corporate control of agriculture. “These companies are going to swallow us up,” Percy says.

The filmmakers took some creative liberties in making Percy vs. Goliath, including the creation of a fictional anti-GMO activist played by Christina Ricci and a cameo by seed sovereignty activist Vandana Shiva. Although the question before the Canadian courts was limited to patent infringement, the scope of the film is sweeping, including GMO seed contamination, pesticide impacts on health and the environment, farm economies, and corporate ownership of living plant material.

Genetically engineered food crops, including corn, soybeans, potato, and papaya, have been deemed safe to eat by the scientific community but they remain controversial for many environmental advocates, who see them as enabling vast tracks of commodity monocrops, creating a pesticide treadmill caused by the growth of herbicide-resistant weeds, and increasing overall pesticide use around the world.

Meanwhile, the majority of the U.S. seed supply is controlled by just four companies, 90 percent of all canola seeds are now genetically modified, and cross-contamination threatens non-GMO and organic seed production in the U.S. For the last several years, Bayer has been mired in court cases over its herbicide dicamba and the ongoing lawsuits linking glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The film’s director, Clark Johnson, is widely known as an actor who played high-profile roles on The Wire and Homicide, and he recently directed the feature films S.W.A.T. and The Sentinel. He spoke to Civil Eats about what attracted him to this quiet story about a Canadian farmer and why the questions it raises about agriculture still resonate 20 years later.

You are best known for detective series and crime dramas. What drew you to this story, wherein nobody dies?

I do a lot of cop dramas and it’s fun to do big action movies, but the first film I directed—that got any notice—was Boycott (2001), which is about the birth of the civil rights movement. My next movie is my parents’ life story. We had to move to Canada when we were kids because my parents were involved in the movement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). And as a kid, [we] rode around in freedom rides and went to peace marches and stuff. My three siblings and I didn’t get to taste grape jelly or lettuce for the first few years of our childhood because of Cesar Chavez’s [boycotts]. So, that’s the kind of thing that I was raised with. But I was drawn to Percy’s story because I knew nothing about it. I didn’t even know what canola was.

So, how did a drama about agriculture lure major film stars like Christopher Walken, Zach Braff, and Christina Ricci?

Because it’s compelling and it’s a true story based on real characters. They weren’t going, “Oh, that guy that does all those cool cop dramas, he’s going to nail this canola movie.” The actors responded to the story and then they responded to how I was going to tell it.

The film’s storyline begins and ends with the Schmeisers’ legal battle with Monsanto between 1998 and 2004. Why do you think this family’s story is still relevant today?

This was pre-internet, mostly. [Percy and Louise] licked stamps and sealed envelopes and responded to everybody that offered up money as word got around through the farming community that they were being bullied by Big Agribusiness. We found a great, sixth-generation farm in Manitoba [to shoot the film] It is organic and they don’t use GMOs at all. And it was really inspiring to tell the story of the Schmeisers on a family farm. There is some relevance to the idea that GMOs can make things better. They were just saying, “We didn’t steal your copyrights.” They just were defending themselves and their honor.

There is some lingering controversy within the farming community over whether the Schmeisers knowingly planted the contaminated seed. The court Supreme Court of Canada stated that Percy was not “an innocent bystander,” yet the film paints him as the victim. Why is Percy the hero of the film?

I wouldn’t have done the movie if I didn’t believe the Schmeisers. They used to weed around the telephone poles, the hydro poles, because that’s where the weeds were. [Percy] noticed that the canola was thriving with the weeds. And he said, “Oh, these are great seeds.” And he used the seeds from that acre. Now, when you get an acres’ worth of canola seeds and save them to seed your land next year, they call that infringement. To me, it was like a no brainer that he wasn’t saying, “Hey, I got free seeds!”

What takeaways about GMOs did you want your audience to leave the film with?

Well, you can just rip it from the headlines that Bayer is dealing with billion-dollar lawsuits because people are getting cancer because they use Roundup. We’re in a challenging time on a number of levels because we are trying to get ahead of nature. I get it. We want to feed the world.

That’s why I didn’t want to just say Monsanto was evil and that’s all there was to it. [I wanted] to open up a dialogue about where their responsibility lies. Their scientists are world-renowned and come up with great ideas that can make farming more practical. Especially now, when so many people [face] food insecurity in the world, I’m happy to find something that we can feed everybody [with]. But you gotta be careful how far you go with that.

After its release in 2020 in Canada, Percy vs. Goliath was painted in some in some circles as an anti-GMO film, but it doesn’t sound like you were saying that at all.

Well, I am in that we’re talking about this particular farm and these particular people and the reaction to them and the battle they took on. You know, Percy II could go into show the Monsanto side, but I’m not interested in doing that. They got people for that. We’re telling the story of how he dealt with their attack. I don’t know that much about Monsanto. I know a lot about big business and big government. As I said earlier, I come by my feistiness and my civil disobedience honestly. And so I’m happy to tell his side of the story.

It’s hardly a whodunnit, so how did you frame this patent infringement lawsuit for a movie-going audience?

Right. We joked about shooting in Canada. The pickup trucks that are stalking him around all the time, keeping an eye on him—he drove them through a mud puddle and got them stuck. Now, [if it was] an American version, the S.W.A.T. version, he would have had a shotgun and gone out in a gun battle. So, it’s not an action movie, but neither was Erin Brockovich. This is a story about one guy going up against a monolith. So, we didn’t rip pages from the headlines, we ripped pages from the court cases.

Did you actually use some of the legal arguments from the trials?

Oh yeah. I mean, if we had changed a comma, the Monsanto lawyers would have been all over us.

Since the Schmeisers’ case wrapped up in 2004, so much has transpired around Monsanto, including the acquisition by Bayer, and the USDA label on bio-engineered food that becomes mandatory on January 1, 2022. Are you at all concerned that this film might seem like old news?

Not at all. I think it’s an “I told you so” moment. The repercussions are being felt right now . . . [farmers] take their spreaders blast that [Roundup] all across their fields. And it doesn’t just stay on the canola, it gets into your kitchen, into your kids’ bedrooms . . . that is no joke. So, it’s a cautionary tale.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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What Will it Take for Farmers to Grow More Organic Cotton?

Nicole Rasul — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 08:00:23 +0000

For years, organic cotton was a tough sell for the average American consumer. The consumers who did opt to pay extra for organic products tended to prioritize food, and the markup on cotton just didn’t seem worth it.

“The first concern of people, and why they gravitate toward organic, is because they are usually putting it in their mouths,” says Kathleen Delate, an Iowa State University professor and organic specialist.

But that’s all finally changing, says Delate, who joined two other researchers to produce a new study in conjunction with The Organic Center looking at the environmental impact of organic cotton compared to its conventional counterpart. The change stems in part because consumers are increasingly interested in ecosystem health across the entire commodity chain. A 2019 survey conducted by Nielsen found that 73 percent of global consumers said they would be willing to adjust their consumption habits to reduce their environmental footprint with nearly half saying they’d pay more for products containing organic or all-natural ingredients.

This shift has spurred demand for organic textiles, which have seen a 12 percent annual growth rate in recent years. In fact, according to the Organic Trade Association (OTA), organic cotton is the largest and fastest-growing organic commodity in the American marketplace that’s not a food, netting $2 billion in sales in 2019 alone.

This supply comes from more than 222,000 farmers in 19 countries who grew more than 1.1 million bales of organic cotton during the 2017-2018 growing season—the second largest organic cotton harvest on record. Most of this production centers in India, which produces 51 percent of the global cotton supply. American-grown organic cotton comprises only a tiny fraction of the fiber sector. Of the 1.1 million bales grown worldwide in 2017-2018, only slightly more than 23,000 bales originated in the U.S.

That is a drop in the bucket compared to conventional cotton production—the world’s most popular natural fiber—where in 2019 alone, nearly 20 million bales of the crop were produced on American soil, accounting for $7 billion in global value. That’s a lot, considering that one bale makes more than 1,200 t-shirts.

And yet, Delate and her peers’ new research confirmed what many have long suspected: organic production results in remarkably less environmental degradation—in a sector highly dependent on genetically engineered seed and chemical inputs.

For Jessica Shade, director of science programs at The Organic Center and one of the report’s authors, the hope is to spur much-needed innovation in the industry. “It is incumbent upon universities, NGOs, and industry groups to work together toward the goal of creating an organic cotton sector steeped in the principles of ecology, health, fairness, and care,” the authors write in their report.

Why Organic?

Cotton production in the United States centers on 17 warm southern states, with Texas leading the pack as the largest cotton producer. The Lone Star state is also the heart of the fledgling organic cotton industry in the United States.

Conventionally grown cotton is not only one of the most traded crops on the planet—supplying billons of clothing and other various textile products each year—but it is also one of the most chemically intensive crops to produce. In the United States, cotton ranks third after corn and soybeans as the crop that requires the most pesticides in its production. In 2019, more than 68 million pounds of pesticide were applied to cotton fields across the U.S. alone. Additionally, most conventional cotton farmers plant genetically engineered seed, resulting in higher chemical application and the engineering of more robust products that have known environmental and human health impacts. Glyphosate, the active ingredient in the widely used herbicide Roundup, made up more than one third of all pesticide use on cotton in 2019 according to the USDA. The study reads:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved new GMO cotton varieties, Xtend and Enlist, which are each resistant to three herbicides: glyphosate, glufosinate, and dicamba, and glyphosate, glufosinate, and 2,4-D, respectively. These new GMO varieties are expected to replace the traditional Roundup Ready cotton and are anticipated to increase the amounts of these chemicals used in conventional cotton production.

The researchers examined the environmental benefits of organic cotton using a survey of more than 100 growers and processors—most of whom reside in Texas. The researchers also sought information on the agronomic, manufacturing, and market challenges facing producers.

According to Shade, there has been little research to date looking at the environmental impacts of organic cotton on a large scale. More importantly, none of the research available has actively involved input from the nation’s small-scale organic cotton-producing community, Shade says.

“We wanted to do something that would look a little bit deeper and incorporate farmer and processor experiences in addition to the more academic knowledge that we have about the environmental impacts of organic cotton,” Shade notes. She says a lot of growers commented on perceivable improvements in things like soil quality and increased biodiversity on their farms since transitioning to organic.

Survey respondents cited weed management as their biggest obstacle in growing organic cotton. As Kelly Pepper, the manager of the Texas Organic Cotton Marketing Cooperative (TOCMC), attests, most organic cotton operations average 1,000 acres—which is mammoth compared to their counterparts in other organic industries—and organic management of weeds over this large terrain can be complicated. Cotton is a slow-growing crop that takes 150 to 180 days to come to maturation, giving weeds an ample opportunity to grow.

Other problems respondents cited include pest management, ensuring lack of contamination from genetically modified crops, accessing organic seed stock, the impact of extreme weather events—for example, last year’s drought in Texas slashed yields—and inadvertent pesticide contamination as well as a slew of marketplace barriers.

Organic farmers grow cotton in rotation with other crops while conventional producers are more likely to grow cotton in back-to-back seasons. Members of TOCMC also grow peanuts, wheat, corn, milo, forage sorghum, soybeans, black-eyed peas, and sesame.

These rotations mean more biodiversity, says Delate. As a result, organic farms contribute a range of ecosystem services to the regions where they are located. This approach has real and tangible impacts on soil, waterways, and human and animal health, the researcher said.

“There are higher carbon sequestration benefits with organic production in general,” Delate added. “Organic systems have always used cover crops and there are a plethora of options—rye, vetch, clovers. Cover crops add carbon—and some folks use compost and manure too, which adds to the carbon profile of the soil.”

Cotton also requires intensive water use. However, based on the researchers’ findings, organic growers appear to use less. According to the Textile Exchange, global cotton production comprises 69 percent of the textile industry’s water footprint. Meanwhile, organic cotton production reduces water consumption by as much as 91 percent. Many organic producers forgo irrigation—one study found that 80 percent of organic cotton production globally relies on rainfed systems—and they foster healthier soil that contains a higher percentage of organic matter, which does a better job of holding in moisture.

Beyond the farm, organic certification in the cotton industry extends to the ban on environmentally harmful chemicals at other points in the production process. This step safeguards the health of handlers and makers at further points in the value chain. Specifically, to be certified organic, the product must be free of chlorine bleach, dyes containing heavy metals, ammonia, and formaldehyde, as well as a slew of other hazardous inputs that are used in conventional cotton processing. Water is also saved in organic production processing compared to conventional production, which is generally dependent on large amounts of water for dyeing and finishing.

From Farm to Fashion

“Cotton is a very difficult crop to grow organically,” Pepper of TOCMC says.

Pepper used to farm more than 1,000 acres of organic upland cotton alongside his brother in the High Plains region of Texas, a fertile zone where more than 60 percent of the state’s cotton crop is seeded and harvested. Now, he helps more than three-dozen farmers affiliated with TOCMC find markets for their harvests from nearly 20,000 acres of combined cropland.

Despite the many challenges of growing cotton organically, Pepper also recognizes the crop’s potential. “Demand has gone absolutely crazy,” he says. “We’ve been turning away new business.”

However, the American market still favors conventional growers. “As long as conventional cotton is significantly cheaper in general it is hard for organic growers to compete,” Pepper says about current volatility in the sector. Building in more flexibility with products that blend organic and conventional cotton or permit cotton from farmers still in the three-year transition to organic would aid growers in expanding, he adds.

“The best way for there to be significant growth would be for large brands—and some of them have done this in the past—to have a program where they blend organic or transitional cotton with regular cotton,” Pepper says. “If they would come to farmers with a commitment to buy a certain number of pounds knowing that weather and other impacts may limit the amount available, but if the agreement is open-ended and has an attractive price, there is potential for growth.”

Patagonia offers a version of this with the “Cotton in Conversion” product line it launched last year. “Our support of this crop rewards the efforts of farmers who are committed to reaching organic cotton certification and helps them stay on the path to organic” the brand notes on its website. Other clothing brands, ranging from giants like Nike to small ones like Everlane, also have various commitments to organic production in their product lines.

“We need pioneer brands who will create an incentive for farmers to transition,” says Angela Wartes-Kahl, vice chair of the OTA’s Fiber Council. “It’s unfair to put everything on the farmer,” she adds while explaining that contracts from industry buyers are the structure needed to incentivize organic cotton’s expansion.

Jesse Daystar, chief sustainability officer for industry association Cotton Incorporated, doesn’t see a sole focus on organic as the only answer. “While organic cotton production is key to many brand sourcing strategies, relying on organic production alone is problematic for many reasons,” Daystar told Civil Eats via email. “First, cotton is purchased based upon its fiber quality, rather than by production system or geography. It could be challenging, especially for large brands, to source sufficient quantities of specific qualities of organic cotton for their apparel.”

Daystar says the support of other industry-specific tools such as the recently launched U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol, managed by his own company with the National Cotton Council among others, is one key to growing sustainability in the sector. The Protocol brands itself as “setting a new standard for more sustainably grown cotton” and claims to vet the fiber using metrics on land and water use, soil carbon and soil loss, as well as energy efficiency.

“Scaling up organic cotton production to meet the industry preferred fiber needs would be challenging, if not impossible, within the timelines set forth by many brands and organizations,” Daystar said. He wants to see sustainable fiber production take a “both and” mentality that includes both organic production and stricter standards for conventional cotton under the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol.

The authors of the new study say the heart of their effort focuses on pushing industry partners to pursue deeper agronomic and market research to aid the sector. One effort that Delate says could be monumental is support for seed programs, like those at Texas A&M University, which aim to develop and make higher-yielding organic seed stock more widely available. The research institution houses the only program on organic cotton seed in the United States.

Meanwhile, at Iowa State—where Delate works—there are two research programs devoted to organic corn seed stock amongst a range of other academic institutions and private sector labs working on the topic. “[Organic] needs a lot more research power,” Delate says.

Shade calls the report a “scaffolding” for growth in the fledgling organic cotton sector. “There’s been a lot of research on organics in general but cotton has gotten left behind,” she adds. But, she adds that “there’s economic opportunity and, as the tools develop, hopefully they can really help people overcome barriers in transitioning from conventional.”

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Bayer Forges Ahead with New Crops Resistant to 5 Herbicides

Lisa Held — Wed, 01 Jul 2020 09:00:16 +0000

Over the past few years, Bayer (which now owns Monsanto) has repeatedly lost in court to those who have claimed its Roundup herbicide is responsible for their cancer diagnoses. Things appeared to get worse for the agrichemical company last week, when it agreed to pay $10 billion to settle tens of thousands of similar lawsuits.

At the same time, the company paid $400 million to settle claims brought by farmers who claimed their crops were destroyed when dicamba, the active ingredient in Bayer’s XtendiMax herbicide, drifted onto their fields. That was after a federal court reversed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) approval of dicamba based on extensive evidence of widespread harm it caused to farmers’ crops. (U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue then urged the EPA to allow the continued use of already purchased dicamba products.)

Public health advocates and environmental groups have celebrated these news stories as victories in their crusade to reduce the widespread use of genetic engineering (GE) and hazardous pesticides. Meanwhile, it appears that Bayer has barely registered them as speed bumps, as the company forges ahead with new products that are likely to increase the use of the very same—and additional—herbicides.

“Bayer is committed to and stands fully behind our Roundup and XtendiMax herbicides. We are proud of our role in bringing solutions to help growers safely, successfully, and sustainably protect their crops from weeds,” a Bayer spokesperson told Civil Eats.

And in fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is currently considering the approval of a genetically engineered variety of corn developed by Bayer that would be resistant to at least five herbicides at once—including glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup) and dicamba.

If all goes according to plan, the company expects to launch the corn in the U.S. “mid-to-late this decade.” Some groups hope to disrupt that trajectory.

“The fact that Bayer is now petitioning for this new GE maize shows that it has certainly not shifted the corporation’s intentions with respect to how to get on the right side of history . . . or to back off from a production system that is going to lock farmers into a chemical-intensive business model,” said Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, a senior scientist at the Pesticide Action Network (PAN), which is urging its members to comment on the USDA petition for the seed’s approval. “They are just pushing forward.”

Chemical-Resistant Corn

The new variety of corn, MON 87429, would be bred with other hybrid varieties to produce seeds that, when planted, will grow despite being sprayed by glyphosate, dicamba, 2,4-D, quizalofop, and glufosinate.

Bill Freese, a science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety, said that while a crop that is resistant to five herbicides is “certainly a record,” it’s not a surprising next step for the industry, which has been increasingly introducing multi-herbicide-resistant varieties.

The new variety of corn will grow despite being sprayed by glyphosate, dicamba, 2,4-D, quizalofop, and glufosinate.

Corteva’s Enlist corn is resistant to both glyphosate and 2,4-D, while Bayer’s Xtend system includes soybean and cotton varieties resistant to glyphosate and dicamba. Its newest XtendFlex soybeans are resistant to glyphosate, dicamba, and glufosinate.

Most herbicides only kill certain classes of weeds; Roundup is designed to kill nearly everything. But after decades of intensive, widespread use, many weeds have developed resistance to glyphosate, leaving farmers who have come to rely on Roundup in need of additional chemicals for weed management.

“It’s the logical progression, to make everything resistant to most major classes of herbicides,” Freese said. “What’s important, in our view, is that extremely troubling trend in industrial agriculture, which leads to much greater, more intensive herbicide use and more weeds resistant to multiple herbicides.”

Bayer submitted a petition requesting “nonregulated” status for MON 87429 last year, which essentially means it wants to move the crop out of field trials and into commercial use. If the USDA grants that status, Bayer will be able to plant and breed the crop free of regulation. In May, the USDA posted the company’s petition in the federal register, where it is open for public comment until July 7. After that, the agency will conduct an assessment of the petition and determine whether it plans to grant nonregulated status. When that assessment is complete, USDA will open up another public comment period.

Based on recent history, experts say the USDA is likely on track to approve the variety. (The agency also recently further relaxed its rules related to GE regulation, but this seed is being evaluated under the old rules.) And because the plants themselves won’t produce pesticides (unlike GE crops such as BT corn, which produce insecticides within the plant), the seed does not have to be approved by the EPA.

Effects of Modifying Crops for Herbicide Use

The EPA does regulate the herbicides that will then be used on the new corn variety, but it already considers these chemicals to be safe and allows their use.

For example, an EPA assessment released in January concluded that glyphosate is not a human carcinogen, although the International Agency for Research on Cancer has linked it to cancer and calls it a probable carcinogen. Meanwhile, numerous court juries have sided with scientists who presented evidence showing glyphosate is associated with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. (Part of Bayer’s recent settlement will be used to set up an independent expert panel to definitively tackle whether the chemical causes cancer and, if so, to determine what level of exposure is dangerous.)

In addition to destroying nearby farmers’ crops, dicamba has destroyed tens of millions of trees across the country, devastating orchards and ecosystems. 2,4-D is an older herbicide that has also been linked to serious health risks including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and thyroid disorders; its effects on ecosystems and wildlife were documented as early as the 1960s, in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.

One of the biggest concerns around introducing new herbicide-resistant crops is that they will likely lead to a significantly increase in the volume of herbicides farmers apply.

Quizalofop, an herbicide that kills grassy weeds and is currently used on some wheat, has been linked to reproductive cancers and liver toxicity, but is considered safe at current use levels by the EPA. More research on glufosinate’s health and environmental effects is needed; researchers have determined it is not carcinogenic, but the European Union classifies it with a warning for organ toxicity and negative effects on fertility and fetal development.

One of the biggest concerns around introducing new herbicide-resistant crops is that they will likely lead to a significantly increase in the volume of herbicides farmers apply. One analysis found that since Roundup-ready crops were introduced in the mid 1990s, global use of glyphosate has increased 15-fold. In the U.S., Bayer’s dicamba-resistant Xtend system skyrocketed in popularity after 2016; between 2016 and 2017, estimated dicamba use doubled, from less than 10 million pounds to close to 20 million.

Another concern is a lack of data on the effects of using so many different herbicides on the same plants, landscape, and food, and what exposure to that combination might mean for farmers and farmworkers.

“We don’t know what the synergistic effects of these cocktails of pesticides will be when applied,” Ishii-Eiteman said, referring to the potential for unexpected effects when two chemicals interact. And yet, state and federal regulators generally focus on the effects of each chemical used on its own. There is some evidence that pesticides can have cumulative effects, in terms of a build-up of exposures, but the impact is very hard to measure.

Bayer’s spokesperson said that the crop’s intention would be to give farmers the flexibility to choose between herbicides, and that the company did not expect farmers to apply all five herbicides to the same crop.

Advocates have also expressed concerns about increased herbicide use exacerbating the current problem with herbicide-resistant weeds. Because Roundup can be applied liberally to destroy almost any weed, its widespread use has reduced its efficacy. According to the USDA, 14 glyphosate-resistant weeds currently plague U.S. cropland, and one 2013 study found 50 percent of farms surveyed were dealing with these powerful plants.

Bayer acknowledges the issue in its petition, writing that, “MON 87429 maize will offer growers multiple choices for effective weed management, including tough-to-control and herbicide-resistant broadleaf and grass weeds” and specifically pointing out that “dicamba, glufosinate, and 2,4-D individually or in certain combinations provide control of” certain glyphosate-resistant weeds.”

Their scientists and other researchers and organizations, including at the USDA, point to the fact that combining or alternating herbicides has been found to reduce the development of herbicide resistance compared to relying on single herbicides.

However, that’s the logic that Bayer applied when adding dicamba to glyphosate in its Xtend system, and the scaled-up planting of those crops created dicamba-resistant palmer amaranth in just a few years.

Rob Faux operates a diversified organic farm that’s surrounded by commodity fields in Northeast Iowa, and he said he doesn’t buy into the company’s stated goal of providing farmers with more options. “In reality, they’re trying to reduce the choices farmers have,” Faux, who also runs Iowa communications for PAN, told Civil Eats. “They’re not trying to provide more tools for the farmer. They’re just trying to capture market. And unfortunately, some of that market they’ll capture is by causing people to plant these seeds defensively.”

Faux was referring to farmers he knows in Iowa who have planted dicamba-resistant seeds to preemptively protect their crops from plumes of drift that float through the air from neighboring farms, even if they did not plan on using the herbicide themselves.

Now that a federal court has recognized the issue of drift as significant enough to ban the herbicide, the future of dicamba is uncertain. On June 16, Bayer announced it was scrapping a billion-dollar project to produce the herbicide in the U.S., but said it was unrelated to the court decision. And many other signs point to the company moving full-speed ahead. In addition to MON 87429, a Bayer spokesperson told Politico this week that the company also has “several dicamba formulations in our pipeline.”

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At Dicamba Trial, Evidence Shows Monsanto Execs Anticipated Pesticide Drift

Johnathan Hettinger, Investigate Midwest — Fri, 31 Jan 2020 09:00:23 +0000

Monsanto expected thousands of farmers to complain about its new weed killer drifting and harming their crops when it launched the new dicamba-tolerant soybean and cotton cropping systems, documents presented in federal court on Wednesday show.

“We anticipated it might happen,” said Dr. Boyd Carey, regional agronomy lead at Bayer Crop Science, which bought Monsanto in 2018.

Carey oversaw the claims process for Monsanto’s 2017 launch of the new herbicide.

Carey testified from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. Wednesday in a trial of a civil lawsuit filed by Bader Farms, the largest peach farm in Missouri, against Bayer and BASF.

Bader Farms, which says it is no longer a sustainable business because off-target movement of dicamba harmed its orchards, alleges that the companies intentionally created the problem in order to increase profits.

Monsanto developed the new technology after an increasing number of weeds developed resistance to the herbicide glyphosate (also called Roundup).

The St. Louis-based agribusiness company developed new genetically modified soybean and cotton seeds to withstand being sprayed by dicamba. Dicamba was developed in the 1950s but was not widely used in growing season because of its propensity to unintentionally move from field to field. Many crops, including traditional soybeans, are extremely sensitive to and can be damaged by dicamba.

In addition to the seeds, Monsanto and BASF, the original maker of dicamba, developed new versions of the weed killer touted to be less volatile than previous versions designed to be sprayed on the crops.

Even with those new versions, Monsanto expected complaints, documents show.

In an October 2015 document, Monsanto projected that farmers would file thousands of complaints in each of the next five years.

At that time, Monsanto was projecting that its weed killer would be available for the 2016 growing season, but it was not approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) until the 2017 growing season.

Still, the complaint projection proved accurate.

Monsanto projected 2,765 complaints about dicamba in 2017. In fact, the company received 3,101 complaints, Carey testified.

The projections for the overall number of dicamba-tolerant soybean acres planted were also accurate. Bayer has said that the acreage totals were about 20 million acres in 2017, 40 million acres in 2018 and 60 million acres in 2019.

In Oct. 2017, Kevin Bradley, a professor at the University of Missouri, projected that at least 3.6 million acres of soybeans were damaged across the Midwest and South in 2017. The complaints have continued in 2018 and 2019.

This chart, from a 2015 Monsanto Xtend soy projection entered into evidence, shows how many millions of acres and how many farmers would be growing dicamba-resistent soy between 2016 and 2020.

The number of complaints after the seeds were launched was significantly higher than in previous years.

Nationwide, in the five years preceding 2015, farmers never filed more than 40 claims about dicamba drifting, said Billy Randles, lead attorney for Bader Farms. However, that changed in 2015, when Monsanto released its new cotton seeds that could withstand being sprayed by dicamba.

Though dicamba was not approved for use on the crops, Monsanto felt it was worthwhile to release the new seeds because they were resistant to glyphosate and glufosinate, another herbicide that is sold by BASF under the brand name Liberty, Carey said.

Despite it not being legal to spray dicamba, some cotton farmers reportedly sprayed older versions of the herbicide, which drifted and harmed other farmers’ crops in 2015.

Monsanto and BASF were aware of the issue, Carey testified. However, Monsanto chose not to track drift complaints in 2015 or 2016. The company also had a policy not to investigate any complaints. Monsanto did not sell any versions of dicamba in 2015 or 2016. When Randles suggested Monsanto only started tracking claims because the EPA required it in 2017, Carey disagreed.

“We would have done that anyway,” he said.

In that time period and to this day, Monsanto and Bayer have a policy to not settle any claims of off-target movement, Carey said.

Dan Westberg, regional tech service manager at BASF, expressed concerns that the “widespread” illegal spraying would likely become “rampant” after Monsanto released its dicamba-tolerant soybeans in 2016. Westberg told officials that at a meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Feb. 11, 2016, Carey testified off his notes from the meeting.

In 2016, the alleged illegal spraying became so bad that the EPA issued a compliance advisory that said the Missouri Department of Agriculture had received 117 complaints of off-target movement.

The crops damaged included non-tolerant soybeans, as well as specialty crops like peaches. Bader had complained to Monsanto about his peaches being damaged by off-target movement of dicamba in 2015 and 2016.

Carey, who was in charge of developing the claims system for the launch of Monsanto’s Xtendimax with VaporGrip dicamba herbicide, testified that he wanted to investigate some claims just to see if he could learn anything but was advised not to.

In August 2016, the month of the advisory, Carey testified that he asked for a budget increase for the 2017 claims process from $2.4 million to $6.5 million.

The request included a projection that 20 percent of growers using the system would have inquiries about the system, including drift complaints. Randles raised questions about Monsanto’s handling of those inquiries.

A 2015 Mosanto document that discussed tools “available or under development” mentioned a dicamba inquiry form for the claims process once Xtendimax was launched. The document said the form was “developed to gather data that could defend Monsanto” and instructed field inspectors to look for symptoms other than dicamba, including environmental stress and other pesticide drift.

Carey said he was confident any 2015 form was not the final version of the form and that one of the best ways to investigate claims is to look at all possible options, including ruling out other potential causes.

“The most important thing is to visit the field,” Carey said. He said that’s the best way to understand the symptomology and eliminate other potential causes.

A 2016 incident management flow chart to help show how to process claims in 2017 showed that every claim that came in ended in “no settlement.” Carey said that is a long-standing company policy.

Carey testified that in 2017, Monsanto refused to visit any “driftee”—an internal term for those who received crop damage—who was not a customer. Inspectors were told to research the purchasing history to see if they were current Monsanto customers in “good standing,” or did not owe the company money.

Direct examination on Carey wrapped up Wednesday afternoon, and then Monsanto started its cross-examination, which took the rest of the day.

This article was originally published by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, which is following this story on a daily basis. Visit their website to sign up for daily updates from the dicamba trial.

Top photo: Bill Bader, owner of Bader Farms, and his wife Denise pose in front of the Rush Hudson Limbaugh Sr. United States Courthouse in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, on Monday, Jan. 27, 2020. (Photo by Johnathan Hettinger/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting)

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Oregon’s Seed War: Can Vegetable Crops and Canola Coexist in the Seed Capitol of America?

Lynne Curry — Thu, 20 Jun 2019 09:00:18 +0000

(Update: The Oregon state legislature voted on June 30 to pass SB 885, which extends for five years the moratorium on growing more than 500 acres of canola in the Willamette Valley.)

On July 1, a state law that restricts canola cultivation in Oregon’s Willamette Valley will expire. Around the state capitol, two groups of farmers and their advocates are locked in battle over the potential expansion of canola production. It’s the latest flare-up in a 20-plus-year fight over the future of these prime farmlands stretching 125 miles due south from Portland.

Cradled between two mountain ranges, the populous Willamette Valley is one of the most productive and protected agricultural regions in the country. While renowned for its diversity of farm crops and wine grapes that feed a thriving farm-to-table movement, it’s also the epicenter of a lucrative seed industry. Lands for growing grass seed, cover crop seed, and flower and vegetable seeds dominate the corridor’s 1.7 million arable acres.

Within the world of vegetable seed production, brassicas such as kale, broccoli, cabbage, and rutabaga contribute significantly to the valley’s specialty seed market, ranked fifth in the world. The canola plant is in the same Brassicaceae family (commonly known as mustard or cabbage). Also called rapeseed, the yellow flowering Brassica napus is a useful rotational crop for grass seed farmers in the valley, and the oilseed is crushed for oil and animal feed.

While canola has been raised in the Willamette Valley since before World War II, the state has taken a precautionary approach to the crop because it is a notorious cross-pollinator with rampant pest, disease, and weed issues. In 2013, the legislature implemented a 500-acre limit for canola cultivation in the Willamette Valley Protected District and tagged on a mandate for Oregon State University (OSU) to study the fields.

Now, with the July sunset date looming, a fierce debate has reignited between specialty vegetable seed stakeholders and pro-canola supporters.

An Oregon canola field. (Photo CC-licensed by the Oregon Department of Agriculture)

Organic and vegetable seed producers fear that the potential for contamination from cross-pollination from canola, which also has the potential to carry genetically engineered (GE) materials, is so high it threatens the viability of Oregon’s specialty seed industry. Led by the Willamette Valley Specialty Seed Association (WVSSA), they’re seeking the protections of a renewed state law, SB 885, which would extend the 500-acre limit on canola for four more years.

Oilseed growers have long bristled at strict regulations that single out the canola crop from other brassicas and limit the development of an oilseed industry. They are pushing for expansion under a new set of rules from the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) that would go into effect if the legislature allows the cap on canola to expire.

The central question in play is: Is there a way for vegetable seed and oilseed production to coexist? The matter is far from settled, and the pro- and anti-canola groups have found little, if any, common ground.

What’s at Stake for Oregon Farmers

Oregon’s Willamette Valley, with its mild, moist winters, long summers, and fertile soils, is one of few places, along with Chile, Australia, the Mediterranean, and western Canada, ideal for cultivating high-quality vegetable seeds. There is no official data collected on the number of seed companies located in the valley nor how many acres they farm. But industry sources reported to Civil Eats that there are at least 40 and as many as 100 seed companies operating on 10,000 to 12,000 acres. This includes valuable brassica seeds, including most of the world’s supply of European cabbage, Brussels sprouts, rutabaga, and turnip seed, and a quarter of the radish, Chinese cabbage, and other Chinese Brassica vegetable seed, according to a 2010 OSU report.

It’s well-established that when any variety of brassica blossoms, there is the potential for pollen to be transferred by insects or wind to other brassicas. If turnip pollen drifts to Chinese cabbage, for instance, it can produce undesirable traits in the resulting seed. However, the WVSSA has maintained a voluntary system of safeguards for decades that include field spacing (“isolation distances”) and crop mapping (“pinning”).

This same system is in use for GE sugar beet seed production, which was introduced in the valley in 2010. So far, it has worked to prevent sugar beets from contaminating fields of chard (a close relative) as well as non-GE table beets. But growers remain vigilant for transgenic contamination and test every seed lot.

While only non-GE canola is currently planted in Oregon, there is widespread concern that, because 90 percent of global canola seed is GE, it could make the canola seed supply vulnerable. Contamination from cross-pollination or seed mixing would make vegetable seed unsalable to the U.S. organic market or to countries that ban genetically modified materials, including Japan, Europe, and New Zealand. And there is no recourse or compensation for farmers.

Even without the GE issue, anti-canola advocates say low-value canola is a direct threat to the high-value specialty seed market. They point to places such as the U.K., Denmark, and France, where vegetable seed production declined or disappeared in the wake of commercial canola production as a result of disease and pest problems.

Nonetheless, the state-mandated OSU study on those 500 acres of canola has cleared a pathway for expanded canola production. Researchers collected data on the disease and pest impacts—but not cross-pollination—of canola on other brassica crops. It concluded, “The results of this research provide no reasons, agronomic or biological, that canola production should be prohibited in the Willamette Valley when there are no restrictions on the production of other [brassica] crops.” It also recommended an expansion of canola acreage to the state legislature as “reasonable and feasible.”

The Willamette Valley Oilseed Producers Association (WVOPA) touted the findings as a green light for canola production. Over the past two years, farmers have requested permits to plant twice the number of allowable acres. Canola is one of several crops that farmers can grow in rotation with grass seeds to break pest and disease cycles and doesn’t need irrigation. It’s desirable for farmers like Anna Scharf, WVOPA board president, who raises 11 different crops, including grass seed, turnip, clover, and wine grapes on close to 3,000 acres. “Because [canola] is a commodity, as a farmer I can grow the crop and play the market,” she told Civil Eats. “At the end of the day this fight comes down to economics.”

Currently, all canola seed grown in the valley is processed at Willamette Biomass Processors, located about 20 miles west of Salem. If canola production increased, its advocates say the certified organic facility could be used to produce more valuable food-grade canola oil. Growers like Scharf see alarmist fears over canola blocking its market potential She said, “I can grow marijuana easily in this state, but I can’t grow canola.”

The grass seed industry in the Willamette Valley is immense, representing most of the seed crops grown, or about 250,000 acres valued at over $228 million per year. In contrast, the acreage devoted to vegetable seed production is small, but the value is high, reportedly worth $50 million per year. And despite the study’s results, the anti-canola camp remains unconvinced that both an oilseed industry and specialty seed industry can coexist and thrive in the valley.

OSU vegetable breeder Jim Myers was one of the research advisors on the canola report. In his opinion, while the latest research provides more knowledge, the results have limitations. “I think it’s a problem of scale,” he said in a phone conversation with Civil Eats. “When you mix commercial acreage with seed production, then we get into problems.”

Specialty vegetable seeds are bred and selected to meet high quality standards for varietal and genetic purity—requirements that oilseed does not have. Myers detailed how increased acreages of canola with three-mile isolation distances between fields would fragment production areas. What’s more, just a few seeds blown off farm equipment and transport trucks could spread feral weeds, and because canola seed stays dormant in the soil for at least two years, weed problems could persist.

“I think the crux is, ‘What do we do best in western Oregon?’” he said. And that’s not growing commodity crops, in Myers’s view. He added, “It’s hard to know where the [vegetable seed] production would go if it couldn’t be done in the Valley.”

“Is Oregon willing to sacrifice this region to the interests of canola?” said Kiki Hubbard, advocacy and communications director at the Organic Seed Alliance (OSA). “What’s at stake is the diversity of our seed supply and the diverse seed economy currently thriving in the Willamette Valley.”

Countdown to Sunset

Underlying the controversy over canola, there is widespread agreement that the specialty seed industry is unique and valued. But there is no agreement over how to move forward. The oilseed growers insist on their right to farm, while the vegetable seed growers, along with plant breeders and seed companies, fight for self-preservation.

“Coexistence requires compromises,” the OSU report stated. But it also acknowledged the uneven playing field: “Coexistence does not mean that risks, if any, are equally distributed among the sectors.” The report noted that the data could not predict that “unlimited Brassicaceae crop production within the Willamette Valley would not result in production problems.” This is the heart of issue for the specialty seed industry: in the current paradigm of coexistence, they are the ones with everything to lose.

Photo CC-licensed by Ian Sane.

After years of meetings with all stakeholders, the ODA’s draft regulations for canola include an isolation area banning 937,000 acres of the Willamette Valley from canola production. The zone outside of this area, about 1.5 million acres, could be planted with canola by permit from ODA, as reported by The Capital Press.

“Nobody likes it,” said Jonathan Sandau, government affairs director for the Oregon Farm Bureau (OFB), which participated in the rule making. Members of OFB include farmers growing specialty crops as well as farmers who would like the opportunity to grow canola.

“I don’t think you can ban one industry,” Sandau said. “I think the department really strived to find within their existing authority an ability to protect the specialty seed industry.”

In their current form, seed growers say the regulations leave a lot of unanswered questions, including permitting requirements and pinning system details. “There’s a lot of gaps in what they’ve proposed,” says Smith of WVSSA. “I’m worried.” And three organic seed companies, Adaptive Seeds, Moondog’s Farm, and Wild Garden Seed, are located outside of the proposed isolation area.

But Sandau wonders, “If you’re asking for greater protection, how much protection is enough?” At the same time, he acknowledges that no one knows the market capacity for canola or the long-term impacts it could have on agriculture in the Willamette Valley. As a representative from the U.K. seed company Limagrain put it during 2009 discussions about permitting canola in Willamette Valley, “Once the genie of canola production is out of the bottle, you will never put it back.”

With the deadline on the canola law closing in, oilseed opponents may get their wish from the legislature. According to several sources in the Oregon capitol, SB 885—the continuation of the existing 500-acre limit—appears to be moving to a vote and may pass before the end of June. If approved, it would go into effect immediately, with a new expiration date in 2023. If it doesn’t pass, the ODA is mobilizing to present new rules in time for fall canola planting.

But even a four-year reprieve will not resolve the canola war in Oregon. “Either the legislature’s going to act or ODA is going to have a rule,” said Scharf of WVOPA. “No matter what happens, it is very consequential for the state of Oregon.”

Stewardship is one of the hallmarks of the diverse Willamette Valley farm community. So, as the canola schism draws out, many have argued for being “good neighbors.” Even the OSU report urged “the entire agricultural industry to maintain good stewardship practices to protect the status of the Willamette Valley as a premier seed production region.”

But some growers, including veteran plant breeder Frank Morton of Wild Garden Seed, question the presumption that peaceful coexistence between producing oilseed and specialty vegetable seeds is reasonable and feasible. “This is a road paved with good intentions, perhaps,” he said in a testimony to ODA, “but it will lead to a world of conflict without end.”

(Correction: This article was updated to reflect the fact that Willamette Valley canola is not currently sold for biofuels. Craig Parker, CEO of Willamette Biomass Processors, told Civil Eats that the plant used to sell to the biofuels industry, but the economics were not sustainable.)

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The Sobering Details Behind the Latest Seed Monopoly Chart

Kristina kiki Hubbard — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 12:00:50 +0000

When Philip Howard of Michigan State University published the first iteration of his now well-known seed industry consolidation chart in 2008, it starkly illustrated the extent of acquisitions and mergers of the previous decade: Six corporations dominated the majority of the brand-name seed market, and they were starting to enter into new alliances with competitors that threatened to further weaken competition.

Howard’s newly updated seed chart is similar but even starker. It shows how weak antitrust law enforcement and oversight by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has allowed a handful of firms to amass enormous market, economic, and political power over our global seed supply. The newest findings show that the Big 6 (Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Dow, Bayer, and BASF) have consolidated into a Big 4 dominated by Bayer and Corteva (a new firm created as a result of the Dow–DuPont merger), and rounded out with ChemChina and BASF. These four firms control more than 60 percent of global proprietary seed sales.

Howard began his annual tracking of seed industry ownership changes in 1998, a year that served as a turning point for industry consolidation. Two years after genetically engineered (GE) varieties were introduced in 1996, by 1998 the large agribusiness companies had accelerated their consolidation by buying up smaller firms to accumulate more intellectual property (IP) rights. By 2008, Monsanto’s patented genetics alone were planted on 80 percent of U.S. corn acres, 86 percent of cotton acres, and 92 percent of soybean acres. Today, these percentages are even higher.

Economists say that an industry has lost its competitive character when the concentration ratio of the top four firms is 40 percent or higher. The seed industry continues to exceed this benchmark not only across the entire global supply, but across crop types as well. For example, even before the Big 4 merged, three firms (Monsanto, Syngenta, and Vilmorin) controlled 60 percent of the global vegetable seed market.

The most notable mega-mergers in Howard’s updated chart include:

• Dow and DuPont: This $130 billion merger resulted in the two chemical companies dividing into three companies, including a new agriculture firm called Corteva.
• ChemChina and Syngenta: This $43 billion merger allowed China to add its second company ranking in the top 10 of global seed sales (along with Longping High-Tech).
• Bayer and Monsanto: This $63 billion deal was the second-biggest merger announced in 2016; Bayer has since dropped Monsanto’s 117-year-old name.

“For farmers, the options continue to be reduced,” says Howard. “Although Bayer sold a number of seed divisions to BASF to pave the way for its acquisition of Monsanto, the share of the market controlled by the largest firms has only increased.” What’s more, he added that although those firms made promises of job growth and greater innovation if the merger was approved, Bayer last month announced it would cut 12,000 jobs, or about 10 percent of its global workforce.

History shows us that seed industry consolidation leads to less choice and higher prices for farmers. These companies also aggressively protect their IP rights, which means less innovation and more restrictions on how seed is used and exchanged, including for seed saving and research purposes. These restrictions affect conventional and organic agriculture alike by making a large pool of plant genetics inaccessible to public researchers, farmers, and independent breeders, which in turn limits the diversity of seed in our landscapes and marketplace and weakens our food security.

A number of studies suggest increased market domination removes companies’ incentive to innovate. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s own data confirms this trend, finding that fewer players mean less innovation. As the seed industry became more concentrated, private research “dropped or slowed” and those companies that survived consolidation are “sponsoring less research relative to the size of their individual markets than when more companies were involved.”

While the three mergers mentioned above received the most media attention and public resistance, Howard’s latest report found that 2018 brought 56 additional acquisitions and joint ventures involving other top seed companies, including Limagrain’s Vilmorin-Mikado subsidiary in France and Longping High-Tech in China, which acquired Dow’s maize division in Brazil. Both ChemChina and Longping High-Tech are planning more acquisitions of seed companies in China.

“There is a strong need to make these hidden ownership ties more visible to both farmers and eaters,” Howard explains, “so that we can avoid supporting firms that threaten the resilience of our food systems.”

Seed represents profound potential for improving our food and agricultural systems. Plants can be bred to thrive without pesticides and to naturally resist disease, and to be adaptable to changing climates and environmental conditions; they can also be bred to improve the quality of our food. But to realize all of this potential, we must create structural changes to how seed is managed and shared.

The DOJ has abdicated its responsibility to investigate and prosecute violations of antitrust laws, meaning that it is up to the public to demand action and resist companies that put the sustainability and security of our food and farming future at risk. We must also demand and support more investment in public plant breeding programs that are truly responsive to the needs of regional and resilient farming systems that support the health of both people and the planet.

As the industry continues to consolidate at a scale previously thought unimaginable, and policymakers begin to grapple with solutions, there is a growing community of seed stewards who are making an immediate difference today. Seed leaders including Ellen Bartholomew, Edmund Frost, Walter Goldstein, Ken Greene, Sarah Kleeger and Andrew Still, Frank Morton, Judy Owsowitz, Laura Parker, Theresa and Dan Podoll, Clifton Slade, Don Tipping, Rowen White, and many others are actively increasing the security of our seed and food supply.

By supporting more democratic seed systems—whether it’s buying from a seed company that aligns with your values, visiting your local seed library exchange, or growing and saving your own seed—we can take back control of our seed supply while actively conserving, improving, and generating more diversity on farms and in our backyards. This is the kind of diversity that, when considered collectively, is globally important.

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Op-ed: 3 Reasons to be Concerned about the USDA’s Proposed GMO Labeling Rules

Rebecca Spector — Fri, 22 Jun 2018 09:00:06 +0000

Food labels help consumers quickly discern whether their food contains gluten, aspartame, high fructose corn syrup, trans-fats, or MSG. This same right to know should be clearly offered for foods that are genetically engineered (“GE” or “GMO”), especially since polls consistently show that Americans overwhelmingly believe they have the right to know if their food is GE, with roughly 90 percent regularly voicing support for mandatory GMO labeling as a result of concerns about health, food safety, and environmental impacts from GE foods.

That’s why the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) long-awaited proposed regulations for GMO labeling on food are so surprising.

Released in May, the regulations come out of a 2016 law signed by President Obama prohibiting existing state GE labeling laws, such as Vermont’s, which required on-package mandatory labeling, and instead created a nationwide standard. Instead of proposing straightforward rules, the 100-page USDA document presents a range of alternatives on a number of key issues, and leaves a handful of questions open for comment, to be decided in the final rule.

For many consumers and influencers in the food movement, the federal GE labeling law has offered a ray of hope for transparency about what’s in our food and how it’s produced. After the 2016 law was passed, food journalist Mark Bittman wrote that the law “could stir a revolution” of folks wanting to know more about their food, including whether antibiotics or pesticides were used in the production of those foods.

However, for those of us advocating for true transparency of foods produced using genetic engineering, the new USDA rules raise a number of big red flags. Here are the three ways the rules could end up causing more confusion than clarity.

1. They Propose Using “Bioengineered,” and the Acronym BE Instead of “Genetically Engineered” or GMO.

The term GMO has been used by farmers, food manufacturers, retailers, and the government for over a decade and is widely familiar to many. The National Organic Program, proposed by the USDA in 2000, excluded the use of GMOs in organic production and handling. The Non-GMO Project, founded in 2007, tests food products for the presence of GMOs and has certified thousands of food products in the marketplace.

The USDA proposes only allowing the term “bioengineered,” or “BE,” on products produced using genetic engineering, and does not allow other more well-known terms—a scenario that would likely confuse many consumers.

Government-mandated speech such as food labeling should be presented in a neutral way. The 2016 law requires that for purposes of the regulations, “a bioengineered food … shall not be treated as safer than, or not as safe as, a non-bioengineered counterpart.” Yet the symbols proposed to be used on packaging include an image of a sun, and another that uses the letters BE to create a smiley-face—both project an image that these foods are healthy and beneficial for the environment.

Do these symbols say GMO to you?

2. They Propose the Use of Digital QR Codes Instead of On-Package Text Labeling.

The agency proposes that QR codes (encoded images on a package that must be scanned with a smartphone) be allowed as a substitute for clear, legible language on the package. In 2017, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) forced the public disclosure of the USDA’s own study on the efficacy of this labeling, which showed it would not provide adequate disclosure to millions of Americans.

Among other things, the study concluded that consumers are: unfamiliar with QR codes or do not know that digital links contain food information; may not have equipment capable of scanning digital links on their own; may be unable to connect to broadband, or connect at a speed that is so slow that they cannot load information; and that technological challenges disproportionately impact low-income earners, rural residents, and Americans over the age of 65. By not mandating on-package text labeling, the proposed rule discriminates against more than 100 million Americans who do not have adequate access to this technology.

3. It Proposes that Highly Refined Foods such as Oils and Candy be Exempt from Labeling.

Another big question left unanswered in the proposed rules is whether or not genetically engineered foods such as cooking oil, candy, and soda will get labeled. These are ingredients that are typically derived from GE crops, but they’ve been processed in such a way that the GE content may or may not be detectable by a genetic test in the final product. This puts labeling on thousands of GE products in question.

In addition to these big three issues, the USDA’s proposal also seeks comments on how to deal with newer forms of genetic engineering—such as synthetic biology, gene-editing, and CRISPR—and whether or not to include foods produced using this technology.

The USDA will be accepting public comments on the proposed rule until July 3, 2018.

The post Op-ed: 3 Reasons to be Concerned about the USDA’s Proposed GMO Labeling Rules appeared first on Civil Eats.

Hawaii Shows States’ Power to Regulate Pesticides

Lisa Held — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 09:00:41 +0000

“I apologize if my anger comes across too strongly,” says Gary Hooser, on the phone from the island of Kauai in Hawaii, “but these companies sued my county for the right to use pesticides next to our schools and not tell us about it. And they can’t do that anymore.”

Hooser is a local policy advocate who has been elected to several county and state offices over the years and now serves as the president of the board of directors for the Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action (HAPA). This week, his anger is mixed with a sense of victory.

On June 13, Governor David Ige signed Senate Bill 3095 into law, making Hawaii the first U.S. state to completely ban the use of the pesticide chlorpyrifos. The law also requires agrochemical companies including DuPont-Pioneer and Dow Chemical (one of the main manufacturers of chlorpyrifos) to share information about when and where they apply all restricted-use pesticides—including atrazine and paraquat—and sets up buffer zones around schools to protect children from pesticide drift.

Gov. David Ige after signing the chlorpyrifos ban into law. (Photo credit: Cameron Sato)

The bill was born out of nearly a decade of grassroots organizing by community activists and organizations in the islands, including HAPA, the Pesticide Action Network (PAN), Protect Our Keiki [children], and others.

“It’s the first bill in decades, of any kind, that I’m aware of, to regulate big agriculture in Hawaii [at the state level],” Hooser says. “It’s a miracle, in some sense, that we passed this.” Not for lack of trying: Hawaii has been on the frontlines of community activism for years to regulate pesticide use in the state.

The bill is especially significant on the national stage because it prohibits the use of “pesticides containing chlorpyrifos as an active ingredient” beginning January 1, 2019, with some opportunities for exemption through 2022.

In 2000, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned the popular insecticide for household use. Then, based on further research on its potential health risks, especially regarding developmental problems in children, the EPA recommended banning the chemical from agriculture nationwide.

However, when Scott Pruitt took over the agency under President Trump, he reversed course and rejected the agency’s own recommendation. Pruitt has also pushed back against a recent report that showed the use of chlorpyrifos endangers nearly 40 species of fish and their marine habitats.

For those who believe chlorpyrifos is a threat to both human health and the environment, Hawaii demonstrated that it’s possible for states to move forward on pesticide regulation, despite a rollback of proposed federal regulations.

Jay Vroom is the president and CEO of CropLife America, a trade organization representing the agrochemical companies that manufacture pesticides, including chlorpyrifos. In a statement emailed to Civil Eats, Vroom said pesticides are subject to “years of diligent and thorough testing. It is crucial to remember that pesticide registration decisions … are based on extensive scientific data to establish that these products are safe to human health and the environment when used properly.”

The statement adds that “a total ban of any product that ignores this scientific, risk-based regulation is informed not by science but by politics and has the potential to lead to confusion in the marketplace, leaving farmers and other pesticide users without the tools they need.”

For Hawaii residents, though, banning the restricted-use insecticide is one piece of a much bigger issue their communities have been facing for many years. Because the climate there allows for year-round growing seasons and the islands are isolated, agrochemical companies have flocked to the state to grow seed crops and do field-testing, a development that was chronicled in the recent documentary, “Poisoning Paradise.”

“For too long, these corporations have used Hawaii as its test grounds, poisoning our land and our people,” says Leslee Matthews, a Pesticide Action Network (PAN) policy fellow based in Honolulu.

According to a recent report, in 2015, more than 25,000 acres of land were used by Monsanto (now owned by Bayer), DuPont-Pioneer, Dow Chemical, Syngenta, and BASF for genetically engineered seed crop operations in Hawaii. Since 1987, Hawaii has hosted more cumulative field trials than any other state, and between 2010 and 2015, herbicide resistance was the most frequently tested trait, suggesting high applications of herbicides during those trials.

Between 2007 and 2012, DuPont-Pioneer alone applied 90 different pesticide formulations on Kauai, spraying on two-thirds of the days in that period an average of 8.3 to 16 applications per day. The report also found that restricted-use pesticides like chlorpyrifos, which are classified that way because they are considered more dangerous, were used in large amounts, especially on Kauai.

While the report provides a broad picture of frequent field trials and pesticide use, agrochemical companies have largely not been required to reveal what or when they were spraying. And because Hawaii is small, many of the fields are located close to residential communities and schools.

Reports of children getting sick at school as a result of pesticide drift was one of the main sparks that launched the movement. At Waimea Canyon Middle School in 2008, for example, several students and teachers were sent to the emergency room due to headaches, nausea, and dizziness after a chemical smell hit the school.

Keani Rawlins-Fernandez and her family. (Photo credit: Hanohano Naehu)

“My children attend an elementary school across the street from fields that are regularly sprayed with a variety of pesticides,” says Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, a lawyer and advocate based on the island of Molokai who is now running for Maui County Council.

“This elementary school is the only one with a Hawaiian immersion program on Molokai,” she says. “The decision to send my children to school in a setting that builds a strong foundation for their identity as Kanaka ‘Oiwi [Native Hawaiians], and children of this place, taught in the language of their ancestors, while potentially being exposed to dangerous chemicals constantly weighs heavy on me, as their mother.”

Rawlins-Fernandez says the issue has also broken up local communities, since some believe the jobs companies provide outweigh the health and environmental risks and resent the residents who challenge the companies.

However, enough opposition had built up by 2013 and 2014, that Hooser decided to introduce a Kauai county ordinance that would mandate pesticide disclosure and school buffer zones.

“It was an epic battle—thousands of people marching in the streets, the largest, longest public hearings ever in Kauai,” he says. The ordinance passed. Shortly after, both Maui and Hawaii counties passed similar ordinances. Then, the chemical companies fought back and a federal judge overturned all three laws on the basis that the counties couldn’t preempt state law on the issue.

‘The judge clarified, though, that the state could take action,” says Paul Towers, an organizing director and policy advocate at PAN North America. “It sort of forced advocates to say, ‘Okay, we’ve got to take this to the state.’”

Advocates then shifted to focus on getting state legislation passed that would achieve the same goals but at a higher level.

“It was similarly difficult but … when we started working at the state level, we had a coalition already,“ Hooser says. “Every day we had people knocking on legislators’ doors, sending them emails, and calling them.”

And at the state level, Towers explains, the law is much less likely to be overturned, especially since a judge already ruled it was in the state’s power to regulate pesticide use. Overturning a legislature-passed bill is a tall order, Towers says, although he notes, “what seems more likely is that they try to sabotage implementation of the law to delay its effect. Or for the company to voluntarily cancel use in Hawaii in efforts to try and keep it on the market in other states, as well as globally.”

In the meantime, Syngenta has responded to the news about Hawaii’s law and other international pushback against pesticide use by warning of global food shortages. Independent experts have repeatedly found that the claim that pesticides are needed to feed the world’s growing population is a myth.

“Hopefully this is a sign for other states that they can take the lead, especially given the vacuum of leadership at the federal level,” Towers says, pointing to the fact that California, Maryland, and New Jersey are already considering implementing restrictions or bans on chlorpyrifos.

“It shows that you can stand up to powerful industrial agriculture interests and do things in the best interest of frontline communities.”

This article was updated to reflect the fact that California is considering tighter restrictions on chlorpyrifos, but not a full ban.

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In High Demand, Organic Soy and Corn Farmers Stand to Win

Anna Casey — Fri, 01 Jun 2018 09:00:07 +0000

The United States is importing more organic corn and soybeans than it’s producing, according to recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service.

Despite a steady increase in demand for organic products among consumers, U.S. crop growers have been reluctant to make the switch from conventional crops, even if it could mean higher profits for farmers struggling with low commodity prices.

“Corn, soybeans and cotton have pretty much the lowest (organic) adoption level of any crop we grow in the U.S.,” said Catherine Greene, an agricultural economist at the USDA Economic Research Service. “We’re orders of magnitude lower in the adoption level of feed grains than we are for many of the fruits and vegetables.”

But soybeans and corn, the two crops that dominate much of the agricultural landscape in the Midwest, have become lucrative organic imports since the USDA implemented the National Organic Program in 2002.

The volume of imported organic soybeans increased from $41 million in 2011 to $271 million last year. Organic corn imports jumped from about $24 million in 2013 to nearly $122 million in 2017.

Greene said increased demand for organic corn and soybeans are fueled by the need for organic livestock and poultry feed.

India was the leading exporter of soybeans to the U.S. last year, followed closely by Turkey, the leading exporter of corn to the U.S.

Meanwhile, incomes for American farmers have been trending downward. According to the USDA 2018 Farm Sector Income Forecast, net farm incomes are expected to decline to the lowest levels in 12 years. Many row crop farmers are barely breaking even, which makes premiums offered for organic corn and soybeans more appealing.

Enticing Price Premiums for Farmers Who Grow Organic

“We have had three large farms convert from conventional to organic in the last five years,” said Jim Traub, a merchandiser at Clarkson Grain Company near Cerro Gordo, Ill. “In 1992, we did not know what organic meant.”

Clarkson Grain Company processes both non-GMO and organic corn and soybeans. Farmers who sell non-GMO soybeans to Clarkson, even without the full organic distinction, have access to Japanese markets, where Midwestern beans are used in tofu, soymilk, and other food products.

Traub said it’s a relationship Clarkson has had with a Japanese trading company for more than 20 years that provides growers a $1.50 premium per bushel compared to genetically modified beans. Farmers who grow non-GMO corn see a premium of about 75 cents.

The price for organic corn and soybeans is even higher, paying farmers two to three times what they might make on a bushel of conventional grain.

But Traub said making the switch to full organic is not a quick and easy transition.

Farmers cannot use any pesticides or synthetic fertilizers on their land for three years before they can receive the green and white label conferred by the USDA that has appeared on an increasing number of food labels.

“That’s the big barrier,” Traub said, adding that it’s part of the reason so much organic feed comes from overseas.

The organic standards, first established by the 1990 Farm Bill, go beyond using non-GMO seeds and forgoing chemicals. Equipment can only be used on organic crops, which can add significant costs for farmers wanting to grow both conventional and organic.

There are financial assistance programs offered for the transition period, including the USDA’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program, but it is capped at $20,000 a year, and some lawmakers say assistance is nowhere near the level of the agency’s other programs for conventional farms, where risk is more controlled.

“We need thousands of additional farms to convert,” said Peter Golbitz, CEO of the agricultural consulting firm Agromeris. According to Agromeris, imports of organic corn and soybeans for feed have been growing at an average rate of 33 percent over the past five years, outpacing growth of organic feed grains produced by American farmers.

Golbitz said during a presentation at the USDA’s Agricultural Outlook Forum in February that skyrocketing imports in recent years have not only created a trade gap, but also raised questions about fraud. He questions whether countries like Turkey and India can produce as much organic product as they are reportedly contributing to the U.S. market.

Trade Gap Leaves Room for Foreign Fraud

A 2017 audit from the Office of the Inspector General found that controls on organic imports are weak. In some cases, products coming into U.S. ports that were labeled as organic were treated with pesticides upon arrival in the same manner as conventional products.

The audit also provided little assurance that the necessary documents required under the National Organic Program were reviewed at ports of entry to verify that foods labeled as organic were from certified farms.

The audit came after a Washington Post report from May of last year revealed that nearly 36 million pounds of Ukrainian soybeans en route to California had been fumigated with a pesticide, then relabeled as “organic.” A shipment of Romanian corn underwent a similar relabeling from conventional to organic during its journey to the U.S., the Washington Post investigation found.

In order for the U.S. to rely less on imports and help meet growing demand for organic corn and soybeans, American farmers would need to convert approximately 600,000 more acres, according to Golbitz.

Dallas Glazik in a organic wheat field his family farms near Paxton, IL on Friday, April 13, 2018. (Photo by Darrell Hoemann/The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting)

Price of Making the Switch

Tyler Young farms 3,500 acres of conventional corn and soybeans in east-central Illinois. Young has done his research on organic growing options and what transitioning his farm might look like. But he’s not convinced it’s realistic for an operation of his size, even with the enticing price premiums.

“Larger operations like ours are adopting some of the things that come out of organic agriculture without going whole hog,” Young said.

He plants cover crops, a natural way to promote soil health and prevent runoff. But when it comes to going all-in on organic, Young said weed control and using natural fertilizer would pose big challenges.

“Other than switching to a vegetable crop, you’re looking at labor bills and hand weeding,” Young said. He currently uses five different herbicides to keep weeds under control on his soybeans, something that would be prohibited by organic standards.

Young said he would also have to consider bringing cows back into his operation, something his grandfather had as a dairy farmer, to provide a natural fertilizer.

The transition to organic on smaller farms, on the other hand, can be more manageable.

Dallas Glazik, 24, is a fifth-generation farmer in Ford County, Ill. He said his family was one of the first in the area to become certified organic in 2003.

Will Glazik with some wheat the family grows on their farm near Paxton, IL on Friday, April 13, 2018. (Photo by Darrell Hoemann/The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting)

“We transitioned 400 acres when I was in second or third grade,” Glazik recalls.

He also remembers walking the soybean rows during the summer, picking weeds on the family’s farm. “But now we have the procedure down a lot better,” Glazik said.

It was partly the farm’s size that made the switch to organic easier for the family. Now, they have a five-year rotation of corn, soybeans, small grains (wheat, oats, barley, and rye), as well as pasture. Glazik and his two older brothers have also started a distilling business, making their own whiskey.

“We decided to make more money on what we already had instead of buying more land,” Glazik said.

While overall yields are lower and the cost of labor higher for organic corn and soybean farmers, USDA surveys have shown that there are higher returns in organic crops.

Greene, with the USDA, said corn and soybean farmers also face challenges finding access to markets and access to non-GMO seed. But there is long-term payoff.

“In the studies we’ve done, organic production tends to be more profitable,” Greene said.

Glazik explained that while the three-year transition period to organic can be less lucrative, it will determine the future success of the farm. He recommended framing the investment in another way.

“You have to go into it with a mindset of you’re not going to make much money in the transition,” Glazik said. “You’re investing in the soil.”

This article was originally published by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, and is reprinted with permission.

Top photo: Dallas Glazik (right) and brother Will Glazik with some of the corn varieties they grow on their farm near Paxton, IL on Friday, April 13, 2018. (Photo by Darrell Hoemann/The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting)

Anna Casey is the Audience Engagement Fellow at the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. The fellowship is sponsored by Illinois Humanities, a private 501(c)(3) state-level affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, with support from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. The story was inspired by a listening session the Midwest Center hosted in Tuscola, Illinois, where a diverse group of farmers spoke about some of the misconceptions about transitioning from conventional to organic farming.

The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting is a nonprofit, online newsroom offering investigative and enterprise coverage of agribusiness, Big Ag and related issues through data analysis, visualizations, in-depth reports and interactive web tools. Visit us online at www.investigatemidwest.org

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