by Tom Laskawy
A soybean field in summer. Farmers are getting fed up with Monsanto’s soy seed monopoly. Is it possible that we’ve reached Peak Monsanto?:
Low commodity soybean prices, attractive premiums, and rising prices
for genetically modified soybean seed are leading American farmers to
plant more acres of non-GMO soybeans this year.
Representatives
with soybean associations, universities, and grain buyers all say that
demand for non-GMO soybeans is growing, leading to more non-GMO acres.
Genetically
modified Roundup Ready soybeans have taken an increasingly larger
percentage of U.S. soybean acreage each year since their introduction in
1996, reaching 92 percent in 2008.
But this could be the first
year that the trend reverses. Grover Shannon, a soybean breeder with
the University of Missouri, Delta Research Center, thinks non-GMO
acreage could account for 10 percent of total soybean acreage this year.
This analysis comes from The Organic and Non-GMO Report so it’s fair to be skeptical. But it does quote a rep from a state soybean associations, not generally bastions of sustainable ag proponents:
“We are seeing more interest in growing non-GMO soybeans,” says Mark
Albertson, director of marketing, Illinois Soybean Association.
… Albertson
has talked to several farmers who haven’t grown non-GMO soybeans in
eight years, but will this year because of the premiums.
Grain
companies large and small are contracting farmers to grow non-GMO. “We
called all the companies buying non-GMO, and about one-half of them had
enough acres,” Albertson said.
The reasons run the gamut from farmer anger at Monsanto’s price increases for its GM seed and its RoundUp pesticide to the recognition that the rise of resistant weeds have reduced the rationale for going GM in the first place to another kind of increasing resistance—among consumers towards GM foods.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that this is a blip and not a trend—we won’t even know for certain that total planted acres of GM soybeans have declined until later this year. Still, when you combine this news with the Justice Department’s active antitrust investigation into Monsanto, you may legitimately conclude that the tide may be close to turning against the biotechnology giant.
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