Katy, great responses. Too bad they didn't read or respond or even understand what you plainly said.
What we have here is a failure to communicate (I'm sorry, love that line from Cool Hand Luke).
1) Ag is NOT allowed a "free" market. It's controlled (on the up side by the government). It's impossible to pay bills when they cut your income by 1/2 and allow the imputs to double, while interest goes to double figures.
2) IF the government would have allowed the land prices to plummet, think 1930's. Who bought up everything? The rich (the movie IT's A WONDERFUL LIFE is actually a documentary of how America pulled out of the depression)
3) Money does control what we can do. Do you think any of you could be organic IF there wasn't money in it? No suppliers, no middle men, no sellers of your products & if the buyers had no $$......
4) You have no idea what "organic industry" does. We have the largest producer of organic eggs by us, I can tell you for a certainty that they do use the same grain that any other egg producer does. Same goes for "organic" ducks, hogs, cattle, etc.... The joke is "organic certification". They use the adage of don't ask, don't tell.
5) If we're talking the crop of corn--very few acres actually have glysophate used on them. Now soybeans, different subject.
6) Ground health is better than it's ever been. We're using soil tests on a regular basis to keep it healthy. From some of the pictures of "organic" I've seen, their ground is totally dead. Ever look at a "organic" feed lot? nothing grows there, go look at your chicken pens, better yet, take a soil sample. Look at the nitrates/phosphates filtering into the water supply. We "bad" farmers take our manure and spread it over many acres--based on soil tests, whereas organic, just saturate the few acres they have.
7) Sustainable? I love it when someone types "you can't continue on this path" as we have for over a 70 years and what is happening???? Hunger has been wiped out, yields are higher every year, we continue to adapt.
8) genetic diversity is at an all time high because of plant breeding and for that matter animal breeding. The breeders now protect their genetics, no longer giving it away for free. Just on corn, there is a book on field corn that is about 1" thick of all the different crosses available from different families of genetics. Just because we don't see it, it's there. They even keep lines that are of no value currently because as the conditions change, the use of those genetics may as well.
9) Since people get to eat, they then reproduce with no limits, & that's on the "farmer"??? Whereas, since organic couldn't feed the world, thus stopping human reproduction (except for the elite who can afford the food), this is a good thing... wow. Farmers are now responsible for wars. Are people not responsible for their own decisions?
Again, promote your products based on their value. Seems the only way, organic can sell is by putting down farming to people that have no idea where their food comes from. Scare 'em, seems to be "organic montra".
