Reply #58: Excellent points

[NickB79]

Just one point of contention:

"Even further blows came in the form of GM crops. Unable to continue with the traditional, money saving practice of seed saving(unless they wanted to face a patent lawsuit), family farmers were forced to buy seed every year, along with the requesite pesticides, herbicides, etc, all at a back breaking cost."

Most farmers stopped using seed saving with the advent of hybrid crops (especially corn) back in the 1950's and 1960's. By the time GM crops came into the market in the late 80's/early 90's, very few farmers still used saved seeds for next year's planting.

That, and the expenditures my father has had to pay for herbicides and pesticides have dropped since he started farming GM crops, not increased. He has to buy more Round-Up than usual, but less atrazine (a far more environmentally toxic compound). He doesn't have to spend days cultivating soybean fields to keep weeds down, burning fuel and wearing out equipment, because he can spend half a day spraying the field with Round-Up and get the same effect. Overall, the money he saves on fuel, equipment upkeep and labor more than offsets the increased spending for herbicide.