Good morning. My name is Lawson Mozley and I’m a sixth generation Florida farmer. The
question I’m answering this morning is “which is cheaper to produce – GMO or organic crops?”.
Coming from a very diversified agricultural background here in the Florida Panhandle,
my family grows corn, cotton, peanuts, soybeans, grass crops and cattle. And, for us, GM crops
are immensely cheaper to produce. Really, the only added input is some additional seed
cost. However, when you look at the benefits later in a production season, they end up
being much cheaper on an acre-by-acre basis or the amount of product that you’re producing;
however, you choose to look at that.
This year one of the main issues that we faced was an insect pest, mainly in the form of
armyworms and corn earworms. This is something that the Bt gene in the corn plant has allowed
us to combat much more effectively than we would have had to without GM crops.
The Bt gene allows corn to produce a protein that’s indigestible to the armyworm and
the corn earworm, and is therefore toxic to them. So when they eat a small amount of the
leaf or when they get into the ear of corn and begin eating young grains, they actually
can’t digest it and it causes them to die before they’re able to completely decimate
a field. This is something a lot of farmers in the southeast this year have said, it’s
probably our worst year for armyworms in about 10 years now, and we’ve had several fields
that a portion is corn and a portion is peanuts. In peanuts there are no Bt genes available.
And, in our peanut fields, we’ve sprayed for armyworms at least four times, maybe five
this year. When you look at an application cost of $4 to $10 easily per acre in that
pesticide, it really begins to add up. Even though the peanut seed were cheaper than if
they had been genetically modified, that becomes a very moot point because we’ve had to use
so many more chemicals on the peanuts than we would have had to if we had a Bt gene available.
And so, the purpose behind that is to prevent the problem rather than waiting until it is
a problem and trying to treat it after the fact, which with almost anything is more effective.
Another benefit that we’ve seen this year is in Roundup Ready Cotton. Roundup is an herbicide
that has glyphosate as the active ingredient and it’s a non-selective herbicide, meaning
it will kill most plants that it comes in contact with. Roundup Ready Cotton has a gene
that allows it to be highly resistant to glyphosate, so you can use Roundup in the cotton field
and it will kill the weeds that are present without damaging the cotton. Roundup is a
much cheaper chemical for U.S. farmers to use than many of the selective herbicides
that we have available to kill grass weeds that we may have in cotton or other broadleaf
weeds. So, even though we do have to spray Roundup once maybe twice in a season in order
to control weeds, it’s a cheaper chemical to use and it’s much more effective than
having to mix a chemical to kill grasses and a chemical to kill broadleaf weeds in order
to get the same effect. For us, Roundup is typically less than $6 per acre to apply.
Some of those selective herbicides can be as much as $10 per acre for each, and you
may have to use two or three different herbicides in the field at once.
Another thing that we’re planning this fall is Roundup Ready Alfalfa to harvest for forage
for cattle and horses. This is something that we’re using it as part of a crop rotation
and we will be able to use Roundup in the alfalfa fields to control weeds – both to
increase the level of production that we’re capable of, but also to increase the quality
of the product that we’ll be selling to consumers. This is something that organic
producers, who don’t use genetically modified seeds and crops, don’t have many of these
options, and so many of the practices that they have to use to control pests or weed
issues are much more expensive. This is one of the factors going into the cheapness and
affordability of genetically modified foods, when compared to organic options.