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2016 Logan County Fall Farm Outlook Magazine
Lincoln Daily News
Oct. 27, 2016
21
advancements. There are many foreign countries who
will not buy our GMO grain products. Considering
these facts, perhaps there is some merit to asking the
question, have we gone too far?
On the other hand, consider this. There was once a
lowly weed, considered toxic, with small marble size
red fruit. With time, patience, and scientific breeding
measures that weed is what we commonly know today
as the tomato. From a weedy plant called teosinte
with an “ear” barely an inch long has come our foot-
long ears of sweet white and yellow corn; the product
of centuries of season-by-season coaxed genetic
modification.
Should we do more to conserve our soil? Of course,
farmers don’t argue that point at all. It is in everyone’s
best interest to keep the rich topsoil where it belongs
in the fields. In organic farming, the plan to save
topsoil includes cover crops that hold the soil in place
and at the same time give back to the soil in the form
of nutrients and reduction of soil compaction.
In July 2016 a Nebraska farmer who utilizes GMOs,
Lisa Lunz wrote, “GMOs have allowed us and other
farmers to use no-till practices, a way of growing
crops year to year without tilling the soil, protecting it
from water runoff and wind erosion. We can now hold
2 to 3 inches of rainfall, which is important because
we want to protect our waterways.” From her point
of view, both farming methods are working with the
same goal in mind, preserve and protect what we have.
In context of plant development concerns, Lunz also
stated, “GMO technology is not an ingredient —
it’s a breeding technique.” And she defends GMO
usefulness in the broadest scope, “GMOs allow us to
drive toward a truly sustainable process in protecting
our air, water, soil and habitat.”
In a 2013 Technology Review article, Jonathan
Jones, a scientist at the Sainsbury Laboratory in the
U.K. and one of the world’s leading experts on plant
diseases, stated of genetic modification, “It’s an
overwhelmingly logical thing to do. The upcoming
pressures on agricultural production,” he says,
“[are] real and will affect millions of people in poor
countries.” He concludes, “It would be perverse to
spurn using genetic modification as a tool.”
Even though there seems to be plenty of arguments
for moving forward in scientific research, there are
positive opinions about organic farming as well.
Organic is a “cleaner product.” In livestock grains,
there is nothing harmful. In food crops, there is no
pesticide residue that can be consumed by humans.
For wildlife, the lack of chemicals in the fields
means less accumulated poisoning of the wildlife
we enjoy. Without the use of pesticides, there is a
preservation of the “good bugs” that we want to keep
in the environment, such as pollinator insects. These
attributes are inarguable points.
With the use of herbicides, American Farmers have
done such a good job of eradicating certain weeds.
However, the outcome also means less natural food
sources for such as the monarch butterfly, a large
concern for many entomologists. Pesticides, for the
most part, are not species specific, meaning what kills
the bug eating the corn is also going to kill the bee that
pollinates the flower garden or next year’s fruit and
other productive crop blossoms.
So where should we, as a community surrounded by
agriculture, land on this issue? Maybe on the fence.
There are good arguments for both sides. But let’s
cut to the bottom line. The agricultural producer
is, though it sounds a bit cliché, the steward of the
earth, and it is up to him or her to determine what that
stewardship means, and how he or she will accept that
responsibility.
Looking at our future, it is estimated that the world
population will reach 9.346 billion souls by the year
2050. That is 3 B more than the population of the year
2010, and also a 50 percent increase: Three
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