I have grown GM crops for nearly 15 years, I was one of the first in my community to plant Roundup Ready soybeans, and one of the first to try RR corn.  About 6 years ago I planted my first BT corn, and this year most of my corn acres are triple stacked trait corn numbers, all corn is RR as are all of the soybeans.  There is no doubt in my mind GM has made farming more profitable for me, and weed and insect control not only cheaper but more complete.  However, trouble is brewing on the very near horizon. 

Whether by design or accident, the popularity of RR crops has led to a scarcity of cheaper conventional hybrids and varieties, and has led to very little research into non glyphosate herbicides that I can see.  Our dependence on GM crops has made us sort of like drug addicts, whether or not we can get along without them now is beside the point because we are all convinced we can't.  After all the euphoria of last summers so called world food crisis and the speculation we were going to see record high grain prices for years to come, reality has set in and a realization is coming over this farmer at least that we are simply in for more of the same, very tight margins.  This notion has not hit Monsanto or their associate seed and chemical companies apparently, because with the 2009 corn and soybean crop still standing in the field and in most cases not even close to harvest, the 2010 price lists are either coming out much higher, or not coming out yet but warning signals are being sent that our seed costs for 2010 will be higher.  With glyphosate no longer the magic bullet(we are seeing several  resistant weed species in my area) some farmers are looking for conventional corn and soybean varieties only to find they aren't there in sufficient numbers to cover many acres.  Moreover, with little interest in chemicals other than glyphos for the last 10 years, one of my neighbors who planted conventional soybeans this year has found the weed control nearly impossible, because the same chemicals are being used that were used without much success 10 or 15 years ago. 

One good way to fight tighter profit margins is to save your own seed, however this is now impossible for us to do with the proprietary rights the seed companies and Monsanto hold over us.  It may be possible to get out from under this system, but the tools available to us are few and far between.  While I can understand the frustration of my counterparts across the Atlantic over their inability to even do research with GM crops, I would now offer up a word of caution...getting married to Monsanto is much like marrying a supermodel, it can be alot of fun to begin with, but make sure you can afford the ride over the long haul, because Monsanto is a demanding partner.  For about 10 years I have enjoyed the many benefits Monsanto had to offer, now I am thinking I want a divorce, and it appears it will be a long, painful and costly process.  It might be best for you over the big water to stick to conventional crops and chemicals and retain a certain degree of independence, just my opinion, take it for what it is worth.

well said kansas.

i am the direct opposite of a gm farmer, an organic farmer.

no salesmen ever come to see me because they know i wont buy anything from them. also nobody does research into organic methods as there is no product to sell. i am as independent as a farmer can be , i think.

the only people who like organic farmers are the machinery dealers

after mad cow disease, the british public lost faith in science, as feeding cow remains back to cows appalled them. hence the rise of organic and rejection of gm.

most people think gm should be researched, but by independent bodies, not monsanto

What a great and well thought out article Kansas!

I grow GM canola in Canada and think its a great product, but, the rest of my crops are not GM, although it looks like some of them might go that way, especially, Sunflowers and wheat. It's a real money spinner for Monsanto and Bayer, with huge payments either on the seed for RR (TUA) or on the spray on Invigor (2010 Bayer moving to a cheaper herbicide price and loading the seed), so they are pushing as hard as they can for more crops to be accepted It's really only the resistance from consumers in the rest of the world.

I have seen two fields closeby that have been fallowed and the weeds sprayed off with glyposhate......although on closer inspection the cranesbill has not died off and is growing happily. It may die eventually.

Thats my GM worry.

Here we are so worried about blackgrass resistance to SU herbicides, we look to be forgetting others. Cranesbill and bindweed are now surviving the lower rates of roundup, and as in a cropping year a field may be dessicated with roundup (1), stubbles sprayed pre (2), post (3) seedbed preperation and (4) pre crop emergence I am not going to be suprised to find low dose Roundup resistance in the UK before we even get GM :(

roundup is the reason western grain production increased in the eighties, while the warsaw pact countries without roundup saw reduced production. i have seen the vast russian fields in the early nineties absolutely choked with couch grass.

roundup is a great chemical , but overuse is going to render it useless.

Overuse and low rates.  It is my understanding that much of the resistance we are seeing now in the US can be attributed to using lower rates than on the label.  At first the few weeds that got through were barely noticeable, but their offspring have morphed into stronger resistant weeds, along with being obviously more numerous.