Editor’s note: This commentary is by Will Allen and Michael Colby, who are co-founders, along with Kate Duesterberg, of Regeneration Vermont, a new nonprofit educational and advocacy organization that is working to halt the catastrophic consequences of Vermont’s adoption of degenerative, toxic and climate-threatening agricultural techniques.
Vermont has proven itself to be a leader when it comes to showing its concern over the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture and food production. It was the first state in the nation to pass GMO-labeling legislation, forcing food corporations nationwide to scramble and prepare to meet the law’s requirements when it takes effect in July 2016. But, in many ways, the passage of this historic law has left a false impression that it “solved” the GMO problem in the state. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Vermont agriculture is dominated by GMOs, especially within the commodity dairy sector, which represents more than 70 percent of the state agricultural economy. Currently, there are more than 92,000 acres of GMO feed corn that are grown in Vermont, making it – by far – the state’s number one crop. More than 96 percent of all feed corn grown in Vermont is a GMO variety, and almost all of this GMO corn is used to feed dairy cows.
Ironically, Vermont’s GMO addiction is exempt from its own GMO labeling law, as the law specifically exempts dairy and meat products. So while the law will force mainstream food corporations to label GMOs in products like Cheetos and SpaghettiOs before coming into the state, it turns a blind eye to the GMO-derived dairy that is the primary ingredient in, for example, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Cabot’s cheddar cheese.
This is about more than the consumer’s right to know. It’s also about the impact GMO-centered agriculture is having on Vermont’s environment and wildlife, its role in the continued monopolization of the food supply, and the roadblocks it creates in the path toward a truly regenerative, eco-sensitive, and socially just form of agriculture in the state. The current domination of GMOs and industrial agriculture in Vermont dairy is, quite frankly, the elephant on the farm that few want to acknowledge.
The history of Vermont’s heavy adoption of industrial – or degenerative – forms of agriculture is also the history of its failure and decline. At every stage, beginning with chemical agriculture in the post-WWII era, the new techniques being promoted by the increasingly corporate and industrial agriculture came with mighty promises: Labor would be saved, yields would be increase, bugs and insects would be eliminated, and profits would soar. Just get in line, and follow the edicts coming out of the USDA and the agricultural extension centers.
But, more often than not, the promises were false – or short lived – while the damage was deep, most notably in the way further industrialization all but mandated the consolidation of Vermont’s farms. “Get big or get out” has been the dominant mantra in agriculture since the late 1950s. And it worked. Many did get big, but most got out. Vermont lost a staggering number of farmers as commodity dairy took over. More than 10,000 dairy farms were gone within a 60-year period from the 1950s to today.
The industrialization of our farm sector threatens Vermont’s brand, which was built upon an image of bucolic and natural — the very opposite of the way today’s dairy is being produced for the likes of Ben & Jerry’s and Cabot.
This huge loss – over 700 farms per county – also meant a precipitous decline in a rural economy and culture that revolved around the small, family farmer. The once thriving towns mirrored the agricultural decline, most reduced to near-ghost towns, mere pass-throughs, with buildings boarded up and general stores either gone or teetering on the economic brink.
Aristotle wrote that the nature of anything can be discerned only after it has reached or passed its maturation. Industrial – or degenerative – agriculture has certainly matured, showing its nature clearly after decades of domination of Vermont’s farm economy. And it’s not only a story of decline, but also toxicity, as our watersheds, soils, farm animals and food products are awash in the chemicals and synthetic fertilizers used on Vermont’s farmland. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in the last several decades alone just trying to remedy the pollution of Lake Champlain and its watershed as a result of the techniques of industrial dairy farming.
Despite its record, industrial agriculture keeps marching along, still coddled by government regulators and politicians alike, and still making promises it can’t deliver. GMO techniques are its latest – and, we hope, last – degenerative gimmick, one that, like all of them before, Vermont agriculture has wholeheartedly embraced.
GMOs were introduced in the mid-1990s with a fleet of promises, most notably the “dramatic decrease” in the amount of pesticides and fertilizers that would be required. They also trotted out the well-worn promises of rising farmer incomes via higher yields and, of course, solving world hunger, something they’ve been claiming to solve since the 1950s with the only results being more – not less – of it.
But GMO use has matured, and we know its nature. In Vermont, our 92,000 acres of GMO feed corn has meant more pesticide use, more fertilizer use, more fuel use because of more applications, and more trips over the field. And our hunger issues have grown worse.
The true nature of GMO agriculture in Vermont today is a stark and dangerous difference from the promises of its corporate advocates. According to data collected by the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, pesticide use is up 36 percent and increasing rapidly while, at the same time, new pesticides are being added to the arsenal. Climate-threatening nitrogen fertilizers have been up about 17 percent per year in the decade of GMO’s rise to dominance (2002-2012) and climbing as our denuded soils require more and more inputs for high production. And the pollution to our climate, water and soil from these increases continues to rise, keeping us on a steady degenerative decline, environmentally, economically and culturally.
Labeling GMOs was a great act of concern by Vermont. It will provide valuable information to consumers. But it did nothing to address the state’s deep addiction to GMO agriculture and all that comes with it. The industrialization of our farm sector threatens Vermont’s brand, which was built upon an image of bucolic and natural — the very opposite of the way today’s dairy is being produced for the likes of Ben & Jerry’s and Cabot. It’s a disconnect between branding and reality that will, eventually, come to haunt them.
But it doesn’t have to be like this. About 200 of the 970 Vermont dairy farms have already adopted sophisticated organic rotational grazing systems, which enhance the quality of the forage, and sequester large amounts of carbon that can help reverse climate change. Vermont’s 200 organic dairy farms account for more than 20 percent of Vermont’s dairies, the highest percentage in the U.S. These farm leaders have realized the urgency in rejecting the failed confined dairy farming system that depends on toxic fertilizers and pesticides, pollutes our lakes and waterways, and contributes to global warming.
Vermont is blessed with abundant water, lush pastures, and an environment where pastured cows can thrive. All of Vermont’s dairies could adopt a more sustainable form of dairy management, and the government and private businesses could help farmers make the transition and curb the pollution. We have the technical knowledge to make these management changes, but we urgently need to accelerate the transition to cleaner, safer, and more environmentally friendly dairy farming systems.
It’s time for Vermont to get off the industrial superhighway of commodity agriculture. We’ve seen enough, frankly, from pesticides to GMOs, a legacy rich in damage – social and ecological – one false promise at a time. We should work to make GMOs the last in a long line of agricultural mistakes, born from short-sightedness, a commodity-driven lust for quantity over quality, with economic supremacy as its guiding purpose, and with little regard for the long-term damage. We should make right now the great line of demarcation between the degenerative agriculture of the failed past and a future of regenerative agriculture. It won’t just make for a better agriculture, it will also make for a better culture and a better planet.
