While purveyors of this technology, like Monsanto, reap incredible financial rewards, studies indicate that small farmers are being squeezed out of the industry or are forced to be little more than sharecroppers, perpetually in debt to the large companies that hold their crops hostage:
• In 2013, Monsanto sued 500 farmers for patent violations. Farmers who use their seeds are not allowed to save seed and reuse, but must buy new seed every year or face legal action.
• GM crops have caused seed prices of important US commodity crops to rise. Since 1995, soybean, corn, and cotton seeds have risen in price by 325%, 259% and 526% respectively.
• Crops contaminated with GMOs negatively affect trade relations as more and more countries ban the technology.
• Not labeling GMOs hurts the economy, makes the food industry less competitive worldwide, has a negative impact on food exports, imports, and jobs, diminishes tax revenue, and has a ripple impact on other associated industries. An ANH-USA sponsored study showed that the failure to pass mandatory GMO labeling in the state of Washington will cost 130,000 jobs in that state alone. Extrapolating those number nationwide shows the magnitude of the problem nationally.
• Countries like Russia and China have seen the economic impact of GMOs and have recently announced that they will be following the nearly 70 countries around that world that have banned GMO crops.
In the summer of 2013, Japan and South Korea cancelled orders for, and banned imports of, soft white wheat from the US when GMO-contaminated wheat plants were discovered on a putatively GMO-free farm in Oregon.
