The Biggest Economic Problem You're Hearing Almost Nothing About

[egbertowillies]

Not long ago I visited some farmers in Missouri whose profits are disappearing. Why? Monsanto alone owns the key genetic traits to more than 90 percent of the soybeans planted by farmers in the United States, and 80 percent of the corn. Which means Monsanto can charge farmers much higher prices.

Farmers are getting squeezed from the other side, too, because the food processors they sell their produce to are also consolidating into mega companies that have so much market power they can cut the prices they pay to farmers.

This doesn’t mean lower food prices to you. It means more profits to the monopolists.

https://egbertowillies.com/2018/05/06/biggest-economic-problem/

[Strelnikov_]

1. Vote Republican . . .n/t

[Wellstone ruled]

2. Everyone needs to read this story.

Sorry to say,but,I have been screaming about what is happening in real time with regards to both Corn and Soybeans. The Trillion pound ugly in the room is Monsanto as well as Mosaic. With Grain Contracts for over seas markets all but gone. These Farmers in the Mid West are facing 1981 all over again. There are several small Seed Corn Companies available to compete with the likes of Monsanto. And,they usually sell all of their Certified Seed each year,trouble is finding addition seed growing acreage.

[NickB79]

3. The seed price issue goes back to the 1960's, long before Monsanto got big

Farmers for the most part stopped saving their own seed and started buying seed every spring with the advent of hybrid (not GMO) strains in the mid-20th century. The jump in crop yields made it foolish not to. My grandfather made his farming fortune in large part because he was an early adopter of high-yielding hybrid corn 60 years ago.

But now, due to a few seed companies running virtual monopolies, seed prices are out of control. One option: break up the mega-Ag corps.

[Amaryllis]

4. Not to mention the health and environmental impact of glyphosate toxicity.