Dr. Berg Talks to a GMO Corn & Soy Farmer Who Is Switching to Organic

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Hey, it’s Dr. Berg again. In this video, we’re going to talk uh about a new topic uh GMO. Basically, I have a a client here who’s a farmer who actually knows a lot about it because on his farm, he actually did uh soy and corn GMO. So, I’m glad that you’re here and I just have some questions.

Um like you’ve done it, so we you’ve been in the that area and you’re looking to trans uh position into organic farming and you know a lot about it. Uh so the first question is are there a lot of farmers in the Midwest because you’re from Illinois u kind of um doing um GMO? Yeah, definitely. Um I would say probably in my area and I’ll be conservative, but at least 75%. It’s probably higher than that.

Wow. The vast majority. And uh don’t mind the microphone because our other mic is broken. So we’re just going to go back and forth. You can I’ll just lean in.

Okay, good. And then um so what’s the like the motivation? I know it’s probably I’m not saying laziness, but it’s probably is it a little bit more work to do organic? Yeah. Uh definitely more work.

Um you can cover a larger area more a higher volume of acres doing the commercial. Um and so there there is more work involved because it’s more of a mechanical approach with the organics. Wow. Now, GMO is genetically modified organisms where they will uh take a plant and they’ll take some other they could take a virus from something or an animal gene and splice them together. I’m not sure exactly what they do with um the corn or the soy, but I do know that when they modify it, it becomes resistant to an herbicide.

So, corn is now resistant. And they also modify it for another reason too. I think um it almost acts as a certain pesticide, doesn’t it? Corn. Yeah, definitely.

Um as as far as I’m aware, there’s cornbore and root worm, which the the species actually has to feed on the plant, but when when it does eat the plant, it it kills it kills the insect. So, but there’s no harm to humans. No, I’m just kidding. Um, so what about um if you use genetically modified corn uh you’re able to use Roundup Ready or that spray and that actually is a weed killer and so the the plant thrives better, right? And that’s what they do.

They spray it. Yeah. Um but what about um the soil itself? Like um tell me a little bit about do you put a lot of minerals in? What kind of minerals do you put back in the soil?

Uh we focus solely on NP and K. So nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus. Okay. But uh that’s pretty much the limitation there. Wow.

So we don’t really So cuz I’ve never farmed, but they don’t really put all the minerals back in, right? Like all the trace minerals. You have like 94 minerals. They don’t put those back in. No.

No. Just those three is all we focus on in commercial. Wow. So like iodine, you’re just going to I mean like people eat that food, they’re just going to be deficient in iodine, zinc, selenium, boron, manganese, all these things. And that’s amazing.

So they just So that’s why you you need, you know, you need to enhance like people say, “Well, you don’t really need vitamins. ” Well, you’re going to have to enhance something. Um so the other question I have is so they’re doing all the soy out of the viewpoint that our world is starving, right? and um tell us just an inside scoop of what you’re seeing, what they’re really using the uh corn for. Uh so as far as my research has gone, um I’ve found that the vast majority of corn is used in either ethanol production or uh livestock production um like in the the large confinement type operations.

So basically using it to feed animals. Yeah. Yeah. Or ethanol. for ethanol.

Um, is there what’s your viewpoint on ethanol? Uh, I don’t I don’t know all the ins and outs of it, but uh, basically from what I understand it, it takes so much more uh, energy to produce a lot less energy um, as an an end product with the the fuels. And something else that’s also an issue in my mind is that we use an annual plant. So, we have to plant it every year um to get these fuels when there’s a lot of other perennials that um have been proven they produce way more um ethanol per unit of of product, but also like per acre as well. What’s a perennial and annual?

So, an annual has to be planted every year. Its life cycle is a year long. And a perennial comes back every year like say a grass in your yard comes back. Yeah. Wow.

So, um, so now what about, uh, being subsidized? Tell me about what what happens with that. Is corn subsidized? Uh, yeah, the corn and soybeans both are. They have programs and I can’t tell you the ins and outs.

I I participated in them, but I was in a partnership with brothers and I I didn’t actually take care of that part. Um, but yeah, there is there is subsidies to uh to raise both corn and soybeans. Okay. And then what what about soy? Is that also used to feed the livestock?

Is that what they use it for? Uh to my knowledge that yeah, there is quite a bit there. I in my research um I found that they use it a lot in fillers in human consumption. So we we don’t actually see that on the labels as far as I can tell. But uh yeah, so I a lot of it is is also animal consumption.

It’s it’s all over the it’s all it’s basically in almost every food like in in this certain aisles in the grocery store and then you uh um it’s they don’t label it of course because they don’t want you to know that it’s GMO but everyone knows it’s GMO. Um it costs so little to produce, right? It’s cheap, isn’t it? Yeah. Which to my understanding that that’s a big reason why they use it for a filler is because we have so much of it which makes me question are we overproducing because they’re trying to find places to put all this stuff.

It’s kind of a racket. And then they had this thing called high fructose corn syrup which is not even sweet. It’s actually a filler and then you just drink your soda, you know. Amazing. Um Okay.

Okay. So now what about um with Roundup Ready or whatever the chemicals that you spray is how often do you do you have to spray the ground first and then the plant or how does it work? Um so with the Roundup specifically uh you’ll spray spray the plant. So it’s a contact killer. Okay.

Um, so ideally they only want to spray one time um so that you don’t have to make two trips and across the field and and keep your cost down. But uh there’s quite a bit of issues in our area with resistance to that chemical because of its overuse and maybe not responsible use. U but there’s weeds now that it won’t even kill. Uh they built up a resistance completely to it. So because you have the soil which is this has this microfllora this all this bacteria that’s supposed to be there.

I’m sure that’s probably killed. So you’re going to get all these just like in your body if you have antibiotics you’re going to get yeast infections and fungal infections. I could imagine you’re going to get that with this corn and soy. How about the seeds? Like you have to buy the seeds and you can you keep using them use your own seeds and plant it over and over or how does it work?

Uh no. logic would tell you that you can save back seeds and and plant them the next year, but uh so you sign what they call a technology agreement and uh so at that point um you cannot save back any of the seed that you produce from the original seed. So yeah, you buy you buy seed every year. Wow, interesting. I have a nice little connection with that.

Does GMO produce uh more crop uh than organic or non GMO? Um that’s a good question. So basically in my research um with some red flags popping up on and questioning what I’m doing and the reasons and and the effects um we have ended up raising some more non-GMO crops um which to my understanding is is a lot more human consumption versus animals and ethanol. Um but um the y as far as the yields go um we have seen the same yields if