Vermont’s top row crop – by far – is GMO corn, used almost exclusively as feed for the state’s mostly-confined 130,000 dairy cows. The concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) that provide cheap milk to Ben & Jerry’s and Cabot Creamery grow around 90,000 acres of GMO corn in Vermont every year.

And here’s what a typical season looks like for these fields:

The growing season begins and ends with saturation-spreadings of liquid dairy manure, known to contain, according to the CDC, “pathogens such as E. Coli, growth hormones, antibiotics, chemicals used as additives to the manure or to clean equipment, animal blood, silage leachate from corn feed, or copper sulfate used in footbaths for cows.” Pesticides residues and formaldehyde (also used in routine cow footbaths) have also been found in CAFO-derived manure.

If a cover crop was used on the field, it is likely that an herbicide such as glyphosate (aka: Monsanto’s RoundUp) will be used to kill the cover crop before planting, a practice that is actually recommended by University of Vermont Extension Service crop consultants.

The GMO seeds will come pre-treated in neonicotinoids (neonics), an extremely toxic and systemic pesticide that is known to threaten bees and other pollinator species.

Shortly after planting, the fields will again be treated with pesticides, usually more glyphosate and/or atrazine, simazine, metolachlor, and pendimethalin. In 2016, Vermont’s GMO-corn crops were treated with a total of nearly 200,000 pounds of toxic pesticides.

The post-planting pesticide treatments will most likely be followed by a heavy dosing of synthetic fertilizers, rich in nitrogen and phosphorus. And another “top-dressing” of nitrogen fertilizer will be applied a month or so after the first treatment.

Then, in the fall, the GMO corn will be harvested and fed to nonorganic cows, producing cheap milk that will be sold at below-cost-of-production prices to corporations like Ben & Jerry’s and Cabot Creamery, who will then each make about a billion dollars in sales a year, claiming – falsely – that Vermont is farming with more “care” than the rest of the nation.

Sorry, Ben & Jerry’s, but “caring dairy” begins with organic, which forbids the use of GMOs, pesticides, antibiotics, and permanent animal confinement and over-concentration.

It should also be pointed out that much of the work on Vermont’s CAFO dairies is being done by an estimated 1500 migrant laborers, where they’re paid little, have few rights, live in vastly substandard (and unsafe) housing, and are in constant fear of ICE capture, detention and/or deportation.

It’s Vermont Wrong.

[For a complete look at Vermont’s history with GMO corn, please see our report, “Vermont’s GMO Legacy: Pesticides, Polluted Water & Climate Destruction.”