Farmers in the United States in particular are mostly in a commodity business and the market for non-GMO products is relatively small so there is not room for a

Farmers in the United States in particular are mostly in a commodity business and the market for non-GMO products is relatively small so there is not room for all, most, or even a large minority of farms to accept the lower productivity of non-GMO crops for higher prices. On top of that the situation is still more complex, crop variety research in everything but Wheat and Oats is dominated by private industry so their interest is to ensure that any new varieties fall under the patent protection regime that GMO crops offer because the protections are better than plant-breeders rights. (Also I disagree with the 2x difference posted above but do agree that the divergence has become substantial.) In addition because the global fertilizer business is effectively a cartel fertilizer prices have nothing to do with the costs of production but instead what the market will bear. (Natural gas is a key element and has been near all-time lows for quite a while but fertilizer prices are relatively high.) So the fertilizer companies are pricing to ensure that you must stay on the highest-productivity path in order to stay above water. Finally, the vast majority of modern farmers in North America have gone from being cooperative-oriented to more pro-market and largely believe that this current state of affairs is somehow in their best interests -- what is good for agribusiness is good for farmers. It is my humble opinion that the market is totally broken and farmers are very ineffective at working together to counter-balance the powers of the large corporations in the industry.