http://blog.buzzflash.com/analysis/1031You've probably heard about Roundup Ready crops, the Monsanto-created seeds that are resistant to the herbicide glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. But did you know that "Agent Orange Ready" corn and soybeans may be on their way to a supermarket near you?
Thanks to the utter failure of Roundup Ready products to live up to their environmentally-friendly and productive promises, Monsanto competitor Dow Chemical is developing crop seeds that can tolerate the damaging defoliant used in the Vietnam War.
-snip of some history-
In addition to dumping more chemicals on their fields, farmers are having to use several different kinds of herbicides at once. Hence, the commercial re-emergence of Agent Orange. The New York Times nonchalantly explains the necessity in today's edition (emphasis mine):
Monsanto and other agricultural biotech companies are also developing genetically engineered crops resistant to other herbicides.
Bayer is already selling cotton and soybeans resistant to glufosinate, another weedkiller. Monsanto’s newest corn is tolerant of both glyphosate and glufosinate, and the company is developing crops resistant to dicamba, an older pesticide. Syngenta is developing soybeans tolerant of its Callisto product. And Dow Chemical is developing corn and soybeans resistant to 2,4-D, a component of Agent Orange, the defoliant used in the Vietnam War.
-snip-
Though Dow says it's using only a component of Agent Orange, clearly this is not the type of chemical we should be introducing into the food system, nor should the lives of farmers be considered so expendable as to risk them on a chemical that has been proven deadly for decades. The notion that Dow would consider such a dangerous and politically polarizing chemical in food production is remarkable.
Considering the shoes it is trying to fill, however, the idea to use Agent Orange is less shocking. After all, the dangers of Roundup are not merely in the imaginations of organic food purveyors. Scientists in Argentina have recently found that the herbicide causes fetal defects in much smaller concentrations than were previously assumed. And while conventional wisdom maintains that glyphosate is a safer alternative to other herbicides because it does not persist in the environment as long, the veracity of such information has become increasingly suspect. As I noted last year:
-snip-
This should be a wake-up call for Big Ag. It's clear that business as usual is making the production of food more dangerous and less sustainable with practically every new development.
But of course, they don't see it that way. And until Big Ag realizes that a farmer's field is not a war zone, they're going to keep trying out their shiny new weapons -- or in Dow's case, old rust-colored ones -- on our bodies and planet.
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monsanto loves money, hates life.