Weeds Are Now Resisting Monsanto Weed Killer, Spurring Crisis in American Agriculture

Yep, thanks to Monsanto Roundup, American agriculture is in quite a fix now. See, Monsanto sells genetically modified seed that's supposed to survive spraying with their weedkiller. Unfortunately, the weeds learned to resist it - and now their GMO seed is struggling against the pesticide-resistant weeds that evolved as a result of their own product.

Wouldn't it be nice if companies thought that far ahead before they pushed their products into the mainstream? And wouldn't it be nice if we had government agencies that didn't rubber stamp them?

DYERSBURG, Tenn. — For 15 years, Eddie Anderson, a farmer, has been a strict adherent of no-till agriculture, an environmentally friendly technique that all but eliminates plowing to curb erosion and the harmful runoff of fertilizers and pesticides.

On a recent afternoon here, Mr. Anderson watched as tractors crisscrossed a rolling field — plowing and mixing herbicides into the soil to kill weeds where soybeans will soon be planted.

Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms, American farmers’ near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds.

To fight them, Mr. Anderson and farmers throughout the East, Midwest and South are being forced to spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.
<snip>
That threatens to reverse one of the agricultural advances bolstered by the Roundup revolution: minimum-till farming. By combining Roundup and Roundup Ready crops, farmers did not have to plow under the weeds to control them. That reduced erosion, the runoff of chemicals into waterways and the use of fuel for tractors.

If frequent plowing becomes necessary again, “that is certainly a major concern for our environment,” Ken Smith, a weed scientist at the University of Arkansas, said. In addition, some critics of genetically engineered crops say that the use of extra herbicides, including some old ones that are less environmentally tolerable than Roundup, belies the claims made by the biotechnology industry that its crops would be better for the environment.
http://crooksandliars.com/

Thank you Monsanto and its enablers.
Learn to plant a garden where you are with the basic plants needed to survive!

:sarcasm:

act surprised. Monsanto cried all the way to the bank depositing its profits on Roundup, had years of great quarterly earnings, and now, NOW there's a problem??

I still think there may be ways to work something out. Some cities allow use of vacant lots for gardens. Other areas have farms nearby where people can plant their own or pick what is grown there for a fee. Farmers' Markets are another place to consider.

and could support gardening. Just sayin'. :hi:

Any long term benefit was strictly optional.

Screw Monsanto, the Evil Empire

:thumbsup:

because it is there mafia-like approach that has caused this mess, by and large.

Watch Food, Inc. and King Corn. It describes how they've corrupted agriculture in the US.

...what do Clarence Thomas, Obama apointee Tom Vilsack, and many others have in common? answer: Monsanto...

Monsanto exercises bi-partisan influence purchase.

Ending their influence in Washington would have to figure into the plan of putting them out of business, crushing suits... fixing the damage they have done (if at all possible).

I was hopeful when Obama won... now, not so much. Hopefully other countries will follow Germany and ban Monsanto GMO, at least we wont have US "Corps gone Wild" destroying Ag in other parts of the world.

The soil is alive with billions of micro organisms. But researchers are find that, after years of applying this toxic crap, the very life in the soil has become MUTANT.

Thanks a crapload Monsanto (R).

She developed Her own "Roundup-gene".

yup

These fuckers are some of the most evil people on Earth. It's like some AI machine that only moves forward and kills everything in it's path.

to be exploited/used at our determination. GMO agriculture just makes this mentality even more dangerous. These are living systems, that have and will continue to evolve and adapt to changing conditions. You cannot treat them as unchanging products like any invention or other creation of man, nor like you would unliving resources like rocks in the ground.

To me this is just plain common sense, hell, for thousands of years, while farmers did change the crops, through selective breeding, they also worked around the crops natural cycles to maximize output. They didn't try to force them to more productivity through purely chemical or genetic means.

Damn you, Alexander Fleming! Damn you straight to hell!