“Roundup-ready” crops — i.e., those that can tolerate the herbicide Roundup — were introduced by Monsanto in the 1990′s, and brought big environmental benefits: farmers had to plow less frequently, resulting in reduced erosion and less fertilizer and pesticide runoff. A new breed of Roundup-resistant super-weeds, however, is jeopardizing that progress, as affected farmers are forced to “spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand, and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.” Meanwhile, Monsanto and DuPont are at work on a new technology: drought-resistant crops. This technology will be particularly useful in drought-prone areas, including those that might be negatively affected by global warming.[%comments]
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of GMOs
TAGS: agriculture
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The round-up resistance migrating shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Environmentalists were saying all along that it would spread.
How about some credit to the reality-based community?
IMy enviormentalist friend Lori warned me about all of this years ago…This morning I hear it on Morning Joe..I guess I should have paid attention all those years ago…Sorry
So, now we’ve got Roundup-ready weeds?
I think corporates in America have gotten away with a lot in the name of free enterprise, capitalism, whatever… as shown in ‘Food Inc’ (the documentary), the entire food chain in the US is controlled by 4 or 5 mega corporations, who are basically deciding what food will be made available to us. The tragedy is that like with the Wall Street excesses, other countries & especially developing countries are now in the vice of the likes of Monsanto.
While Congress wakes up from its slumber & decides to act in the interests of the people rather than the corporations, I agree with Kathie Biddle (commenter #5 here) that lawyers must go after the likes of Monsanto for conducting mass experiments on humans.
HA- nice one- a thank you note from Monsanto. They have corrupted the political/regulatory process in this country to such an extent just to sell weed killer and terminator seeds that don’t even work anymore, as was predicted by many! GM soy in a recent Russian study even caused INFERTILITY in the third generation offspring of hamsters. Yet GM technology is the official position of our foreign aid bill, as well as our Ag secretary. Monsanto’s former vice-president is now head of Food Safety at the FDA!!!! How’s that for corruption! Talk about superweeds! Their in our government! Thanks, Monsanto!
Joining in on this cozy conversation…very in tune with y’all…and the thank you note from Monsanto definitely adds some ironic flava’!. I gotta big chuckle out of that one myself…I’m not quite sure how Monsanto employees sleep at night!
Friends: Keep a raised brow in the direction of this company and all its other companies. This “revolving doors” pattern must stop b/t these companies and FDA and EPA and… (this is what “bob Klein, comment #13″ is referring to.
more info “revolving doors” in various documentaries:
1) “The World According to Monsanto,”
2) ” Food Inc.”
3) ” The Future of Food”
4) look up Michael Pollan on youtube…great books!
From an ex-pat living on the beautiful island of Puerto Rico…this company is reaping havoc here with its bio-tech caos masked behind the veil of economic promise for the Island…and Puerto Rico doesn’t even appear on its website! It’s even seeped into what I thought were respectable academic initiatives on the Island.
Dear God,
I don’t ask you for much but please, please kill Monsanto
Kathie,
If only the courts would be willing to put the burden of the negative externalities of the RoundUp Ready Genes on Monsanto.
It seems specious, to me, to claim ownership of the genes AND the plants that embody them, but then to argue that you are not responsible for any damages caused by the plant. To my knowledge that was their successful position in a semi recent RoundUp Ready Canola case from Canada.