Monsanto Resistant Weeds

By now, several of you have read the NY Times article talking about Roundup Resistant Weeds, courtesy of Monsanto.  It’s good to see this information making it to the general public.  Resistant weeds have been around for 10-15 years, and it started almost immediately after Monsanto introduced Roundup Ready Soybeans.

At first, Roundup did kill all the weeds in a field of Roundup Ready Soybeans.  While I wouldn’t call it a “miracle chemical” as the article does, it did perform as promised the first couple of years.  At first the resistant weeds were either complained about and tolerated, (Monsanto, after first blaming the chemical retailer and applicator, was known to pay a little money to the farmer for poor performance of the product).  But by 2000, it was apparent that the only way to control these refined weeds was to introduce another chemical, and now just like Farmer Anderson said in the article, “we are right back where we were 20 years ago.”

I would take issue with what Mike Owen, a weed scientist at Iowa State University, said in the article about “Darwinian evolution in fast-forward”.  What we are seeing here has nothing to do with Darwin to be sure.  Think of this:  Ever seen a dog with 6 toes? Imagine if we just started the wholesale slaughter of all dogs with only the normal 5 toes. (I’m not advocating this! Please don’t tell me I’m cruel.) It doesn’t take a PhD biologist to figure that after a while there will be only 6-toed dogs.  The dogs surviving the purge would not be a new species, they would have always been here in low numbers, but with no other dogs around to mate with thier numbers would blossom.

Secondly, “Darwinian evolution in fast-forward” is an oxymoron.  Darwinian evolution requires millions of years as essential to its theory of change.  These resistant weeds were showing up 2-3 years after the widespread use of Roundup.

This is not evolution, but rather UN-NATURAL selection.  This is a man-made disaster!

Monsanto and other companies knew of this tendency long before Roundup Ready crops were introduced.  In the 80′s and 90′s weeds began to develop resistance to atrazine, arguably the most widely used agri-chemical in the US over the last 40-50 years, forcing the development of “tank mixes” of multiple chemicals to defeat the adapted weeds, and broadening the reception of Roundup Ready crops to begin with.

I say again, Know Your Farmer.  Support Your Farmer.  Help Your Farmer Survive Without Monsanto and Big Ag.

-John Mesko has degrees in agronomy and agricultural economics from Purdue University, and early in his career sprayed thousands of acres of Roundup and other herbicides.  He’s scouted acres and acres of corn and soybean fields, consulted with farmers all over the US regarding crop production decisions, worked as a university extension director, and as an information manager for Dow Agrosciences.  After seeing the impact of his work, he now builds agricultural productivity rather than destroys it by raising organic, grass-fed meats in Minnesota.

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