Editor’s note: This article was authored by Nathan Donley is a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, a group that is critical of biotechnology.
For years Monsanto officials assured farmers that weeds would never develop resistance to the company’s flagship herbicide, glyphosate, so farmers were urged to apply it liberally year after year because “dead weeds don’t produce seeds.”
And apply it they did, with annual U.S. glyphosate use soaring to over 300 million pounds — an escalation that quickly accelerated the evolution of glyphosate-resistant superweeds that can grow an inch a day to heights of 10 feet and break farm equipment.
Now major herbicide pushers are offering a familiar-sounding “solution”: more herbicides.
In November, Dow AgroSciences got Environmental Protection Agency approval to sell Enlist Duo, a toxic combination of glyphosate and 2,4-D….Also in November the EPA fast-tracked approval of Monsanto’s XtendiMax, a supposedly less drift-prone dicamba formulation.
Related on the SLP
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And this latest weed-control remedy — which will result in tens of millions of pounds of additional herbicides being dumped on this next generation of genetically engineered crops — is sure to be a temporary fix.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: The ever-darkening shadow of Monsanto-fueled superweeds
