By Emily Cassidy, Research Analyst [1]
Environmental Working Group [1]
Excerpts:
Farmers in Arkansas and Missouri have filed more than 100 complaints [2] with state agriculture agencies over a toxic weed killer that is drifting from adjacent farms and damaging their crops. The herbicide is not only stunting the growth of soybeans – it’s also being used illegally.
As National Public Radio [3] and The Wall Street Journal [4] reported, farmers say the chemical, known as dicamba, is being illegally sprayed by neighboring farms growing genetically modified crops from seeds created and sold by Monsanto, known as Roundup Ready 2 Xtend.
This year, Monsanto reportedly sold more than 2 million acres [2]worth of the new seeds, claiming they get rid of weeds and produce higher yields [3]. But the seeds are meant for use with a new Monsanto herbicide the Environmental Protection Agency [5] has yet to approve. As NPR [6] put it, Monsanto “gave farmers a new weed-killing tool that they couldn’t legally use.”
The widespread adoption [7] of Monsanto’s first generation of Roundup Ready crops, engineered to tolerate glyphosate, aka Roundup, has worsened weed problems on farms and created herbicide-resistant superweeds [8]. To combat these weeds, Monsanto engineered the new seeds to grow soybeans and cotton that will withstand a chemical cocktail of glyphosate and dicamba.
Even a small amount of dicamba can cause significant damage to conventional soybeans that haven’t been engineered to resist the herbicide. Monsanto says the new glyphosate-dicamba mixture is less likely to drift onto fields growing conventional soybeans. But some farmers who invested in the new seeds are – unwittingly or knowingly – using an older, drift-prone version of dicamba on these new GMOs, which breaks federal pesticide law. [9]
Read the full article here [1].
[10]The Healthy Traditions Glyphosate-tested Program [10]. Foods with this logo have been tested for the presence of glyphosate.