Monsanto’s Roundup Spawns Superweeds Consuming Over 120 Million Hectares
Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide Roundup has created a new category of superweeds that are heavily resistant to the herbicide ingredient that Roundup contains, known as glyphosate. These resistant weeds currently cover over 4.5 million hectares in the United States alone, though experts estimate the world-wide land coverage to have reached at least 120 million hectares by 2010. The onset of superweeds is being increasingly documented in Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Europe and South Africa.
Meanwhile, Monsanto pushes its genetically modified crops and biopesticides under the guise of helping the environment and reducing pesticide use. In reality, the resistant weeds are now so resistant to Roundup that they require significantly more pesticides.
Due to the large-scale use of Roundup, pesticide spraying will have to increase worldwide in order to combat the new superweeds. Of course the company is refusing to accept responsibility for the escalating cost of combating the weeds, stating that “Roundup agricultural warranties will not cover the failure to control glyphosate resistant weed populations.”
Superweeds, Mutant Insects, and a Devastated Environment
Roundup is not the only Monsanto invention tearing up the environment and producing super resistant organisms. The usage of genetically modified Bt, a biopesticide manufactured by Monsanto, has created a number of new mutated insect species.
Research has confirmed that at least 8 populations of insects have developed resistance, with 2 populations resistant to Bt sprays and 6 species resistant to Bt crops as a whole. As a result, biotech scientists are now further genetically modifying the Bt to kill the mutated insects. This is despite the fact that tests have indicated that the additional modification will provide  ‘little or no advantage’ in fending off the super insects.
All of this is being done instead of simply turning to sustainable and organic farming practices that do not yield super resistant, mutated organisms of any kind. Even the researchers conducting the research on Bt concluded that alternative organic farming methods would provide a more environmentally-friendly alternative in which there would be no dependence on bloated corporations like Monsanto:
Alternative organic, sustainable methods of farming provide a realistic alternative, independent of reliance on agrobiotech corporations.
Monsanto is causing full-scale environmental armageddon.
OK- reminds me of how we have been over-prescribing antibiotics and now hospitals have super resistant strains of bacteria which are complicating surgeries and actually killing people. Monsanto is making the same mistake essentially. Nature has what is called recombinant DNA which allows strains of bacteria to share plasmids containing different selectable mutations which allows them to share antibiotic resistant strains with other colonies thereby ensuring their survival. Insects and plants do this at the genetic level. I suspect that these weeds and insects will multipy exponentially and create a famine of biblical proportions. If they do find a pesticide that will take them down, it will only be another few years before a new population sprouts up that is resistent to both the old and new Monsanto pesiticide. This is a battle that you cant win. Eventually you have to pack your pesticides so full of toxic substances that the food that is eaten by people will make them sick and pollution of the oceans and ground soil will become epidemic.
And this is how life works. All for increased yields and a nice little quarterly profit. We need to start thinking about the big picture, not quarterly Wall Street reports.
I totally agree with this, it's out of control and these people running "Monsanto" need to get it through their thick skulls. If there is no food, then what are the people running this backwards company going to eat? They are digging their own grave, as well as ours, and we have no say in it. They control the food, the water, and pump us full of meds. They being the government and all the money hungry fools running this platocracy.
Monsantan does not care.
Sorry, but we don't have hectares here. We have good old fashioned acres.
Hmmm.. yes very compelling…yawn
I wonder if you ever considered citing original resources.
This is a very short article, in my book anyway, I do not think it really needs sources cited-google is your friend….in some cases.
But here is the problem! Sustainable organic farming can not feed the world.
Does the current course lead to disaster? Probably yes.
Does changing course cause disaster? Definitely yes!!!
Take your pick.
Oh, since when is the world being fed? I will have to search the mainstream media-i'm sure it is there somewhere ;~)
Pesticides are for killing rats NOT weeds.
Roundup is a herbicide NOT pesticide.
How do you expect intelligent people to take you seriously when you cant even use the right words??
Cash crop economies have been the downfall of many small countries- many of whom were able to grow enough food to feed their populations until IMF intervention, Kissenger and "global interdependent economies" emerged in the mid 1970's.
No argument that organic production is lower per acre than chemiculture, but there is also a lot of cropland that is not being utilized either.
Biggerbrain- heed your own advice.
Pesticides are for insect, arachnid, and other similar pests. Some "pesticides" like Dipel are little more than diatomaceous earth, and the real issue with BT is that GMO now puts that bacillus DNA inside of you- whereas when it is used as a milky spore addition to the garden, it is washed off the food and not normally ingested unlike GMO.
Poisons are for rodents- many contain flouride.
Herbicides are for plant control- many weeds can actually be very productive when you consider a weed is just a plant growing where it is not wanted. Green Amaranth happens to be considered a weed- sometimes called pig weed, but the roots are edible and the seeds can be ground and used as a flour. Consdiring the fact that natural selection is producing Round up ready green amaranth without the GMO aspect, that may well end up being your grain of choice in a few years.
Blame Monsanto for threatening the global food supply- killing the bees with BT pollen was disasterous enough- just wait until it escapes from the farms- like the new salmon with Cock Roach DNA which has been released into the wild. Talk about looming crisis, you may develop a taste for "Soylent Green" after all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy…
The link is to an important article detailing the Superweeds that are now forcing American farmers to plow herbicides into their fields (ending the policy of no-till) and naming the Superweeds in Georgia, Tennessee, etc.