Monsanto’s Roundup Spawns Superweeds Consuming Over 120 Million Hectares
Anthony Gucciardi
NaturalSociety
November 30, 2011
Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide Roundup has created a new category of superweeds that are heavily resistant to the herbicide 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.
Explore More:
- Biotech Quick Fix for Superweeds Could Lead to ‘Super Superweeds’
- EPA Finds Monsanto’s GMO Corn Ineffective, Creating Resistant Rootworms
- GMO Crops Require More Pesticides, Create Resistant Insects
- Monsanto’s Infertility-Linked Roundup Found in All Urine Samples Tested
- Monsanto Declared Worst Company of 2011
- Monsanto’s Carcinogenic Roundup Herbicide Contaminating Water Supply
Hmmm.. yes very compelling…yawn
I wonder if you ever considered citing original resources.
Sorry, but we don’t have hectares here. We have good old fashioned acres.
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.
Correction-Monsatan
Monsanto is causing full-scale environmental armageddon.