September 9, 2011

The Agrichemical Industry’s Business Model in One Paragraph

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jz909/1450513463/">jetsandzeppelins</a>/Flickr

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I’ve been writing a lot about how the agrichemical industry leverages its failures to to sell ever more toxic herbicides, insecticides, and genetically modified crops to replace ones that have lost effectiveness, trapping farmers on an ever-accelerating pesticide/technology treadmill. In the latest major media article on the rise of “superweeds” resistant to Monsanto’s flagship herbicide, this one from Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant makes my point for me:

Monsanto Chief Executive Officer Hugh Grant says competitors’ efforts to develop their own herbicide-tolerant crops isn’t a threat to the company’s flagship business. Seed companies will cross-license each others’ genetics to create crops able to withstand multiple weedkillers, he says, and spraying fields with a mix of herbicides will kill the superweeds and give Roundup Ready crops new life. Monsanto itself is adding resistance to dicamba, an older weedkiller, to Roundup Ready crops for sale by 2015. “The cavalry is coming,” Grant says.

Dicamba, it should be noted, is listed by Pesticide Action Network as a “bad actor”—it’s an established developmental/reproductive toxin with the potential to contaminate groundwater. If Dicamba Ready crops become anywhere near as prolific as their Roundup Ready cousins, the result could be disastrous. Farmers are currently applying so much Roundup that US Geological Survey researchers are finding it at “significant” levels in water and air samples in farm states. Roundup enjoys a reputation as a relatively benign herbicide, but new research on its effect on both soil and human health is undermining that assumption.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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