Meet the Weeds That Monsanto Can’t Beat

"Integrated pest management" in action. <a href="http://flickr.com/link-to-source-image">USDA Photo by Charles O'Rear</a>/Wikimedia Commons

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When Monsanto revolutionized agriculture with a line of genetically engineered seeds, the promise was that the technology would lower herbicide use—because farmers would have to spray less. In fact, as Washington State University researcher Chuch Benbrook has shown, just the opposite happened.

Sixteen years on, Roundup (Monsanto’s tradename for its glyphosate herbicide) has certainly killed lots of weeds. But the ones it has left standing are about as resistant to herbicide as the company’s Roundup Ready crops, which are designed to survive repeated applications of the agribusiness giant’s own Roundup herbicide.

For just one example, turn to Mississippi, where cotton, corn, and soy farmers have been using Roundup Ready seeds for years—and are now struggling to contain a new generation of super weeds, including a scourge of Italian ryegrass.

“Fight resistant weeds with fall, spring attack,” declares a headline in Delta Farm Press, a farming trade magazine serving the Mississippi River Delta. The article’s author, a Mississippi State University employee, lays out the challenge:

In 2005, Italian ryegrass resistant to the commonly used herbicide glyphosate was first identified in the state. Since then, it has been found in 31 Mississippi counties and is widespread throughout the Delta. This glyphosate-resistant weed emerges in the fall and grows throughout winter and early spring.

The solution: “fall residual herbicide treatments followed by spring burn-down applications, where a nonselective herbicide is applied to fields before planting.” Translation: to combat the plague of resistant Italian ryegrass, Mississippi’s cotton farmers must hit their fields with a “residual” herbicide in the fall—meaning one that hangs around in soil long enough to kill ryegrass for a while—and then come back with yet another herbicide in the spring, to make sure the job has been done.

This multi-poison approach to weed control, apparently, is what passes for “integrated pest management”—purportedly a system of low-pesticide crop protection—these days.

“The integrated pest management program we recommend uses fall residual herbicides to help reduce the overall population and numbers,” [Mississippi State University extension professor Tom] Eubank said. “Fall tillage can also reduce weed numbers, but it is generally not as effective as residual herbicides. Producers should come back in the spring or late winter with an alternative herbicide program that attacks the plant using a different mode of action.”

In lieu of crop rotation and biodiversity, the non-toxic way to control weeds, the MSU extension service promotes what the article calls a “diversified herbicide program.” And thus we get a clear look at why, since the introduction of Roundup Ready seeds in the 1990s, herbicide use has spiked.

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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.

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