The Antibiotic Issue of Agriculture

The NYTimes recently wrote about Round-Up resistant weeds.

Approximately 70% of corn and cotton, and 90% of soybeans grown in the United States are Rounup Ready. However, the weeds are becoming resistant to Roundup, so guess what? All of those sustainable agriculture ads that Monsanto has all over National Public Radio are a farce. Monsanto's claim that using their Roundup Ready seeds reduces the need to plow the soil seem to be turning into a larger issue: the weeds are developing a tolerance to the RoundUp. An interesting quote, but biotech has never promised the other direction, in my opinion.

“The biotech industry is taking us into a more pesticide-dependent agriculture when they’ve always promised, and we need to be going in, the opposite direction,” said Bill Freese, a science policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety in Washington.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.html?pagewanted=1&ref=homepage&src=me