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Resistance crops up to Monsanto products

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Attack of the Monsanto Superinsects

http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/08/monsanto-gm-super-insects

—By Tom Philpott

| Tue Aug. 30, 2011 3:04 AM PDT

Over the past decade and a half, as Monsanto built up its globe-spanning, multi-billion-dollar genetically modified seed empire, it made two major pitches to farmers.

The first involved weeds. Leave the weed management to us, Monsanto insisted. We've engineered plants that can survive our very own herbicide. Just pay up for our patented, premium-priced seeds, spray your fields with our Roundup herbicide whenever the fancy strikes, and—voilà!—no more weeds.

The second involved crop-eating insects. We've isolated the toxic gene of a commonly used bacterial pesticide called Bt, Monsanto announced, and spliced it directly into crops. Along with corn and soy, you will literally be growing the pesticide that protects them. Plant our seeds, and watch your crops thrive while their pests shrivel and die.

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Monsanto focused its technology on three widely planted, highly subsidized crops: corn, soy, and cotton. Large-scale farmers of these commodities, always operating on razor-thin profit margins, lunged at the chance to streamline their operations by essentially outsourcing their pest management to Monsanto. And so Monsanto's high-tech crops essentially took over the corn/soy- and cotton-growing regions of the country.

But now the pitches are wearing thin. Dumping a single herbicide onto millions of acres of farmland has, predictably enough, given rise to weeds resistant to that herbicide. Such "superweeds" are now galloping through cotton and corn country, forcing farmers to resort to highly toxic herbicide cocktails and even hand-weeding. More than 11 million acres are infested with Roundup-resistant weeds, up from 2.4 million acres in 2007, reckons Penn State University weed expert David Mortensen.

And now insects are developing resistance to Monsanto's insecticide-infused crops, reports the Wall Street Journal. Fields planted in Monsanto's Bt corn in some areas of the Midwest are showing damage from the corn rootworm—the very species targeted by Monsanto's engineered trait. An Iowa State University scientist has conclusively identified Bt-resistant root worms in four Iowa fields, the Journal reports.

The findings are not likely isolated to those fields—just like spotting a cockroach on your kitchen floor probably signals an infestation, not that a lone cockroach randomly stumbled in for a visit. Sure enough, farmers in Illinois are also seeing severe rootworm damage in fields planted in Monsanto's Bt corn. And it's not just in the United States: In 2010, Monsanto itself acknowledged that in industrial-agriculture regions of India, where Monsanto's Bt cotton is a dominant crop, a cotton-attacking pest called the bollworm had developed resistance.

Just as Roundup-resistant superweeds rapidly bloomed into a major problem after first appearing in the mid-2000s, Bt-resistant superinsects may be just getting started. Colleen Scherer, managing editor of the industrial-ag trade magazine Ag Professional, put it like this: "There is no 'putting the genie back in the bottle,' and resistance in these areas is a problem that won't go away."

So what does all of this mean for Monsanto? If its main attraction for farmers—the promise of easy pest management—is turning to dust in a quite public way, should we expect the company be on the verge of getting crushed under the weight of its failures?

To get a glimpse of how the publicly traded company is faring, I looked at how its stock has been performing over the past year, compared to the broader stock market. Early Monday afternoon, Monsanto's shares were trading at about $71—a more than 25 percent gain over the past 12 months. Over the same period, the S&P 500—a broad gauge of US stocks—is up just over 10 percent. That means investors have high hopes for Monsanto going forward, despite the high-profile failures. Like weeds and bugs in farm fields, Monsanto shares have developed resistance to toxic tidings.

What gives? The Wall Street Journal article provides a clue:

The [bt-resistance] finding adds fuel to the race among crop biotechnology rivals to locate the next generation of genes that can protect plants from insects. Scientists at Monsanto and Syngenta AG of Basel, Switzerland, are already researching how to use a medical breakthrough called RNA interference to, among other things, make crops deadly for insects to eat. If this works, a bug munching on such a plant could ingest genetic code that turns off one of its essential genes.

In other words, Monsanto claims it has the answer to the trouble it's cooking up on corn, soy, and cotton fields: more patent-protected GM technology. It has managed to shove US farmers on a kind of accelerating treadmill: the need to apply ever more, and ever more novel, high-tech responses to keep up with ever-evolving pests. And while farmers run ever faster to stay in place, Monsanto just keeps coming up with highly profitable "solutions" to the problems it has generated.

Investors have embraced Monsanto's pitch. Large-scale farmers, battered and desperate for relief, probably will too. But the broader citizenry, in the form of the regulatory agencies that ostensibly guard the public interest, should start asking hard questions.

*****This is an evidence-based thread*****

Surprise, surprise - natural selection is a faster process (at the moment) than genetic engineering. It is forseeable that in the future this will not be the case, and then we will be screwed, as it will appear that humans are essentially omnipotent.

I am worried about the consequences of this whole path however. Even if we can somehow develop genetic engineering to a stage where we can quickly counter any resistances, I don't know if that is sustainable indefinitely. Maybe eventually a winner will emerge - and it won't be us, only it will be FAR too late to switch to more stable food production methods. Then without enough food, and such a dependent populace - mass famines will occur.

Anyway, please comment on what potential ramifications you think there are to this, and ways that you are planning on steering clear. :)

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The whole point is that evolution is highly dynamic system, and species are able to rapidly adapt to problems like this.

I would think that by using genetic technologies we are not only selecting for resistance but also for rapid adaptability. at the end of the day our technologies will only last a few generations making the return on investment worthless.

But pulling out weeds by hand, and not growing massive monocultures, we remove that factor.

But i am biased, i have never been in favour of monsanto, and dread to think of where we are heading with they way they do business. at least with stories like this it almost demands that we rethink our attitude towards agriculture and the way its done.

Cheers, Obtuse.

Edited by obtuse

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Great article. Thanks for posting, Blunt.

Slight side-track about the meta-issues here: What's interesting for me is how these sort of affairs make reactionaries out of progressives (my self included). It seems that political designations like "progressive", "conservative", "reactionary" and "libertarian" were tied to a specific era in human history; one that is now stepping into the past. These days, those who identify as "progressive" are the ones who are most likely to oppose these sorts of changes (what I'm sure Monsanto would consider, sick bastards that they are, to be "progress"). I'm sure someone more eloquent and learned is writing about this already.

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I have to agree with BM and Ob...

As an ecologist I have long tried to explain to my molly-bol colleagues that they are missing the forest for the trees. It is (or at least, it should be) simple to understand that targetted organisms will efficiently evolve against the artifical pressure of GM, especially as they are, by definition, weedy species with generalist, disturbance-loving natures.

In other words, the reason that they're weeds in the first place is that they are well-adapted to coping with - and adjucting to - novel environmental challenges. Short of moving to as-yet undeveloped generations of GE, Nature will almost inevitably find ways to circumvent human manipulations, rendering those technologies ever more ineffective, and at ever greater collateral cost.

As BM points out and as I have said myself to people in the past, there may come a time when we can actually keep ahead of evolution. The trouble then is that without evolution pruning our manipulations, we risk creating artificial biological function/interaction "bubbles" that will at some point drift so far from balance with what remains of an equilibrated natural ecosystem that when we eventually lose control (and we inevitably will, as in Jurrasic Park, but in a far more sophisticated manner), things will turn around to slap us hard in the face.

Aside from pest control, GE to "improve" nutrition, or to respond to problems in the environment (such as creating salt-resistant crops), are also approaches that miss the basic issues - plant appropriate crops in the first place, and don't fuck the environment in the first place.

I fully support the use of in vitro-based GE, because the issues of containment are completely different. However, releasing GMOs into the environment is a matter that needs orders of magnitude more ecological and evolutionary understanding than molly-bols, corporations, and governments have, or that they have demonstrated.

The way it's used now, the non-contained use of GE is largely a process of painting over rust, using a corrosive paint.

[Edit: spelling]

Edited by WoodDragon
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Not surprising in the least, but it does lend some weight to the fact that evolution is real, for all those idiotic creationists out there.

Once again, it's an example of a potentially useful technology being used in the wrong way. As Woody points out, in vitro GE is useful and can lead to a great number of benefits in a whole range of different areas. As far as GE crops go, I think they're focusing on the wrong areas (obviously due to money/power). If crops were engineered for resistance to abiotic pressures, rather than biotic ones, we would not see these problems arising in such a short timeframe, if at all (though undoubtedly others would arise). E.g., wheat engineered for drought or waterlogging resistance does not require an external input which are species could then become resistant to, as is the case with the rampant use of Roundup.

While it would be nice to see the world welcome organic farming as the 'silver bullet' to all our agricultural woes, I think we have to realise that this is highly unlikely and that GE crops are going to become more prevalent. If this is actually the case, it's important to think about what genetic modifications should be performed on which crops, why they should be performed and who stands to gain from each modification the most.

There will always be problems with GM, both ethical and practical, so all we can do is try to minimise these, as I doubt we will see the end GM crops.

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well said as usual woody. though i'm yet to look up what a molly bol is...

But pulling out weeds by hand, and not growing massive monocultures, we remove that factor.

But i am biased, i have never been in favour of monsanto, and dread to think of where we are heading with they way they do business. at least with stories like this it almost demands that we rethink our attitude towards agriculture and the way its done.

 

This is what i was thinking. I highly recommend to all to watch a documentary called "The Botany of Desire" by a coolguy named Michael Pollan. It details the importance, and shows success stories of, non-monoculture crops, in a simple to digest and relaxing happy documentary fashion. It also has a section on cannabis so it fulfils my requirement that for me to be interested in something, it has to at least partly concern psychoactive plants :P

Also on monsanto...i am amazed they haven't changed their name. i just think of them as a byword for evil, it's onomatopoetic.

and shouldn't this thread be in sustainable tech? poor thing never gets any attention.

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Not surprising in the least, but it does lend some weight to the fact that evolution is real, for all those idiotic creationists out there.

 

true tripsis however; you can't convince them. i often read in such publications as the jehovah's witness's 'watchtower' magazine (which my housemate's grandmother bombards us with) that creationists seem to be of the unassailable belief that "nobody has even seen something evolve". it happens all the time! bahhhhh :BANGHEAD2:

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though i'm yet to look up what a molly bol is...

Oops, sorry, I have a nasty jargon habit. :blush:

Molly bol/molly bolly (and various spelling permutations thereof) = molecular biologist/molecular biology.

Note that I am not disparaging the discipline as a whole - it's actually a very respectable discipline. The problem is that many molly bols are very specifically and restrictedly trained in and focussed on their own discipline, and are weak in other areas of biology - and often in (paradoxically) evolution and in ecology.

Witness, for example, attempts to develop classic-style vaccines for sperm, or for DFTD - both are cases where an effective vaccine would rapidly select for resistance, potentially rendering the original problem worse than it previously was.

The issue is that molly bols have a nifty new hammer, and many of them see all biological problems as a nail. Trouble is, most biological problems are screws, or bolts, or rivets, or staples, or pins, or...

[Admission - in my medical research days I worked on molly bol projects... I got better.]

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thanks, google could not explain molly bol.

i was looking at a bit of stuff today and couldn't figure out whether it was human rubbish, or some kind of hard vegetable matter. i got to wondering whether DNA just occurred, or is an amazing technology, and in either case, to what degree it is manipulated by technological races, and what other forms of "biological" "technology" exists in the universe, how blurred the line becomes, and which side of the line hosts the more advanced races or the most advanced races, and to what extent have the most advanced races tinkered with their very form to reach their superior state :D

pretty interesting questions, but we are clearly rather novice biologists and/or biotechnologists and should probably have more respect for our planet's ecology which is still vastly mysterious to us.

maybe it will work in our favour, maybe broadacre ag is supposed to fail. farmers won't be happy and neither will folk like me who shop at coles, but those doing the right thing including the inhabitants of many poor countries will be able to make a killing selling their sustainably grown produce to those who have been living unsustainable lifestyles :)

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Have a read of this TI, it's a brief introduction to one of the main hypotheses for the beginning of life on earth. Make sure to read this section, as it sums up the hypothesis.

Also, here is an article on a laboratory experiment which shows that the above hypothesis is possible.

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Hmmm i'm not too sure whether this is a good or bad thing. I'm happy but worried.

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I've been thinking about another angle on the whole "war on weeds for monoculture" thing. Maybe a possible solution is to genetically engineer the weeds to become highly edible as well. If the food crops were competing against each other, then it wouldn't really matter which won - we'd still be able to eat it.

There's still a hurdle (probably a smaller one than before) of creating a weed that is edible and more able to survive than its progenitor weeds though.

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I like your lateral approach, Blunt! Better still, maybe we could genetically modify humans to not require food at all. Problem solved.

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I've been thinking about another angle on the whole "war on weeds for monoculture" thing. Maybe a possible solution is to genetically engineer the weeds to become highly edible as well. If the food crops were competing against each other, then it wouldn't really matter which won - we'd still be able to eat it.

There's still a hurdle (probably a smaller one than before) of creating a weed that is edible and more able to survive than its progenitor weeds though.

 

Many weeds are already edible are much more nutritious than supermarket vegetables.

To be able to genetically engineer our way out of problems created by genetic engineering seems comical to me, each time something is engineered in a lab it seems great then when put into field trials they find out something they didn't think of and it comes back to humanity in the arse.

Nature already provides everything, it just doesn't provide enough profit for greedy big businesses that's why they have to fuck with it and tell us they're helping us.

Edited by SallyD

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To be able to genetically engineer our way out of problems created by genetic engineering seems comical to me

kind of like using heroin to cure a morphine addiction.

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Yes, plenty of weeds are edible. Many of the most common species that are found throughout Australia can be eaten, but they simply don't receive attention. Many of the crop weeds would be the same, but that doesn't matter. No farmer will make a profit out of weeds that are found everywhere, so the war will be waged, regardless of whether the weeds are useful or not.

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that adn lets be honest, a lto of weeds jstu dont taste as nice (sweet) as commercialized weeds (vegetables).

Its always nice to think of these ways, but tis a tad naive to think that there is any hope of teh general population giving up sweet tasty things on a shelf ready to buy liek that over walkign outside and picking their own wild foods which have not been slectively bred for less fibres, thicker flesh, juicier and sweeter pulps etc. just wont happen, never will. right or wrong, it is the way it is, we should admit that fact and tackle the issues with that in mind.

secondly, I am a farmer. not conventional, but that is what i do. I have about an acre in taiwan that i do pull weeds by hand. let me tell you, not ever going to happen on a scale that we need. the work involved to weed a farm, especially in places with warm winters, is unreal. it will never be profitable simply due to labor costs. at least int eh way we farm now. poly culture is what i feel is a big way to help. permaculturists have some great ideas that could seriously help the transition form maxicrop monoculture type guys, but you just will not ever win this battle until you can show them they can still make a buck. fuck the monsanto guys for 2 seconds. convince the bottom line, the farmers. they dont wake up thinking about how much they want to pollute the watershed or how much dust they get to breathe in during the day. if you can actually come up with a way that is productive, profitable and not much more work that causes far less bad results, i bet you 80% of farmers would listen and start to change off the bat. They are not retarded, but they are greedy like any other human, so the way to change is actually pretty similar throughout the professions.

i hate monsanto with a passion, but we gotta admit, they offer a pretty tempting product. I can spend 4 hours 7 days a week, really hard work lifting pulling 100s of kgs of weeds a day, or i can spray once a month. takes a strong willed person to not cave into that. and i cant say i blame the farmers, cause its pretty much easy money that way in an otherwise very very difficult low income biz.

of course the easiest and most obvious solution that can fix all this is something we never do....stop buying the shit and they stop growing the shit. if people cared, they wouldnt buy this crap food and support this stuff, but the people dont care, they are like the farmer...they want the easiest route. everyone is the cause, and everyone will need to be the solution. either way everyone will suffer, so it says something about our species and how intelligent we are.

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Just a thought about the creationist vs. evolution angle.

We could get the creationists on our side without 'converting' them. Think about it, if they believe their god is the only creator, and monsanto resistant life forms are appearing, god 'must be creating them'. Well if god is creating new things just to fuck with a corporation he must not like them, and if thats so should gods 'chosen people' be supporting that corporation? Or boycotting GM products?

Would a good christian extremist get off of noahs arc to buy apples from the drowning heathens?

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Corporate Win: Supreme Court Says Monsanto Has 'Control Over Product of Life'
Indiana farmer must pay agribusiness giant $84,000 for patent infringement
- Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of biotech giant Monsanto, ordering Indiana farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman, 75, to pay Monsanto more than $84,000 for patent infringement for using second generation Monsanto seeds purchased second hand—a ruling which will have broad implications for the ownership of 'life' and farmers' rights in the future.

aleqm5guuwpkgrlsye_dfg8sljzxcuxneq.jpg Indiana grain farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman walks past the US Supreme Court on February 19, 2013 in Washington (AFP/File, Mandel Ngan) In the case, Bowman had purchased soybean seeds from a grain elevator—where seeds are cheaper than freshly engineered Monsanto GE (genetically engineered) seeds and typically used for animal feed rather than for crops. The sources of the seeds Bowman purchased were mixed and were not labeled. However, some were "Roundup Ready" patented Monsanto seeds.

The Supreme Court Justices, who gave Monsanto a warm reception from the start, ruled that Bowman had broken the law because he planted seeds which naturally yielded from the original patented seed products—Monsanto's policies prohibit farmers from saving or reusing seeds from Monsanto born crops.

Farmers who use Monsanto's seeds are forced to buy the high priced new seeds every year.

Ahead of the expected ruling, Debbie Barker, Program Director for Save Our Seeds (SOS), and George Kimbrell, staff attorney for Center for Food Safety (CFS), asked in an op-ed earlier this year, "Should anyone, or any corporation, control a product of life?":

 

Bowman vs. Monsanto Co. will be decided based on the court's interpretation of a complex web of seed and plant patent law, but the case also reflects something much more basic: Should anyone, or any corporation, control a product of life?

 

 

[Monsanto's] logic is troubling to many who point out that it is the nature of seeds and all living things, whether patented or not, to replicate. Monsanto's claim that it has rights over a self-replicating natural product should raise concern. Seeds, unlike computer chips, for example, are essential to life. If people are denied a computer chip, they don't go hungry. If people are denied seeds, the potential consequences are much more threatening.

 

Bowman had argued that he was respecting his contract with Monsanto, purchasing directly from them each year, but couldn't afford Monsanto's high prices for his riskier late season crops. Bowman's defense argued that Monsanto's patent was "exhausted" through the process of natural seed reproduction and no longer applied to Bowman's second generation seeds.

“If they don’t want me to go to the elevator and buy that grain," Bowman had stated, "then Congress should pass a law saying you can’t do it."

The Center for Food Safety released a report in February which shows three corporations control more than half of the global commercial seed market.

As a result, from 1995-2011 the average cost to plant 1 acre of soybeans rose 325%.

As AP reports, more than 90 percent of American soybean farms use Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" seeds, which first came on the market in 1996.

Vandana Shiva, an expert on seed patents and their effects on farmers around the world, wrote recently:

 

Monsanto’s concentrated control over the seed sector in India as well as across the world is very worrying. This is what connects farmers’ suicides in India to Monsanto vs Percy Schmeiser in Canada, to Monsanto vs Bowman in the US, and to farmers in Brazil suing Monsanto for $2.2 billion for unfair collection of royalty.

 

 

Through patents on seed, Monsanto has become the “Life Lord” of our planet, collecting rents for life’s renewal from farmers, the original breeders.

 

_______________________

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

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Its not so new a dastardly tactic as its often portrayed.

After slavery was officially ended over here the wealthy loaned out farms to sharecroppers. The sharecroppers bought their seed, and grew their crops, sold it, and most of the money went straight to the land owner. However, the sharecroppers were not allowed to save seed for the next planting- they had to sell All the crop. Next planting used up all their remaining money or put them deeper in debt, the system was engineered to ensure that. A continuation of slavery.

Monsanto is just the new slave master whipping any farmer trying to sneak a hand full of seeds out of their own harvest.

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I have to agree with BM and Ob...

As an ecologist I have long tried to explain to my molly-bol colleagues that they are missing the forest for the trees. It is (or at least, it should be) simple to understand that targetted organisms will efficiently evolve against the artifical pressure of GM, especially as they are, by definition, weedy species with generalist, disturbance-loving natures.

In other words, the reason that they're weeds in the first place is that they are well-adapted to coping with - and adjucting to - novel environmental challenges. Short of moving to as-yet undeveloped generations of GE, Nature will almost inevitably find ways to circumvent human manipulations, rendering those technologies ever more ineffective, and at ever greater collateral cost.

As BM points out and as I have said myself to people in the past, there may come a time when we can actually keep ahead of evolution. The trouble then is that without evolution pruning our manipulations, we risk creating artificial biological function/interaction "bubbles" that will at some point drift so far from balance with what remains of an equilibrated natural ecosystem that when we eventually lose control (and we inevitably will, as in Jurrasic Park, but in a far more sophisticated manner), things will turn around to slap us hard in the face.

Aside from pest control, GE to "improve" nutrition, or to respond to problems in the environment (such as creating salt-resistant crops), are also approaches that miss the basic issues - plant appropriate crops in the first place, and don't fuck the environment in the first place.

I fully support the use of in vitro-based GE, because the issues of containment are completely different. However, releasing GMOs into the environment is a matter that needs orders of magnitude more ecological and evolutionary understanding than molly-bols, corporations, and governments have, or that they have demonstrated.

The way it's used now, the non-contained use of GE is largely a process of painting over rust, using a corrosive paint.

[Edit: spelling]

I think until I read this post, I was still on the fence about condemning GM crops altogether. But I think this has tipped the balance...I can see that there is some potential for GM tech to be used for humanitarian purposes...but the amount of possible misuses and negative outcomes and potential for abuse by Monsicko and Co. far outweighs these small possible benefits. And when you look at our species' track record of not abusing things and fucking them up, I'd say we have Buckley's of it not blowing up in our faces.

And you're right - we shouldn't be fucking the environment in the first place, and we shouldn't be expanding our population beyond what we can support, to the point where this kind of nonsense is seen as necessary.

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