The enormous increase in herbicide use that has occurred as a direct result of the planting of genetically engineered crops has not only poisoned the air, the water, the soil, and farm workers. It has also been directly responsible for the development of the super-weeds that now plague 50% of our agricultural acreage. The biotech industry’s answer to these super weeds — their new corn and soy seeds that have been genetically engineered to be resistant to 2,4-D — would only make our food production systems even more tightly tethered to the pesticide treadmill that has produced the problem in the first place.
Monsanto and Dow Chemical company refer to their new 2,4-D-resistant seeds as an “innovation that works for tomorrow.” They call it “the future of farming.” But these genetically engineered seeds would actually take American agriculture back more than a half-century. 2,4-D was introduced in the 1940s, and became notorious during the Vietnam war for its use as part of the chemical weapon known as “Agent Orange.” This is why the 2,4-D-resistant crops developed by Dow AgroSciences are frequently referred to as “Agent Orange crops.”
