Illegal Herbicide Use on GMO Crops Causing Massive Damage to Fruit, Vegetable and Soybean Farms

/monsanto-roundup-ready-soybean-19834770

  • Illegal Herbicide Use on GMO Crops Causing Massive Damage to Fruit, Vegetable and Soybean Farms - EcoWatch
    http://www.ecowatch.com/monsanto-roundup-ready-soybean-1983477089.html

    Last year, Kade McBroom launched a non-GMO soybean processing plant in Malden, Missouri, and was optimistic about the potential to serve the fast-growing non-GMO market.

    But now McBroom sees a potential threat to his new business from herbicide drift sprayed on genetically modified crops. This past spring, Monsanto Co. started selling GM Roundup Ready Xtend soybean and cotton seeds to farmers in Missouri and several other states. The seeds are genetically engineered to withstand sprays of glyphosate and dicamba herbicides. The problem is that the Xtend dicamba herbicide designed to go with the seeds has not yet been approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), leading many farmers to spray their GMO soybeans and cotton with older formulas of dicamba—illegally.

    While Monsanto’s GMO crops can tolerate sprays of dicamba, other crops can’t. As a result, dicamba, which is known to convert from a liquid to a gas and spread for miles, is damaging tens of thousands of acres of “non-target” crops in southern Missouri and nine other states, mostly in the South. An estimated 200,000 acres are affected in Missouri alone, though the EPA puts that number at 40,000. Non-GMO and even GMO, soybeans that aren’t dicamba resistant are damaged as well as peaches, tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe and other crops.

    “Farmers are so mad,” said McBroom, who has spoken with several farmers in his area about the problem. “I’m assuming there will be lawsuits.”

    Two farmers who grow non-GMO soybeans for Malden Specialty Soy told McBroom that they may be forced to grow dicamba tolerant GMO soybeans to protect their farms from dicamba drift.

    #ogm #pesticides #destruction #brown_tech il y a un mot pour cela mais il m’échappe #entrer_en_force