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Dicamba Drift and the Monsanto Merger

March 15, 2018 -
A lesson in evolution: When farmers spray weed killer on their fields, there will always be a small number of weeds that survive. They have a natural resistance to the weed killer in their genetic makeup. Those are the weeds that go to seed that year, their children producing a crop of herbicide-resistant weeds the following year. By the next year, the farmer's fields are producing more and more herbicide-resistant weeds. What's a farmer to do? For those unwise enough to remain on the chemical treadmill, there's only one solution. Buy a stronger weed killer - to which a small number of weeds will, inevitably, be resistant.

This is precisely what happened to farmers that use Monsanto's weed-killer, RoundUp.  Monsanto's low-cost, highly ineffective solution to RoundUp-resistant weeds was to sell these farmers Dicamba, an old chemical weed killer with a tendency to drift. When pesticides travel on the wind, or drift, they damage crops and human health. Last year, farmers in the South and Midwest reported extensive crop damage as a result of Dicamba drift. Monsanto even had the chutzpah to develop Dicamba-resistant seeds, called by the product name Xtend, so that farmers would be lulled into a false sense of security. Problem is, those same farmers keep using more and more Dicamba to kill Dicamba-resistant weeds. All that Dicamba is doing a lot of crop damage, just like its predecessor RoundUp did. It's also making Monsanto a lot of money.

Perhaps you've read that Bayer (a German company) and Monsanto want to merge into a super-colossal chemical company. Farmers asked about the merger don't like the idea. Almost a thousand of them, in 48 states, were asked what they thought. They responded by expressing concern about increasing pressure to practice chemical-dependent farming, coupled with a reduced choice in seeds and supplies. The President of the National Farmers Union, Roger Johnson, said the merger would result in a decrease in fair pricing [for crops], a decrease in the choice of what to plant, and market competition that would depress competition and innovation.

Also reported in the survey, more than 70% of farmers report heavier herbicide use due to resistant weeds. Worse yet, over 90% of organic farmers fear that Dicamba drift will affect their ability to continue to farm organically. Please go to the Department of Justice's website at www.justice.gov and express your objections to the Bayer-Monsanto merger. Why? Because they want to own as much of the food chain as possible. These are positively not the people we want in charge.

With thanks to the Pesticide Action Network.

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