Food Chain Radio Show #1072

Michael Olson, Author & Urban Farming Agriculturalist

Pesticide Drift and Superweeds

This Poll is closed!!

Which do you think is most responsible for the dicamba drift crop loss?

Monsanto

Farmers

Total voters: 7

*

71%

28%

Guest: Steve Smith, Spokesman Save our Crops

They promised genetically engineered crops would make it possible for America’s farmers to use fewer pesticides like the herbicide glyphosate (Roundup).

Michael Olson Food Chain Radio – Pesticide Drift and Superweeds

But according to statistics mined from the National Agriculture Statistics Service, the use of glyphosate increased 6,504% between 1991 and 2010.

In fact, farmers sprayed so much glyphosate, the weeds they were trying to kill developed resistance and became superweeds.

To combat superweeds, the Monsanto company re-engineered its patented glyphosate-resistant crops to also resist the herbicide dicamba. The problem with dicamba is that it has a tendency to drift from where it was applied. Following is a label description for a brand of dicamba:

“BANVEL may cause injury to desirable trees and plants, particularly beans, cotton, flowers, fruit trees, grapes, ornamentals, peas, potatoes, soybeans, sunflowers, tobacco, tomatoes, and other broadleaf plants when contacting their roots, stems or foliage.”

To combat the drift problem, Monsanto developed a new formulation of dicamba it claims will stick to where it is sprayed. However, this new formulation has not been approved for use by the EPA.

The EPA’s approval notwithstanding, Monsanto sold its glyphosate/dicamba resistant seeds. Farmers bought the seeds, planted them, and then sprayed their croplands with the older, non-sticking formulations of dicamba to kill their superweeds.

But like a deadly plague in a B movie, clouds of dicamba lifted up from where they sprayed to kill crops across hundreds of thousands of acres in ten states.   And so we ask…

Leave a comment below: Who is responsible for dicamba drift: Monsanto or Farmers?

Tune in here, for the syndicated Food Chain Radio Show #1072 September 13, 2016 Saturday 9AM Pacific