I'm an ag nerd, so sometimes you'll catch me reading stuff like Delta Farm Press-a trade publication for large-scale farmers in the deep south.

I find the damnedest things on those reading jags. Here's one: farmers down there-which is cotton, soy, and corn country-are having a hell of a time controlling weeds, and resorting to evermore complex herbicide cocktails to combat them.

The dominant herbicide is still glyphosate, a broad-spectrum herbicide marketed by Monsanto as Roundup. Monsanto, of course, has established itself as an agribusiness giant by selling "Roundup Ready" corn, soy, and cotton seeds-genetically engineered to withstand copious lashings of Roundup. (Scientists recently discovered that the "inert" ingredients in Roundup damage human cells. Oh-oh!) The technology makes farming easy. You plant your seeds, and anytime weeds break out, you can knock them down with herbicide, without damaging the crop a bit! Except ... Roundup applications have become so heavy that weeds are starting to develop resistance.

And that is causing farmers to think hard about the pesticide-treadmill problem-the situation wherein weeds and other pests develop resistance to poisons, demanding ever higher doses of old poisons and constant development of novel ones.

I actually made that up. The glyphosate-resistance problem is just causing the treadmill to speed up. In a recent Delta Farm Press piece, Ford L. Baldwin of Arkansas-based Practical Weed Consultants (note the crop-duster Web-page art) writes:

I am continuing to get reports on suspected herbicide resistance situations. My University of Arkansas counterparts are getting a lot more than I am. This may well be the breakout year on Palmer pigweed resistance we have been expecting.

He moves quickly to what he sees as the solution to the problem: collusion among the four companies-Monsanto, Syngenta, Dupon, and Bayer-that own the market for GM seeds. He writes: "A lot of companies are working on trait packages and a lot of companies that have been competitors will be combing technologies and becoming best friends to try and stay in business. All of this takes time."

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