For related articles and information, please visit OCA’s Genetic Engineering page and our Millions Against Monsanto.

Last summer, June 17 to be exact, one of the volunteers on Margot McMillen’s organic farm in Auxvasse, Missouri noticed something funny about the grapes.

When McMillen and her husband saw the vines, they thought it was a fungus or a bacteria or virus, so they did what they always do when that sort of thing happens and mixed up a mild vinegar solution to spray on the plants.

“It usually impedes it or maybe stops it,” says McMillen, who’s run Terra Bella Farm for more than a decade. “It usually has some effect you notice pretty fast … It’s not a complete cure but at least you feel like you’ve gotten a hold on it.”

Little did the couple know they would lose their entire grape crop that year. That year they joined a growing group of farmers across the nation losing crops to herbicidal drift from nearby (or not so nearby) conventional farms growing genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant crops. The biotechnology behind these crops has created a culture of single tactic weed management that has placed farmers on an “herbicide treadmill,” using more chemicals than ever as weeds have developed resistance to the gold standard of herbicides, Monsanto’s Roundup.

Now we’ve entered the era of “superweeds” that have become resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. In response to this rash of glyphosate-resistant weeds, Big Ag companies are stepping up their game and developing crops that are genetically modified to have resistance to multiple herbicides. Environmentalists, activists, scientists and farmers across the nation have cried foul, stating that the new crops will do nothing but increase dependence on herbicides and the chance of even more herbicide resistant weeds.

And those are just the environmental hazards.

But Big Ag denies there’s a problem, and it looks like U.S. regulatory agencies agree, one by one giving companies the green light to move forward with pesticides known to cause cancer, disrupt hormones and destroy non-GMO crops.

Today, the treadmill is moving faster as companies try to stay ahead of the curve. It’s market-share chemical warfare.