By Charlie Dodge | November 8, 2011
http://blog.onedegreeorganics.com/2011/11/monsanto-to-serve-man/
Back in the monochromatic golden age of television, Rod Serling used to describe a murky dimension “beyond that which is known to man.” Between puffs on Lucky Strikes, his voice rumbling deep within Zeniths and Quasars, he talked of a place that “lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge.”
This was a place in which the normal rules did not apply, where actions, reactions, cause and effect ricocheted about in defiance of the laws of physics, or the precepts of common sense.
It was The Twilight Zone, but it might just as easily have been the shadowy realm of genetic experimentation in agriculture, where caution, prudence and morality all bend when massive corporations approach the speed of profit.
Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready plant” is a concept straight from a Serling teleplay: New plant life is loosed upon the world, with unintended consequences. Like most experiments that rely on GMO technology, the idea is to reconfigure the genetic profile of life, to improve it. In this case, Monsanto created new varieties of soybeans and other plants that would be resistant to the toxin in its mass-market herbicide, Roundup.
For the farmer, it’s a Faustian bargain. The farmer needs to buy both genetically modified seed and seed-adapted chemical to make it work. And choices are becoming more limited: Roundup Ready soybeans now represent three quarters of the soybean seed market. For the consumer, the cause of ultimate catastrophe seems clear, but the exact effect is not. For the lowly weed, the whole thing is a challenge to develop into a superweed that can resist Roundup and overwhelm a field.
The Twilight Zone was crowded with characters whose wishing led to unintended consequences. A gambler wished he would never lose, and spent eternity in a casino where there was no fun in constant winning. A shopkeeper wished to be a powerful world leader, and awoke to epic chaos, the ruins of the Third Reich crashing down upon him.
Monsanto’s purported wish for higher yields and fewer weeds may be leading us into the same kind of cosmic gamble. Earlier this year, a scientist at Purdue University reported finding what he believes could be a link between Roundup Ready plants, or Roundup itself, and the emergence of a dangerous “micro-fungal-like organism,” never before observed. This new pathogen may be linked to an outbreak of plant diseases and a higher incidence of reproductive failure among animals.
Meanwhile, American farmers have been noticing the reemergence of some plant diseases that were once thought to be under control, including Sudden Death Syndrome, seen throughout the Midwest during the past two growing seasons, along with Corynespora root rot of soybeans; citrus variegated chlorosis; Fusarium wilt of cotton; Verticillium wilt of potato; take-all root, crown, and stem blight of cereals; and Fusarium root and crown rot, Fusarium head blight, Pythium root rot and Goss’ wilt of corn.
Can any of this be traced to Roundup, or the Roundup “system”? Or should it be tracked even farther, to the avarice and arrogance that are uniquely man’s? Reaching for the summit of knowledge, Monsanto has plumbed our deepest fears, and loosed upon the world the greatest of unknowns.
This is one episode that won’t be ending with a commercial break, the reassuring drip of Maxwell House or the sleek trajectory of a Chevrolet. But, just as in the real Twilight Zone, the moral could be this: The confounding labyrinth of hope, wisdom and imagination may be our only exit.
Back in the monochromatic golden age of television, Rod Serling used to describe a murky dimension “beyond that which is known to man.” Between puffs on Lucky Strikes, his voice rumbling deep within Zeniths and Quasars, he talked of a place that “lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge.”
This was a place in which the normal rules did not apply, where actions, reactions, cause and effect ricocheted about in defiance of the laws of physics, or the precepts of common sense.
It was The Twilight Zone, but it might just as easily have been the shadowy realm of genetic experimentation in agriculture, where caution, prudence and morality all bend when massive corporations approach the speed of profit.
Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready plant” is a concept straight from a Serling teleplay: New plant life is loosed upon the world, with unintended consequences. Like most experiments that rely on GMO technology, the idea is to reconfigure the genetic profile of life, to improve it. In this case, Monsanto created new varieties of soybeans and other plants that would be resistant to the toxin in its mass-market herbicide, Roundup.
For the farmer, it’s a Faustian bargain. The farmer needs to buy both genetically modified seed and seed-adapted chemical to make it work. And choices are becoming more limited: Roundup Ready soybeans now represent three quarters of the soybean seed market. For the consumer, the cause of ultimate catastrophe seems clear, but the exact effect is not. For the lowly weed, the whole thing is a challenge to develop into a superweed that can resist Roundup and overwhelm a field.
The Twilight Zone was crowded with characters whose wishing led to unintended consequences. A gambler wished he would never lose, and spent eternity in a casino where there was no fun in constant winning. A shopkeeper wished to be a powerful world leader, and awoke to epic chaos, the ruins of the Third Reich crashing down upon him.
Monsanto’s purported wish for higher yields and fewer weeds may be leading us into the same kind of cosmic gamble. Earlier this year, a scientist at Purdue University reported finding what he believes could be a link between Roundup Ready plants, or Roundup itself, and the emergence of a dangerous “micro-fungal-like organism,” never before observed. This new pathogen may be linked to an outbreak of plant diseases and a higher incidence of reproductive failure among animals.
Meanwhile, American farmers have been noticing the reemergence of some plant diseases that were once thought to be under control, including Sudden Death Syndrome, seen throughout the Midwest during the past two growing seasons, along with Corynespora root rot of soybeans; citrus variegated chlorosis; Fusarium wilt of cotton; Verticillium wilt of potato; take-all root, crown, and stem blight of cereals; and Fusarium root and crown rot, Fusarium head blight, Pythium root rot and Goss’ wilt of corn.
Can any of this be traced to Roundup, or the Roundup “system”? Or should it be tracked even farther, to the avarice and arrogance that are uniquely man’s? Reaching for the summit of knowledge, Monsanto has plumbed our deepest fears, and loosed upon the world the greatest of unknowns.
This is one episode that won’t be ending with a commercial break, the reassuring drip of Maxwell House or the sleek trajectory of a Chevrolet. But, just as in the real Twilight Zone, the moral could be this: The confounding labyrinth of hope, wisdom and imagination may be our only exit.
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