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> Monsanto claimed it was “highly unlikely” that glyphosate-resistant weeds would become a problem. There were, of course, those who correctly predicted that su

> Monsanto claimed it was “highly unlikely” that glyphosate-resistant weeds would become a problem. There were, of course, those who correctly predicted that such a thing was inevitable I've started noticing that this happens all the time, across all fields. Experts disagree, the expert with the most positive outlook is the one whose opinion wins out, and we find ourselves in trouble years/decades later. I've adopted a "treat every expert as a lawyer" mindset now that has helped illuminate some of this for me. I prefer to listen to podcasts where people in the field talk to each other, rather than someone presenting the information to the layperson. There's a lot of jargon but you can very easily get a sense of (1) what issues does everyone agree on (2) what issues are they bickering on, and what their reasons are

kylebenzle 2y ago
There has not been a single plant/weed agricultural expert in the field in the last 20+ years who has said our overuse of herbicides is not a bad thing and will result in ever more resistant weeds. I think the confusion is always the same, laymen listening to industry or company spokesmen who have a profit motives, the scientist have no such confusion.
- QuasiGiani 2y ago
  Profit motives... the very sickening sickness of The System.
  - cyberax 2y ago
    Why?
- voxic11 2y ago
  > First, the company had been selling Roundup for years without any problems. Second, and perhaps most important, the company's scientists had just spent more than a decade, and many millions of dollars, trying to create the Roundup-resistant plants that they desperately wanted -- soybeans and cotton and corn. It had been incredibly difficult. When I interviewed former Monsanto scientists for my book on biotech crops, one of them called it the company's "Manhattan Project." > Considering how hard it had been to create those crops, "the thinking was, it would be really difficult for weeds to become tolerant" to Roundup, says Rick Cole, who is now responsible for Monsanto's efforts to deal with the problem of resistant weeds. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/03/11/148290731/why-monsanto-thought-weeds-would-never-defeat-roundup https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/03/11/148290731/wh...
  - banannaise 2y ago
    Of course it's easier for it to happen in nature than for them to do it in a lab. The way nature does this is that when you kill untold numbers of the ones that aren't resistant, you're left with the ones that are. If you used that method with our actual crops, you would nearly wipe out the crops and cause massive food crises.
- azeirah 2y ago
  Weeds are just plants You can eat weeds, and they turn back into plants or crops. It's just some word trickery.
  - Thrymr 2y ago
    But not productively. In monoculture agriculture, all but a single planted crop is a weed by definition, and we have no way of making use of it at scale. Sure, you can eat dandelion greens from your yard, but that does not scale. There are a lot of benefits to quality, nutrition, environment, and community to growing food at smaller scale, but it is certainly more expensive.
    - azeirah 2y ago
      You don't need to grow anything. You can just eat the plants. Just be careful in how you decide what plants to eat. My cats eat plants that somehow seem to grow out of concrete. I have no idea how a plant can even grow out of concrete at all, but it totally works. It probably has some minerals in it. Is it very nutritious? Probably not. You can also just eat stinging nettle. Make soup out of it. Free meal. One of the most nutritious plants that is available in almost all western countries, and probably grows outside of western countries too. It's... I dunno why people don't trust nature or the wisdom in their bodies anymore. Another example. Eat an apple. You're fine. Dig seeds out of the apple, crush them and turn them into a paste. If you eat that paste, you will die. Yet we eat apples all day. We trust apples. If something looks, feels and smells edible? Probably fine. Maybe ask a few locals like some birds, cats and dogs because they know nature a little bit better than you do probably. If you eat in the same way that Werner Herzog makes films, you'll be invincible.
      - Suppafly 2y ago
        >Dig seeds out of the apple, crush them and turn them into a paste. If you eat them, you will die. Only if you eat a couple pounds of the seeds. I eat one apple's worth of seeds every time I eat an apple, it's fine.
cyberax 2y ago
The emergence of resistance to glyphosate was a given. Monsanto itself sells glyphosate-resistant plants, so we know exactly how it can evolve. The resistant gene was isolated from an Agrobacterium strain. And these bacteria have been doing gene editing in plants for hundreds of millions of years, completely naturally. So it was just a matter of time until weeds gained the resistant genes from it. Or evolved them via a different mechanism. Still, glyphosate bought us at least six decades of relatively weed-free agriculture for staple crops. Resistance is still not universal, so glyphosate will continue working for a while, helping to lower the price of food.
- hollerith 2y ago
  >glyphosate will continue working for a while, helping to lower the price of food. And I'll continue to choose the version grown without glyphosate even though the price is higher.
  - cyberax 2y ago
    Why? Because it has better vibes?
    - titanomachy 2y ago
      The EPA says that glyphosate isn't carcinogenic in humans. The WHO says that it is. The EPA says it's not an endocrine disruptor. Numerous studies and experts suggest that it is, although I can't find any major government or NGO that agrees. I'm not a doctor or molecular biologist. How should I decide which experts to trust? I can easily afford food grown without glyphosate, so that's what I eat. EDIT: I'm not religious about this, presumably all the restaurant food I eat is grown with glyphosate. But my local grocery store only has organic produce, I usually buy that since it's convenient and the cost difference is not a big deal.
      - cyberax 2y ago
        > The WHO says that it is. No, it doesn't. > I'm not a doctor or molecular biologist. How should I decide which experts to trust? I can easily afford food grown without glyphosate, so that's what I eat. Yeah, and I tuned my car to emit extra black smoke for better motor vibration. It now ROARS and consumes more gas, helping to stimulate the economy!
dfxm12 2y ago
Monsanto didn't win because they had the most positive outlook, they won because they had a dominate business position, the most lobbying, etc. Jonathan Gressel & Stanley Culpepper, who the article mentions as folks who disagreed with Monsanto on this, have no such power to dictate things to farmers or congress.
- cyberax 2y ago
  Monsanto won because they have a superior product, that makes it easier for farmers to grow crops. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.
  - Suppafly 2y ago
    >Monsanto won because they have a superior product, that makes it easier for farmers to grow crops. Cheaper too and leads to better no-till practices. Despite all the anti-GMO FUD around it, it's just a superior way to farm by basically any metric you look at.
    - marcosdumay 2y ago
      > by basically any metric you look at No, not by any metric. Area productivity is smaller, the plants take slightly longer growing, it creates dependency on a greed corporation that showed they will trow you under the bus if they wish... But it's cheaper.
      - cyberax 2y ago
        Area productivity _given_ _the_ _same_ _amount_ _of_ _labor_? I don't think so.
      - Suppafly 2y ago
        >No, not by any metric. Area productivity is smaller, the plants take slightly longer growing, it creates dependency on a greed corporation that showed they will trow you under the bus if they wish... Yeah none of that is true. Nice try though.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

kylebenzle 2y ago

There has not been a single plant/weed agricultural expert in the field in the last 20+ years who has said our overuse of herbicides is not a bad thing and will result in ever more resistant weeds. I think the confusion is always the same, laymen listening to industry or company spokesmen who have a profit motives, the scientist have no such confusion.

QuasiGiani 2y ago
Profit motives... the very sickening sickness of The System.
- cyberax 2y ago
  Why?
voxic11 2y ago
> First, the company had been selling Roundup for years without any problems. Second, and perhaps most important, the company's scientists had just spent more than a decade, and many millions of dollars, trying to create the Roundup-resistant plants that they desperately wanted -- soybeans and cotton and corn. It had been incredibly difficult. When I interviewed former Monsanto scientists for my book on biotech crops, one of them called it the company's "Manhattan Project." > Considering how hard it had been to create those crops, "the thinking was, it would be really difficult for weeds to become tolerant" to Roundup, says Rick Cole, who is now responsible for Monsanto's efforts to deal with the problem of resistant weeds. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/03/11/148290731/why-monsanto-thought-weeds-would-never-defeat-roundup https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/03/11/148290731/wh...
- banannaise 2y ago
  Of course it's easier for it to happen in nature than for them to do it in a lab. The way nature does this is that when you kill untold numbers of the ones that aren't resistant, you're left with the ones that are. If you used that method with our actual crops, you would nearly wipe out the crops and cause massive food crises.
azeirah 2y ago
Weeds are just plants You can eat weeds, and they turn back into plants or crops. It's just some word trickery.
- Thrymr 2y ago
  But not productively. In monoculture agriculture, all but a single planted crop is a weed by definition, and we have no way of making use of it at scale. Sure, you can eat dandelion greens from your yard, but that does not scale. There are a lot of benefits to quality, nutrition, environment, and community to growing food at smaller scale, but it is certainly more expensive.
  - azeirah 2y ago
    You don't need to grow anything. You can just eat the plants. Just be careful in how you decide what plants to eat. My cats eat plants that somehow seem to grow out of concrete. I have no idea how a plant can even grow out of concrete at all, but it totally works. It probably has some minerals in it. Is it very nutritious? Probably not. You can also just eat stinging nettle. Make soup out of it. Free meal. One of the most nutritious plants that is available in almost all western countries, and probably grows outside of western countries too. It's... I dunno why people don't trust nature or the wisdom in their bodies anymore. Another example. Eat an apple. You're fine. Dig seeds out of the apple, crush them and turn them into a paste. If you eat that paste, you will die. Yet we eat apples all day. We trust apples. If something looks, feels and smells edible? Probably fine. Maybe ask a few locals like some birds, cats and dogs because they know nature a little bit better than you do probably. If you eat in the same way that Werner Herzog makes films, you'll be invincible.
    - Suppafly 2y ago
      >Dig seeds out of the apple, crush them and turn them into a paste. If you eat them, you will die. Only if you eat a couple pounds of the seeds. I eat one apple's worth of seeds every time I eat an apple, it's fine.

cyberax 2y ago

The emergence of resistance to glyphosate was a given. Monsanto itself sells glyphosate-resistant plants, so we know exactly how it can evolve. The resistant gene was isolated from an Agrobacterium strain. And these bacteria have been doing gene editing in plants for hundreds of millions of years, completely naturally. So it was just a matter of time until weeds gained the resistant genes from it. Or evolved them via a different mechanism. Still, glyphosate bought us at least six decades of relatively weed-free agriculture for staple crops. Resistance is still not universal, so glyphosate will continue working for a while, helping to lower the price of food.

hollerith 2y ago
>glyphosate will continue working for a while, helping to lower the price of food. And I'll continue to choose the version grown without glyphosate even though the price is higher.
- cyberax 2y ago
  Why? Because it has better vibes?
  - titanomachy 2y ago
    The EPA says that glyphosate isn't carcinogenic in humans. The WHO says that it is. The EPA says it's not an endocrine disruptor. Numerous studies and experts suggest that it is, although I can't find any major government or NGO that agrees. I'm not a doctor or molecular biologist. How should I decide which experts to trust? I can easily afford food grown without glyphosate, so that's what I eat. EDIT: I'm not religious about this, presumably all the restaurant food I eat is grown with glyphosate. But my local grocery store only has organic produce, I usually buy that since it's convenient and the cost difference is not a big deal.
    - cyberax 2y ago
      > The WHO says that it is. No, it doesn't. > I'm not a doctor or molecular biologist. How should I decide which experts to trust? I can easily afford food grown without glyphosate, so that's what I eat. Yeah, and I tuned my car to emit extra black smoke for better motor vibration. It now ROARS and consumes more gas, helping to stimulate the economy!

dfxm12 2y ago

Monsanto didn't win because they had the most positive outlook, they won because they had a dominate business position, the most lobbying, etc. Jonathan Gressel & Stanley Culpepper, who the article mentions as folks who disagreed with Monsanto on this, have no such power to dictate things to farmers or congress.

cyberax 2y ago
Monsanto won because they have a superior product, that makes it easier for farmers to grow crops. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.
- Suppafly 2y ago
  >Monsanto won because they have a superior product, that makes it easier for farmers to grow crops. Cheaper too and leads to better no-till practices. Despite all the anti-GMO FUD around it, it's just a superior way to farm by basically any metric you look at.
  - marcosdumay 2y ago
    > by basically any metric you look at No, not by any metric. Area productivity is smaller, the plants take slightly longer growing, it creates dependency on a greed corporation that showed they will trow you under the bus if they wish... But it's cheaper.
    - cyberax 2y ago
      Area productivity _given_ _the_ _same_ _amount_ _of_ _labor_? I don't think so.
    - Suppafly 2y ago
      >No, not by any metric. Area productivity is smaller, the plants take slightly longer growing, it creates dependency on a greed corporation that showed they will trow you under the bus if they wish... Yeah none of that is true. Nice try though.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]