May 16, 2001
		Roundup Ready Biotech Crops Use More Pesticide, Produce Lower Yield Monsanto's hugely successful Roundup brand of herbicide accounted for nearly half of the giant company's $5.6 billion in sales last year. Sales have been driven into the stratosphere largely by the planting of soybeans, canola, and other crops that have been genetically engineered to resist the herbicide. The promise of these biotech crops, which carry the brand name Roundup Ready, is that by rotating Roundup with the other herbicides they're already using, farmers would be able to spray less total herbicide on their plants, and also provide a more effective weed control, resulting in a higher crop yield at harvest-time. According to the latest figures from Dr. Charles Benbrook of the Northwest Science and Environmental Policy Center in Sandpoint, Idaho, a typical field planted with Roundup Ready soybeans actually used more pounds of pesticides than a similar field conventional soybeans. "More than a dozen soybean herbicides are applied at an average rate of less than .1 pound active ingredient per acre. Roundup, on the other hand, is usually applied on soybeans at about .75 pound per acre in a single spray and most acres are now treated more than once," Benbrook writes. "...Total herbicide use on RR soybeans in 1998 was 30 percent or more greater on average than on conventional varieties in six states, including Iowa where about one sixth of the nation's soybeans are grown RR soybean herbicide use was 10 percent or more greater in three more states. Use on RR soybeans was modestly lower in five states." taken as a whole, farmers sprayed 11.4 percent more herbicide on Roundup Ready fields than on fields treated with conventional herbicides. What's more, the genetically engineered soybeans actually produced 5 to 10 percent lower yields than their conventional step-cousins. Studies have shown that the Roundup system makes soybeans more susceptible to disease and insects and reduces the plants' ability to fix nitrogen. Benbrook also contends that farmers' embrace of the technology could become a death grip, causing widespread herbicide resistance in weeds and spreading crop diseases. Last year, 54 percent of the U.S. soybean acreage was genetically engineered. This year soybean farmers say that 63 percent of their soybean fields will be genetically engineered -- most of that being Roundup Ready soybeans. Benbrook's study, "Troubled Times Amid Commercial Success for Roundup Ready Soybeans: Glyphosate Efficacy is Slipping and Unstable Transgene Expression Erodes Plant Defenses and Yields," can be viewed at www.biotech-info.net/troubledtimes.html