> needless endangerment of the health of ~tens of thousands of farmers
This affects an incredible array of life. Roundup is used on millions of perfect suburban lawns and landscape plants, impacting countless wildlife, pets, and humans. Glyphosate-grown foods are pervasive in our food supply, and eventually find their way into countless rivers and streams.
Using chemicals that are designed to kill living things in such a widespread manner is just a dangerous idea.
But why pick on Monsanto? I wonder if they have even a two-digit percentage of the global glyphosate market. And there are many other herbicides, many of them much worse that glyphosate.
> I wonder if they have even a two-digit percentage of the global glyphosate market.
They do. I can't find any free sources with hard numbers, but numerous reports indicate that Monsanto is the top producer and the top four together have over 50% share, so Monsanto has no less (and probably substantially more) than 12.5% of the global market.
In addition, the global glyphosate market growth in the last two decades has largely been driven by another set of Monsanto products, "RoundUp Ready" (RoundUp is Monsanto's glyphosate-based herbicide product) glyphosate-resistant transgenic crops. So Monsanto not only has a large share of the glyphosate market, it also sells the products that are driving most of the glyphosate market.
> RoundUp Ready has been off patent for MANY years
No, it hasn't . The 1st Gen RoundUp Ready soybean trait patent expired in 2015 (two is not "many"), and most commercial volume has moved to product using the still-under-patent RoundUp Ready 2 Yield trait (such as RoundUp Ready 2 Xtend seeds, which also have another herbicide resistance trait.)
That said, I'm pretty sure the "RoundUp Ready 2 Yield trait" has nothing to do with the application of RoundUp. It is the same gene that gave resistance to RoundUp but when inserted into a different location it caused the soybeans to add another bean per pod, increasing yield. I don't believe any RoundUp application is required although it usually is since it is normally paired with the original trait.
> That said, I'm pretty sure the "RoundUp Ready 2 Yield trait" has nothing to do with the application of RoundUp.
And you'd be wrong from what I can tell; RoundUp Ready 2 Yield is a trait that provides glyphosate-resistance without (or maybe with less of) the yield cost of 1st Gen RoundUp Ready.
> I don't believe any RoundUp application is required
RoundUp application isn't required for growing any RoundUp Ready crop, but you wouldn't choose a herbicide-resistant crop (especially with a yield cost) if you weren't going to use a herbicide it provides resistance to.
> it is normally paired with the original trait.
No, it is itself a new glyphosate-resistance trait; it's usually paired with an additional herbicide-resistance trait in RoundUp Ready 2 Xtend seeds.
I can't disagree with what you said. It's certainly not just Monsanto. I think the original article focused on Monsanto because of their potential role in manipulating research and investigations into a chemical used widely by many companies.
Are the others manipulating science and politics, and driving farmers out of business with spurious lawsuits? If so, i'm happy to throw them under the bus too.
All big companies surely influence, or "manipulate" or "lobby" politics. Like everyone does.
About that "driving farmers out of business with spurious lawsuits", every instance of Monsanto-bashing I've seen has been based on malicious and untruthful claims about Monsanto. So if you have evidence of such, please cite it.
And please, not naturalnews or similar fake news sites.
In this, the widely publicized case which was the basis of many documentaries, the farmer went into bankruptcy attempting and failing to defend his right to collect seeds from his plants on his farm, having never entered any business agreement with Monsanto.
If you bother to read it, you will find that it completely demolishes your argument.
Wikipedia summarizes it:
"The case is widely cited or referenced by the anti-GM community in the context of a fear of a company claiming ownership of a farmer’s crop based on the inadvertent presence of GM pollen grain or seed.[21][22] "The court record shows, however, that it was not just a few seeds from a passing truck, but that Mr Schmeiser was growing a crop of 95–98% pure Roundup Ready plants, a commercial level of purity far higher than one would expect from inadvertent or accidental presence. The judge could not account for how a few wayward seeds or pollen grains could come to dominate hundreds of acres without Mr Schmeiser’s active participation, saying ‘. . .none of the suggested sources could reasonably explain the concentration or extent of Roundup Ready canola of a commercial quality evident from the results of tests on Schmeiser’s crop’" - in other words, even if the original presence of Monsanto seed on his land in 1997 was inadvertent, the crop in 1998 was entirely purposeful."
In other words, the farmer knowingly collected Monsanto's seeds and used them. It definitely was no accident; he was willfully attempting to take advantage of Monsanto.
This has nothing to do with GMO or Roundup; the seed patent laws apply to all seeds.
This affects an incredible array of life. Roundup is used on millions of perfect suburban lawns and landscape plants, impacting countless wildlife, pets, and humans. Glyphosate-grown foods are pervasive in our food supply, and eventually find their way into countless rivers and streams.
Using chemicals that are designed to kill living things in such a widespread manner is just a dangerous idea.