When the calendar turns to a new decade, the media are full of “Best of,” “worst of” and “most important” stories for the last 10 years. Most of the stories have to do with politics or stardom on the national scene. And that means, East Coast (mostly New York or D.C.) or West Coast (mostly the Bay Area or L.A.) and mostly urban. Safe to say, the decade’s big stories will not be things that affect farmers in the Midwest.
On my radar, however, farming and the food system get major attention. If we could fix the farm-and-food situation, other things would fall into place. Social justice. Environmental futures. Even the immigration problem, even politics in the mideast, would come into focus if we paid attention to the American food system.
Wish we could boast about some big wins, but right now the news is obscene. Our system uses energy like we’ll never run out, evicts native peoples from their land, kills beneficial insects as well as pests, makes us sick. So, my nomination for the Drubbing-of-the-Decade-Obscenity (the DODO) is the takeover of gullible farmers and those university extension agents, ag teachers, commodity groups and USDA specialists by programs that, deep down, they know are seriously flawed and even dangerous.
Seeds of DODO were planted as early as 1996 when the first “Roundup Ready” soybeans were sown into farm fields, but the worst of it dates to 2010. That year, the Supreme Court allowed approval of genetically modified alfalfa without adequately considering the environmental impact. Within a few years, there was introduction and approval of dozens of GM (or GMO) crops (also called “biotech,” “genetically engineered” or “GE” crops), including sweet corn, potatoes, apples and salmon, all usually sold without any labeling.
“Roundup Ready” meant, at first, crops would thrive and weeds killed when a growing field was sprayed with the chemical glyphosate, branded as Roundup. The farmer’s dream — really clean fields with no competition from weeds — had finally been achieved. For Monsanto, inventor of Roundup and creator of GMO crops, it was a financial windfall. Placing Monsanto allies into government positions, revolving door style, helped move things along.
But, as some experienced farmers had already guessed, it wasn’t long before nature struck back. Weeds became survivors, creating new competition. Rather than “clean beans” and “clean corn,” farm fields sprouted crops plus weeds, and the new weeds were even harder to kill than the old ones had been.
The good times rolled for the university researchers as they came up with fixes that worked a year or two, then caved in to ever stronger weeds. When farmers asked how to fix the problem, university and government agents said, “we’re working on that,” threatening the credibility and trust that they had built up over generations.
“Working on that” meant ever more lethal combinations of sprays. In 2016 the wonks started recommending dicamba-resistant seeds to be sprayed with dicamba, a chemical more lethal to humans than Roundup. In the words of Steve Smith, chairman of the Save Our Crops Coalition, “The debacle continues. There is no other way to describe the continued destruction in the Midwest due to the widespread use of dicamba.”
The new GMO beans, called “Roundup Ready 2 Xtend” are sprayed repeatedly during the growing season, and the overspray (or drift) damages fields planted with non-resistant crops. In 2017, there were 3.6 million acres damaged. The response from industry? Plant more acres of dicamba-resistant, so that overspray isn’t such a problem!
With that advice, vegetable growers, golf course owners, butterfly habitat restorers, tree lovers and all kinds of everyday homeowners, hikers and foodies realized that industry is willing and able to kill the entire planet. In 2018, the number of complaints rose so high that State Ag agencies couldn’t track, let alone investigate.
And, in 2019, the problem increased again. In Illinois, claims of damages doubled with the majority being new claimants. At the same time, new problems with resistant weeds were reported.
So, what is the solution?
First of all, there should be cancellation of any permits for any chemical-and-crop systems that pretend to wipe out all pests. Anything that wipes out “all” of something is bound to have unintended consequences. Imagine a pesticide that wipes out all corn predators, for example. Oh, yeah, we’ve already used that and learned it kills butterflies, bees and even birds.
The next thing to do is teach farmers to tolerate a few weeds and teach buyers to screen out the weed seeds. Until the Roundup-Ready system, crews of high schoolers spent their summers “walking the beans” and pulling high weeds. This meant that the rows of beans were planted with enough distance to allow passage of the walkers, and it meant that the crews had to show up and do the work.
It took, in other words, community effort and human energy rather than chemicals. Maybe that resurgence will be the story of the 2020s!
Margot Ford McMillen farms near Fulton, Mo., and co-hosts “Farm and Fiddle” on sustainable ag issues on KOPN 89.5 FM in Columbia, Mo. She also is a co-founder of CAFOZone.com, a website for people who are affected by concentrated animal feeding operations. Her latest book is “The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History”. Email: margotmcmillen@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2020
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