boomerang effect Monsanto
"By allowing human nature has made a lot more than a miscalculation, an attack against itself. " Emil Cioran .
Romanian philosopher and writer,
United States, five thousand hectares of transgenic soybean crop had to be abandoned by farmers and fifty thousand more are seriously threatened. This panic is due to a "weed" that decided to oppose the giant Monsanto, known for being the largest predator on Earth. Insolent, this mutant plant proliferates and defies the Roundup, the herbicide glyphosate-based Total, which no "weed can resist."
When nature takes over.
In 2004, a farmer from Macon, Ga., a town about 130 miles from Atlanta, noticed that some shoots pigweed resistant to Roundup where he watered his crops of soybeans.
Fields victims of this invasive weed were planted with Roundup Ready seeds, which contain a seed who received a gene for resistance to Roundup to whom no "weed can resist."
Since then, the situation has worsened and the phenomenon has spread to other states, South Carolina, and northern Arkansas, Tennessee and Missouri. A group of scientists Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, UK organization located at Winfrith in Dorset, there was a transfer of genes between the GM plant and certain weeds like pigweed. This finding contradicts the assertions compelling and optimistic advocates who claimed GM and continue to assert that hybridization between a plant genetically modified and unmodified plant is simply "impossible." For
British geneticist Brian Johnson, specializing in issues related to agriculture: "It only takes one successful crossing over several million possibilités. Dès qu’elle est créée, la nouvelle plante possède un avantage sélectif énorme, et elle se multiplie rapidement. L’herbicide puissant utilisé ici, à base de glyphosphate et d’ammonium, a exercé sur les plantes une pression énorme qui a encore accru la vitesse d’adaptation. » Ainsi, un gène de résistance aux herbicides a, semble-t-il, donné naissance à une plante hybride issue d’un saut entre la graine qu’il est censé protéger et l’amarante, devenue impossible à éliminer.
La seule solution est d’arracher les mauvaises herbes à la main, comme on le faisait autrefois, mais ce is not always possible given the range of cultures. In addition, these herbs are very deeply rooted and difficult to pull 5,000 hectares have been simply abandoned.
Number of farmers intend to abandon GM and return to traditional agriculture, especially as the GM plants are more and more expensive and profitability is paramount for this kind of agriculture. And Alan Rowland, producer and marketer of soybean seeds in Dudley, Mo., says no one asked him seeds of Monsanto Roundup Ready, so that in recent times, this sector represented 80% of its trade. Today, GMO seeds have disappeared from its catalog and the application of traditional seeds is increasing. Already
, July 25, 2005, The Guardian published an article by Paul Brown, who showed that modified genes of cereals had transited to wild plants, creating a "supergraine" resistant to herbicides, crossing "inconceivable" by the Scientists from the Department of Environment. Since 2008, U.S. agricultural media reporting more and more cases of resistance and the Government of the United States has played a significant budget cuts have forced the Department of Agriculture to reduce and stop some of its activities.
Plante diabolical or sacred plant
It is ironic that this plant, "diabolical" in the eyes of agriculture genetics, is a plant sacred to the Incas. She is one of the oldest foods in the world. Each plant produced an average of 12,000 seeds per year, and the leaves are richer in protein than soy, contain vitamins A and C and minerals.
So this boomerang, returned by the nature of Monsanto, not only neutralizes the predator, but installs a plant in places that can feed the world in case of famine. It supports most climates, both dryland areas as monsoons and tropical highlands and has no problems with insects or diseases with, so never need chemicals.
Thus, "arrowroot" confronts the powerful Monsanto, as opposed David to Goliath. And everybody knows how the fight ended, however unequal though! If these phenomena are reproduced in sufficient quantity, which seems programmed, Monsanto will soon have to put the key under the door. Aside from its employees, who complain that business really funeral ?
Text Sylvie SIMON
