From morning until late at night, the huge combine harvester glides over the 900 hectares surrounding the Young farm near Carlinville, in the middle of Illinois. 40-year-old Joshua Young threshes grain corn in the morning and soybeans in the followingnoon. Two types of plants: That’s all Young has grown on his farm – and also exclusively genetically modified, for 15 years. There is only time for an interview while driving.
“We want to treat the farm in a way that leaves it better for future generations. We want to be good stewards in the way we run the farm.”
Glyphosate is losing its potency
Josh is just struggling on the first lap at the edge of the field with weeds that are building up in the header. He points to the monitor of the on-board computer.
75 bushels, that’s around 5 tons per hectare instead of 3.5 tons 15 years ago when he still used conventional seed – without genetic engineering. Josh has already been to Germany, he knows the fears and rejection of green genetic engineering, he knows regarding the bad reputation of the US agrochemical company Monsanto.
“I haven’t seen any scientific evidence that genetically modified plants aren’t environmentally friendly or unhealthy for humans. You can certainly argue emotionally, but I don’t see any scientific basis for it.”
When the farmers in the Midwest started using the genetically modified plants and the herbicide tailored to them, there were hardly any weeds left in the soybean fields. Now they are returning. The convenient all-purpose weapon glyphosate is literally losing its “impact”.
“I think Round up works so well, glyphosate works so well that people have gotten comfortable and want to use it more and more and more. They use it on corn, on soy, several times a year, that’s a problem. “
Does glyphosate promote resistance?
So Josh thinks farmers are encouraging resistance because they are not careful with the chemical adjuvant glyphosate. For a year now, Monsanto, with the help of the German chemical company BASF, has been selling a new miracle weapon once morest glyphosate-resistant weeds in soybean fields: Monsanto has made soybean plants resistant to the active ingredient dicamba, an old recipe that is now making soybean fields weed-free or “clean” once more on a large scale.
GMO-free is no longer worth it
Now that glyphosate-tolerant soy has reached its limits, Monsanto is now providing a solution once morest resistant weeds with soy that is doubly armed, i.e. once morest glyphosate and dicamba. Monsanto also sows disputes between the farmers. After glyphosate, aren’t the genetic engineering farmers just making themselves dependent on a new active ingredient?
“Maybe so,” says Jim Bellm, a neighbor of the Young family, but following many years he has given up growing non-GMO corn and soybeans. It just doesn’t pay off. Jim is now also a GM farmer.
“Over time, the acceptance of genetic engineering increased and the surcharges for non-GM grain have fallen. Insects and weeds also caused us problems, which we did not get as well under control with non-GM varieties as with genetically modified seeds.”
quarrel between neighbors
Genetically engineered seeds in combination with dicamba seem to work quite well in and of themselves. But the spray is highly volatile and thus also reaches neighboring fields via the air. And alas, there are no genetically engineered plants growing there! Farmer Jim Bellm shows us what happens next when we visit him in the field during the harvest.
“You can look at his beans and mine and you can see a definite difference. He must face it. He must compensate me for this loss.”
