The huge combine harvester glides over the 900 hectares around the Young farm near Carlinville, in the middle of Illinois, from morning until late at night. 40-year-old Joshua Young threshes corn in the morning and soybeans in the afternoon. Two types of plants: that’s all that Young has grown on his farm – and that has also been genetically modified for 15 years. There is only time for an interview while driving.
“We want to treat the farm in such a way that we will bequeath it to future generations. We want to be a good steward in the way we run the farm.”
Glyphosate loses its penetrative power
Josh is still fighting on the first lap at the edge of the field with weeds that are accumulating in the header. He points to the on-board computer monitor.
75 bushels, that’s around 5 tons per hectare instead of 3.5 tons 15 years ago when he was still using conventional seeds – without genetic engineering. Josh has already been to Germany, he knows the fears and rejection of green genetic engineering, he knows about the bad reputation of the US agrochemical company Monsanto.
“I have not yet seen any scientific evidence that genetically modified plants are not 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 appropriate herbicide, there were hardly any weeds left on the soy fields. They are now returning. The convenient all-purpose weapon glyphosate is literally losing its “penetrating power”.
“I think Round Up works so well, glyphosate works so well, that people have gotten comfortable and want to use it 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 the farmers are promoting resistance because they are not careful with the chemical additive glyphosate. For a year now, Monsanto has been selling a new miracle weapon against glyphosate-resistant weeds in soybean fields with the help of the German chemical company BASF: Monsanto made soybean plants resistant to the active ingredient dicamba, an old recipe that is now making soybean fields weed-free or “clean” again on a large scale.
GMO-free is no longer worthwhile
Now that the glyphosate-compatible soy has reached its limits, Monsanto is now providing a solution against resistant weeds with soy that is doubly armed against glyphosate and dicamba. Monsanto also sows quarrels between the farmers. After glyphosate, aren’t the genetic engineering farmers just making themselves dependent on a new active ingredient?
“Maybe,” says Jim Bellm, a neighbor of the Young family, but after many years he has given up growing GMO-free corn and soy. It just doesn’t pay off. Jim is now a GM farmer too.
“Over time, the acceptance of genetic engineering increased and the surcharges for GMO-free grain have decreased. In addition, insects and weeds have given us problems, we couldn’t get that under control with GMO-free varieties as well as with genetic engineering seeds.”
Quarrel between neighbors
Genetic engineering seeds in combination with dicamba seem to work quite well in and of themselves. But the pesticide is highly volatile and so also gets onto neighboring fields via the air. And woe to you, there are no plants that are genetically engineered against dicamba 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 will see a clear difference. He has to face that. He has to compensate me for this loss.”