Is Monsanto playing fast and loose with Roundup Ready Soybeans in Argentina? | By Kelly Hearn | Grist | Main Dish | 22 Sep 2006

Is Monsanto playing fast and loose with Roundup Ready Soybeans in Argentina? By Kelly Hearn Grist Main Dish 22 Sep 2006: "Monsanto claims RR soybeans decrease the need for repeated herbicide applications. But some weeds build resistance to herbicides, and when they do, different herbicides are needed in the mix. Pengue and Altieri report that in the Argentinean pampas, eight species of weeds exhibit resistance to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. The fear: the more plants become resistant, the more farmers turn to different pesticides, further complicating the soup of poisons being spread through the country's fields.

There are also concerns that all this genetic tinkering is causing GM soy to have lower protein levels than regular varieties. A study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry in 2004 analyzed soybeans and soybean meal from the world's top producers: Argentina, Brazil, China, India, and the U.S. Those from Argentina, which Benbrook says at the time were 98 percent Roundup Ready, had the lowest crude protein content. Those from China, which grew no GM soy at the time, had the highest. 'This points directly to the possibility that RR has resulted in significant decline in protein level,' Benbrook said, adding that it mirrors concerns that protein levels in soy and corn in the United States are decreasing.

Meanwhile, experts say that GM crops may be playing a role in rising social dislocation. In 1998 there were 422,000 producers or local farmers in Argentina; by 2002, that number had dropped by 25 percent to 318,000.

And there are health worries stemming from the widespread use of Roundup, which has reportedly been sprayed aerially and drifted onto non-RR crops and into communities. Dario Gianfelici, a general physician from the small town of Cerrito in a soy farming region, says he has seen medical problems in farmhands that stem from herbicide exposure. "I don't have the money or the manpower to [raise awareness] like I would like to do," he said in a telephone interview, "but I continue to talk about this.""