Monsanto Vs. Queeny: Herbicide Roundup

Who is Monsanto? “Monsanto is a sustainable agriculture company,” according to the company’s own website (“Who We Are”) According to Ken Cook, head of the Environmental Working Group, “a company like Monsanto is a world of its own. The pursuit of profit at any price anesthetizes people devoted to a single purpose: making money” (Robin 15-16). Cook is indicating that this company does not form its business ideas around the notion of “sustainable agriculture”, but rather making copious amounts of money. The company originally did not form for this purpose, but in honor of a man’s wife. John. F Queeny formed the company out of a $5,000 loan and the man quickly paid this loan off by the manufacture of saccharin, the first artificial sweetener.

Monsanto recognized this problem in the late 90’s with the creation of the very first GM crop: the Roundup-Ready soybean. Before this new seed, farmers would lose many crops due to the application of Roundup. This process would cause farmers to lose a profit so to fix this dilemma, the Roundup-Ready soybean was engineered to be able to withstand the herbicide Roundup being applied to it (Gregory 763-764). Since the seed’s development in 1996, 93% of soybean crops are now Roundup-Ready and in addition, 78% of cotton crops are genetically modified and 70% of corn grown in the United States are genetically modified (Smith 47). Many products today can be manufactured from these crops and it is very hard to find a product that does not contain any form of GM contaminates. The increase in GM crops has led to the need for more herbicides has also increased. As a result of this uptick in GM production and herbicide people have begun to become ill. A study released in 1996 says that in many reported cases of poisoning, it was caused by exposure to Roundup and in Taiwan, this herbicide is a favored substance in cases of suicide by poisoning. The two most common symptoms that Roundup causes is respiratory problems and extreme gastrointestinal upset and in cases of suicide, victims would experience both symptoms before eventually dying (Robin 86-87). On Monsanto’s website, Roundup has been tested endlessly and the company claims that “comprehensive toxicological studies repeated over the last 40 years have time and again demonstrated that glyphosate poses no unreasonable risk to people, the environment, or pets when used as directed on the label” (“Glyphosate”). Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup and it is the chemical responsible for the eradication of weeds, but these studies seem questionable as there is evidence otherwise to show the toxicity of the herbicide.