Nestle on superweeds

GM WATCH NOTE: There's been a lot of media interest in this week's New York Times' report on the problems created for GM crop growers in the U.S. by the rise and rise of "superweeds" - weeds resistant to Monsanto's glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup.

In the following piece from The Atlantic, Marion Nestle points out that when, in 1996, scientists predicted there would be problems with Roundup resistant weeds, their concerns were dismissed by Monsanto as absurd, and that since then the company has tried to maintain that the problem is largely "hypothetical".

The NYT's report notes that this "hypothetical" problem now involves "10 resistant [weed] species in at least 22 states infesting millions of acres, predominantly soybeans, cotton and corn."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.html?scp=2&sq=roundup&st=cse

For more on the agronomic problems with Roundup
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/12196
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Roundup Red Alert: U.S. Farms Grow Superweeds
Marion Nestle
The Atlantic, May 6 2010
http://www.theatlantic.com/food/archive/2010/05/roundup-red-alert-us-farms-grow-superweeds/56250/

Yesterday's New York Times ran an article disclosing the rise and spread across the United States of "superweeds" that have developed resistance to the herbicide Roundup. The article comes with a nifty interactive timeline map charting the spread of Roundup resistance into at least 10 species of weeds in 22 states. Uh oh.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/03/business/weeds-graphic.html?ref=energy-environment