Monsanto's Roundup-Ready seeds were not created to reduce or eliminate the use of chemical products, they were genetically engineered to allow farmers to drench the crops with even higher levels of Roundup herbicide than they were already using. The seeds were designed to tolerate the use of Monsanto's Roundup, not just any herbicide. Monsanto wants to corner not only the herbicide market, but the food seed market.

Not only have farmers sprayed so much Roundup that the weeds have naturally developed resistance to it, scientists have discovered that this engineered resistance is being transferred (by way of horizontal gene transfer via pollen) to related weed plants. Now some weeds are resistant to many times the normal dose of Roundup. It can be compared to the indiscriminate use of antibiotics contributing to drug-resistant supergerms like MRSA.

In addition, our food crops contain far higher loads of the herbicide than they used to, as it is absorbed by the foliage and moved throughout the plant. Soybeans, in particular, are highly dependent on Roundup, so there is more Roundup in soy products than even the other Roundup-Ready crops.

"Putting the matter plainly", says Craig Holdrege of The Nature Institute, "when foreign genes are introduced into an organism, creating a transgenic organism ... the results for the organism and its environment are almost always unpredictable. The intended result may or may not be achieved in any given case, but the one almost sure thing is that unintended results - nontarget effects - will also be achieved." From Unintended Effects of Genetic Manipulation

Monsanto has been fighting to prevent/eliminate the labeling of GM produce and the use of GM products in your foods.

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