USDA opens door to new herbicide-resistant seeds
Source: AP-Excite
By M.L. JOHNSON
MILWAUKEE (AP) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture opened the door Friday to commercial sales of corn and soybean seeds genetically engineered to resist the weed killer 2,4-D, which is best known as an ingredient in the Vietnam War-era herbicide Agent Orange.
The U.S. military stopped using Agent Orange in 1971, and it has not been produced since the 1970s. Scientists don't believe 2,4-D, which is legal and commonly used by gardeners and some farmers, was responsible for the health problems linked to Agent Orange.
The USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service published a draft environmental impact statement Friday as part of the process for potential deregulation of the seeds, which can now be used only in tightly controlled field trials. Deregulation would allow commercial development of the seeds and presumably lead to greater use of the herbicide.
The USDA has oversight over the seeds, not the herbicide.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140103/DAB3ECR81.html
arikara
(5,562 posts)Instead of working on farming practices that require less chemicals, these assholes keep mucking around looking for ways to add more.
KT2000
(20,544 posts)it is in most weed & feed products. People are inundated with it in their neighborhoods so now they get to ingest even more in their meals. Sick and suicidal.
yellowcanine
(35,692 posts)How does this development mean people will ingest 2,4-D? And how are people ingesting 2,4,-D now from weed & feed products, which are applied to lawns?
KT2000
(20,544 posts)resistant, that means that more of that herbicide is used on the crop - in this case 2,4-D.
My sentence was probably unclear with regard to neighborhood application but the exposure to weed & feed is through inhalation, dermal and ingestion. The wind blows the stuff all over the place. It certainly gets into the mouth if passing such a yard if your mouth is open, say as in talking. You can taste it. What blows on a person's yard can also be ingested by anyone who touches it and then puts their hand in their mouth - as in children.
I once had a man call me for help because he was home recuperating from heart surgery as was his wife. It was a hot summer day. The neighbors on both sides of them had commercial applications of weed & feed and they were ill from it. There was nothing that could be done for them short of moving into a hotel until the rain came - at their expense.
fasttense
(17,301 posts)They use it so much that they got it mixed up with something for their lawn and huge patches of their lawn, in the shape of their back sprayer, died out.
I've seen the live-in boyfriend get the 7 year old to spray it from their 4-wheel all terrain vehicle. I watched the poor child wipe off his face and arms as the weed killer blew back on him. Soon after their fanatical spraying of the fence line we share, we lose a couple chickens and our ewes lose at least one lamb to still born death.
You have to love the fact that no matter how careful you are not to use the poison, your neighbor has every right to poison.
KT2000
(20,544 posts)It should really be called child abuse.
I know what you mean, my neighbor tries to kill weeds and my thatching ant hill by saturating the property line with malathion and weed killer. The right to poison exceeds all others because he is backed by all the chemical companies.
sammy27932003
(37 posts)No other toxin has been tested as much as Agent Orange.It took 20 years to pay the first soldier that was sprayed in Vietnam.Now they put it in our food?The head of the USDA does or used to head Monsanto.Nothing says safe food like,"we are trying to poison you."
Archae
(46,261 posts)Plant-killer, that this corn and soybean isn't killed by.
Besides, just *WHO* is using herbicide on a large scale any longer?
marble falls
(56,358 posts)cvoogt
(949 posts)although USDA-certified organic food is still only barely organic in many cases.