Forget the lowly dandelion. There’s a bigger menace threatening the American landscape: “superweeds,” agricultural
intruders that are all-but-impossible to kill because they’ve evolved a
resistance to traditional chemical herbicides. These virulent growers
are choking out the country’s corn, cotton, and soybeans, costing
farmers millions of dollars in lost crops. Superweeds have spread their
roots to more than 12 million acres of American crop fields so far, and
they show no signs of being uprooted.
The superweed problem now
runs so deep that it’s captured national political attention. A summit
of weed experts convened in Washington, D.C. last week to
discuss how to manage the growing issue of out-of-control superweeds.
Countless media outlets covered the saga. A scary nickname like
“superweeds”—the “pink slime” of agricultural policy—doesn’t hurt. Farming woes have rarely been so sexy.
Shining the national spotlight on superweeds will hopefully bring us
closer to a fix for the rogue plants that are destroying our food
supply. But there’s another benefit to the superweed hype—it helps build
public awareness around genetically engineered crops. Superweeds could
be the final nudge needed to prompt an about-face on America’s
acceptance of GE foods.
