Faced with the legal and financial risks that Monsanto and the farm press were assuring me were substantial, I quit processing seeds for other farmers altogether. I resented Monsanto and its heavy-handed tactics. Yet my resentment didn t prevent me from planting Roundup Ready beans on my farm. Although I was no a early adopter , the continuing press coverage, advertising, local test plots, testimony from neighbors, and encouragement from seed dealers persuaded me of the advantage of using Roundup Ready beans. The ability of Monsanto s all-purpose herbicide Roundup to control weeds reliably was a great improvement for soybean growers.
Fewer weeds mean higher yields and higher income.
Thirty years ago fields of soybeans choked with weeds were not uncommon. As a high school student I walked beans , carrying a tool about the size of a golf club with a wooden handle and a razor sharp hook. My friends and I took from one to four rows each and cut the weeds out with these tools. Improvements in herbicides gradually eliminated the need for walking beans but none of the existing herbicides killed weeds as reliably and effectively as Roundup. The extensive apparatus of persuasion that I encountered was only reaffirmed by my experience growing Roundup Ready soybeans.