SUPER WEEDS AND "AGENT ORANGE CORN."
The Osgood File. Sponsored in part by Auto Owners Insurance, the No Problem People. Visit AutoOwners.Com. This is Charles Osgood.
It's always been man-versus-weed for farmers.
Take Irvin Handy, says our CBS News colleague Sharyl Attkisson...
VO - Sharyl Attkisson, CBS News Correspondent
"72-year old Irvin Handy has been farming in Delaware his whole life - and that's meant a lifelong battle to kill enemy weeds, without killing his corn and soy crops." (:09)
Handy will tell you...
SOT - Irvin Handy, a farmer in Delaware
"They're just a pain in the neck to deal with." (:02)
That could be the weeds he's talking about, but it also could be some of the folks giving him a hard time - as you'll hear after this...
((( BREAK )))
There are some weeds that don't respond any more to the herbicides that used to kill them, says Sharyl Attkisson - "super weeds," they're called.
VO - Sharyl Attkisson
"In 1998, Delaware was the first place these 'super weeds' popped up. Since then, an epidemic - as weeds spread across the country, confounding farmers and costing them millions as they search for new weapons." (:12)
NAT - Irvin Handy
"Just to look at these, we made 'em a little bit sick - but we didn't kill 'em." (:
VO - Sharyl Attkisson
"Just how tough are the weeds to kill? So tough that a leading weapon in the fight against them is an herbicide made by Dow called 2,4-D ... one of the components in Agent Orange, used by the U.S. Military in Vietnam and notorious for links to cancer and birth defects." (:17)
An ingredient, but not the ingredient.
VO - Sharyl Attkisson
"Most experts agree the primary human damage from Agent Orange came from a different ingredient..." (:05)
Besides, farmers could only use 2,4-D very early and very late in the season - or it would kill the corn.
VO - Sharyl Attkisson
"But Dow has developed a genetically modified corn called 'Enlist' - resistant to 2,4-D. That way, the herbicide could be used all season long." (:08)
So, some people gave the "Enlist" corn a nickname.
VO - Sharyl Attkisson
"Because of 2,4-D's links to Agent Orange, some opponents have dubbed the genetically modified corn 'Agent Orange Corn.' Dow says the comparison - and the nickname - are simply scare tactics, that the new 2,4-D is fundamentally different from the one used in Vietnam. (:14)
But like the war in Vietnam, people feel strongly - and the war in the cornfields is hard to stop.
The Osgood File. Charles Osgood on the CBS Radio Network. |
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