There might be a few good reasons for genetically modified food crops—increased nutrition or drought tolerance perhaps—but Monsanto’s Round Up Ready corn and soybeans were “invented” for one purpose.
You can spray the heck out of them.
Roundup Ready plants won’t die from heavy herbicide use—that’s their claim to fame. (Plus they encourage increased use of Monsanto’s other big product, the herbicide Roundup itself). But all other leafy life in Roundup’s way will shrivel and die, including one of agriculture’s most despised plants, milkweed.
But what Big Ag hates, butterflies love. Milkweed is the one and only plant that monarch butterflies use as a “host” plant. Without it, they cannot survive as a species.
This is a section of a larger watercolor illustration/poster I did for the State of Minnesota. The intent of the poster was to encourage prairie habitat preservation. Milkweed is the pink plant. Also shown: an adult monarch butterfly, and a monarch caterpillar.
Milkweed is a native grassland plant that used to thrive along with thousands of other grassland plants and animals in prairie regions of North America. Even before the introduction of Roundup Ready seeds, tallgrass prairie habitats had already been reduced to less than one percent of their extent prior to European settlement and agriculture.
See the full poster at the Prairie Passage page.
Since most prairie land was converted to agriculture, milkweed grew only in remnant prairies, preserves, private gardens, or in between row crops—which actually added up to quite a bit of habitat, when you consider millions of acres of corn, beans, and other crops.
Not anymore, though, thanks in large part to Roundup Ready. Loss of milkweed habitat in row crops is thought to be the reason—along with extreme weather—that Monarch populations plunged dramatically this year.
Monarch butterflies are a marvel and a mystery. Their unique migrating behavior is still not fully understood. They migrate thousands of miles on a round trip between the U.S. and their wintering grounds in a forest in Mexico. But, how do they find their way? No single individual makes the entire round trip…there are never any older adults to show the young ones the way, as with other species. Are monarchs born with some kind of “map” of the route already in their brains?
Two days ago, Monsanto won a huge victory in the U.S. Supreme Court. They were suing a farmer for illegally using their patented Roundup Ready soybean seeds. The farmer claimed the beans had (more or less) sprouted of their own accord, and were exempt from the patent, but the Court ruled against him and he ended up with an $84,000 fine. Justice Kagan rejected what she called a “blame-the-bean” defense.
She’s probably right about that. We can’t blame beans for sprouting, or farmers for wanting to save time and money by using new products at their disposal, or Big Chem for making Big Chemicals, or Big Ag, or even Big Politics.
If monarchs go extinct, it will be a tragedy. But, it will be our own fault. You, me, and most everyone else living in North America. We live the richest lives in human history. We vote with our ballots, and we vote with our dollars. We’re running the show.
Each migrating monarch makes individual butterfly-decisions that guide the whole species on one of the most amazing, most unlikely migrations of any lifeform. And they have a brain the size of a…well really, really small.
What can we do? Can we find better ways to live individually that added together will collectively guide our species to a more sustainable future?
What do you think?
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So, what to do?
If you live in monarch range, plant milkweed!
Buy organic!
Vote green!
Go outside, enjoy nature, butterflies, birds…everything.
Learn More:
High Country News article about Monsanto
New York Times article about Monsanto
New York Times article about monarchs
Yale 360 post about Monsanto and monarchs
Monarch Watch – an organization dedicated to studying, tracking, and preserving monarchs
Serenity Spell -a nature blog with wildlife news and gorgeous photos
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beautiful paintings and images…a stunning PF
have a nice week…from germany, near banks of river eider and kiel canal…
werner
Thank you Werner! That’s the fun part about blogging – meeting other artists and nature-enthusiasts from all over the world!
It is so sad that we are such poor stewards of our treasures.
Yes, it is sad. Will we come to our senses in time? I wonder.
How amazing to see so many butterflies. Just lovely.
Yes – it was something I’ll always remember. The prairie I was visiting was a park-preserve in SW Minnesota, and in one spot you could look out with a sweeping view of the farmland all the way to the horizon. I can only imagine what it must have been like before the prairies were plowed up! Early settlers used to say the waving grasses made it look like a vast green sea.
Wonderful!! I learned more about milkweed – AND my botanist friend kindly provided me with milkweed varieties to grow in *my* area, so I’m set. 🙂 Grow it! It’s pretty!
So sad though… I didn’t know about that recent Monsanto win, though. Sigh.
Yes, milkweed is pretty! In the Pacific Northwest, we don’t have monarchs, though. Actually, we don’t have that many butterflies here, at least compared to the Midwest. When I was in Minnesota researching my prairie project, I was astounded by all the butterflies! The air was FILLED with them – all different kinds! It was amazing.