美国国家公共电台 NPR Monsanto Attacks Scientists After Studies Show Trouble For Weedkiller Dicamba

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Monsanto, the pioneer of genetically¹ modified food, likes to say it is rooted in science, but some leading scientists are accusing the company of denying evidence about the risks of its newest weedkilling technology. NPR's Dan Charles has the story.

DAN CHARLES, BYLINE²: The chemical that set off this war over weed science is called dicamba. It's a weedkiller sold under trade names like Clarity and Banvel, and it's advertised as the solution to a farmer's worst enemies.

(SOUNDBITE OF BANVEL HERBICIDE AD)

UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: If you hate Canada thistle because it costs yield, start getting even with Banvel herbicide.

CHARLES: But dicamba doesn't know the difference between weeds and crops. It can kill both. Once your soybeans or vegetables sprout³, you can't spray this chemical without hurting them - unless you're using some of Monsanto's new seeds. The company has tweaked the genes⁴ in soybeans and cotton, created new genetically modified varieties of those crops that can tolerate dicamba. This year, for the first time, farmers got to spray dicamba right over their soybeans to clear out the weeds. And a lot of them did. Scott Partridge, Monsanto's vice⁵ president of global strategy, says farmers planted dicamba-tolerant crops on 26 million acres.

SCOTT PARTRIDGE: The demand for it is overwhelming. The need to control these difficult-to-manage weeds is huge.

CHARLES: But when the spring started, so did the complaints. Dicamba wasn't staying where it belonged. It was drifting into nearby fields, damaging crops that didn't have Monsanto's new genes. Reports of this came in from Mississippi to Minnesota, three million acres in all.

BOB SCOTT: It became impossible. The calls were coming in, three and four a day. Sometimes eight or 12 a day.

CHARLES: Bob Scott is a weed expert at the University of Arkansas.

SCOTT: There is no precedent⁶ for what we've seen this year.

CHARLES: Now, Monsanto insists it knows what happened - the people doing the spraying didn't follow directions. The company's Scott Partridge says Monsanto checked out more than a thousand cases of dicamba damage.

PARTRIDGE: And in 88 percent of those instances, the label was not followed.

CHARLES: People sprayed dicamba too close to neighboring fields, used the wrong nozzles.

PARTRIDGE: Every one of those is fixable by education.

CHARLES: But I talked to half a dozen weed scientists at universities, and they're pretty sure that's not the whole story. Remember, three million acres of crops, entire fields with curled-up leaves. It didn't seem likely it was all the result of people making mistakes in spraying. So Bob Scott and other scientists carried out their own experiments.

SCOTT: So what we're actually seeing on some of these beans are some of the misshapen seed pods that you get.

CHARLES: Scott's showing me a field of soybeans. The damage here definitely did not come from mistakes in spraying.

SCOTT: We did not spray this plot.

CHARLES: The dicamba that damaged these plants came from trays of soil that had been sprayed far away from here and then placed between the rows. It evaporated from the trays and injured the plants. That's not supposed to happen. This formulation of dicamba is not supposed to evaporate. But in these test plots it did happen, a lot.

SCOTT: A lot of people were extremely disappointed when they saw the plots. A lot of people didn't want to see what they were seeing and were in disbelief.

CHARLES: Because if dicamba evaporates and spreads, it can't really be controlled.

SCOTT: If it were any other product, I feel like it would just be pulled off the market and we'd be done with it.

CHARLES: But dicamba's not just any product. There's big money behind it. Monsanto, seed dealers⁷, farmers who are struggling with weed problems, they all want these dicamba-tolerant crops. The small band of university scientists who are contradicting Monsanto's explanation of the problem are standing⁸ in the way of an economic juggernaut. And they're feeling the heat. In Arkansas, Monsanto told state regulators to disregard information from one of the University of Arkansas's weed researchers because he'd recommended the farmers use a non-dicamba alternative from a rival company. Kevin Bradley at the University of Missouri came up with that estimate of dicamba damage on three million acres. He says executives from Monsanto have been calling his supervisors⁹.

KEVIN BRADLEY: What the exact nature of all of those calls were, I'm not real sure, but I'm pretty sure that it has something to do with not being happy with what I was saying.

CHARLES: I contacted three deans at the University of Missouri asking for details about the calls. A university spokesman said they were too busy to respond. Monsanto's Scott Partridge, for his part, says the company respects Bradley's work. Bradley says it hits him even harder when locals tell him he's hurting farmers.

BRADLEY: That's a hard one to take. We chose these jobs to help the farmers in our states. You know, there's not a whole lot of glory in these positions or some kind of major financial incentive¹⁰.

CHARLES: For now Monsanto's explanation for this summer's dicamba damage is carrying the day. The Environmental Protection Agency says farmers can use dicamba again next year, with a few additional restrictions¹¹ on who can spray it and when. Monsanto expects sales of dicamba-tolerant seeds to double. Dan Charles, NPR News.

1 genetically   

adv.遗传上

参考例句：

• All the bees in the colony are genetically related. 同一群体的蜜蜂都有亲缘关系。
• Genetically modified foods have already arrived on American dinner tables. 经基因改造加工过的食物已端上了美国人的餐桌。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 基因与食物

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 sprout   

n.芽，萌芽；vt.使发芽，摘去芽；vi.长芽，抽条

参考例句：

• When do deer first sprout horns?鹿在多大的时候开始长出角？
• It takes about a week for the seeds to sprout.这些种子大约要一周后才会发芽。

4 genes   

n.基因( gene的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You have good genes from your parents, so you should live a long time. 你从父母那儿获得优良的基因，所以能够活得很长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Differences will help to reveal the functions of the genes. 它们间的差异将会帮助我们揭开基因多种功能。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术的世纪

5 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

6 precedent   

n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的

参考例句：

• Is there a precedent for what you want me to do?你要我做的事有前例可援吗？
• This is a wonderful achievement without precedent in Chinese history.这是中国历史上亘古未有的奇绩。

7 dealers   

n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者

参考例句：

• There was fast bidding between private collectors and dealers. 私人收藏家和交易商急速竞相喊价。
• The police were corrupt and were operating in collusion with the drug dealers. 警察腐败，与那伙毒品贩子内外勾结。

8 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

9 supervisors   

n.监督者，管理者( supervisor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I think the best technical people make the best supervisors. 我认为最好的技术人员可以成为最好的管理人员。 来自辞典例句
• Even the foremen or first-level supervisors have a staffing responsibility. 甚至领班或第一线的监督人员也有任用的责任。 来自辞典例句

10 incentive   

n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机

参考例句：

• Money is still a major incentive in most occupations.在许多职业中，钱仍是主要的鼓励因素。
• He hasn't much incentive to work hard.他没有努力工作的动机。

11 restrictions   

约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则）

参考例句：

• I found the restrictions irksome. 我对那些限制感到很烦。
• a snaggle of restrictions 杂乱无章的种种限制