ROUNDUP READY CROPSRoundup Ready Crops are crops that have been genetically modified to be immune to a herbicide called Roundup, produced by Monsanto. Its active ingredient is glyphosate, patented in the 1970s. Roundup is widely used by farmers in their fields and by the general public growing vegetation on a small scale. Because Roundup Ready plants are resistant to the herbicide Roundup, farmers who plant Roundup Ready seeds must use Roundup to prevent other weeds from growing in their fields. The first Roundup Ready crops were developed in 1996 by Monsanto. They first developed genetically modified Roundup-resistant soybeans to help farmers control weeds. Because new crops are resistant to Roundup, the herbicide can be used in fields to prevent the growth of unwanted weeds. Roundup Ready seeds have been developed for a wide variety of crops, including soybeans, corn, canola, alfalfa, cotton and sorghum. Roundup Ready crop seeds are notoriously called "terminating seeds" because the crops produced from these Roundup Ready seeds are sterile. Every year, farmers must purchase the newest seed variety from Monsanto, and they cannot reuse their best seeds because the resulting crops are sterile. Many farmers have begun using Roundup Ready crops regularly, as reported in a recent news article, funded by Monsanto, suggesting that they have become so dependent on Roundup that they may weaken its ability to control weeds. herbs. Farmers are now encouraged to use multiple herbicides to avoid this vicious cycle. However, it is still unclear what impact this will have on the use of Roundup Ready crops, which are only resistant to Roundup. It has become increasingly difficult for farmers to... middle of paper ...... there are several complex issues that need to be resolved before implementation. Most labeling efforts target food products containing artificially inserted genes from another organism. However, in some legislative proposals, the term "genetically modified" is defined more broadly to include a variety of techniques used by plant breeders and farmers well before the era of genetic engineering. The commonly accepted threshold is 1 percent. In other words, if an ingredient in a product contains more than 1% genetically modified substances, then the product must be labeled. One percent is the threshold used in Australia and New Zealand, while the European Union has decided on a level of 0.9 percent. Japan has a threshold of 5 percent, but thresholds as low as 0.01 percent have been recommended. However, the biological reasoning for such a requirement has not been demonstrated.