This week’s Village Voice explores the latest trend in eco-terrorism: the “SuperWeed seed kit.” Available for purchase from the website of a British anarchy group, this kit claims to contain the ingredients for producing a weed that is resistant to Roundup and other herbicides, “thus not only threatening the profitability of conventional and GM … crops, but also of herbicide production and distribution as well.” Apparently, an enterprising young terrorist can render genetically improved crops unharvestable, simply by trespassing and planting this product alongside a field’s main crop. The SuperWeed’s vendor also claims: “We can outpace and outmaneuver these biotech giants as we are not bound by profits or legislation.”
Considering recent events showing that radical activists can and do gain access to biotech research fields (witness Monday’s protest against Syngenta in North Carolina), it remains possible that agro-terrorists are already trying to erase valuable progress in food technology.
