“In twenty years, 99 percent of the milkweed here has disappeared. In those twenty years, farmers have been spraying their fields with glyphosate, marketed as “Roundup.” The corn and soybeans have been genetically modified to withstand the herbicide, so farmers spray often, all through the growing season. The food crops live on, but milkweed is killed at the root. Up and down and across the crop rows female monarchs flutter, searching for the home their offspring must have. Some, straying, find a few milkweed stems along unmown roadsides. Just a few. A billion monarchs used to soar to Mexico, most of them rested on Midwestern milkweed. Since the introduction of Roundup, 90 percent of the bright pilgrims have vanished.”
–Gayle Boss, Wild Hope, p. 55
