“Sure it is not the massive use of pesticides,herbicides, etc by Big Agribiz?”
It’s not pesticides but widespread use of the herbicide Roundup that is involved.
Soybean and corn have been genetically modified to be immune to Roundup. This permits Roundup to be heavily sprayed on soy and corn crops without killing those plants.
A side effect has been to reduce or eliminate milkweed from the borders of the crop fields.
Before the GM-Roundup system was developed milkweed would typically grow along the edges of crop fields. Monarchs need milkweed in order to feed and reproduce.
I live miles away from farms...there are plenty of milkweed lining the roads.
farms are a man made situations. no man, no farms, less edges, less milkweed on the edges. so the worst we will have is a normal pre factory-farm amount of milkweed and monarchs....
good, good.