To Roundup or not to roundup?

While we were on the cruise last week Jason Wood who as been growing corn, wheat and soy beans on the farm for the past few years told me that he planted soy beans.  I was surprised to see the Rye still growing but noticed that the beans had in fact been planted because you could see the planting rows thru the rye.  Each year I made sure that my farmer installed a winter cover crop to reduce erosion and when it became time to plant the field crop they would kill the cover crop to eliminate the competition.  I have concerns about roundup. Killing plants with chemicals so you can grow plants with chemicals seems somewhat counter intuitive.  Heck what do the worms think?

Anyways, my grandson spent the night last night and he is a freak over anything that has a motor and 4 wheels.  Just before Grandma took him to day care, we took a quick ride on the 4 wheeler and what he saw in the parking lot of Mountainside blew his little 17 month old mind.  It was the huge sprayer from Southern States preparing to spray the roundup.  I gotta tell you, farmers have figured out how to make cool vehicles that do farm things that just happen to be bad _ss.  The sprayer has outriggers that must cover 100 feet in a pass are pretty cool.  Little Frankie absolutely concurred as evidenced in the pic.

There will be some serious introspection over the winter with the Round up dilemma.  I could not hope to cultivate 60 acres of vegetables and field crops will always be in the mix.  I just want to be a great steward of the land and do the best thing for the environment.  Any suggestions to this dilemma will be greatly appreciated.