Lesson from BPA: Banning glyphosate herbicide won’t make us safer

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For years, opponents of glyphosate have argued the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup is harmful for your health.

Now that glyphosate is following a path similar to BPA, becoming the subject of lawsuits and regulatory action from the State of California, will agricultural businesses respond like baby bottle manufacturers did and quickly come up with a glyphosate-free alternative? Maybe. A group called The Detox Project has already created a “glyphosate-free” certification for growers to “verify your product does not contain the world’s most used herbicide.” But if farmers stopped using glyphosate, would our food be any safer? Not likely.

Just like those baby bottle manufacturers who needed BPA to make their plastic durable, farmers need herbicide to control weeds. Weeds are a significant challenge for crop farmers, whether conventional or organic. Andrew Kniss, a scientist at the University of Wyoming who studies weed management, writes, “if farmers stopped using glyphosate, weeds wouldn’t just stop growing, so something else must be done to control them. There will be costs to that decision.” So, just as with BPA, if farmers were to stop using glyphosate, they’d likely just turn to another herbicide, one that’s probably not any safer or less toxic.

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: Removing Glyphosate from Our Food Won’t Make Us Safer

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