Viewpoint: Science losing out to anti-glyphosate hysteria, farmers in a quandary as there are no alternative weedkillers as effective

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Credit: Producer.com

Confirmation [in January] by the U.S. [EPA] that glyphosate is not carcinogenic is welcome, but …. it doesn’t matter.

What does matter are two things: in 2015 the United Nations’ International Agency for Research on Cancer, the World Health Organization’s research arm, concluded that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

And Bayer, now the makers of the herbicide Roundup, which contains glyphosate, has lost three straight lawsuits with plaintiffs awarded a total of $190 million (after judgments were reduced).

Science is losing. [F]ood company Kellogg’s has decided to phase out the “use of glyphosate as a pre-harvest drying agent in its major wheat and oat supply chains by 2025.”

[I]f the current legal and political climate prevails, pre-harvest spraying of glyphosate may be lost, not just for wheat and oats, but for other crops as well. It is likely that more companies will demand zero glyphosate residue.

Phasing out a pre-harvest application of glyphosate, or at least, reducing its use, will be difficult. But the alternative would be much worse.

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