Glyphosate is used on 98% of Idaho’s sugar beet acres, allowing those farmers to contribute over $385 million to our state’s economy and support thousands of jobs. Without glyphosate, our sugar beet industry — America’s second largest — would likely be out of business.
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Unfortunately, years of mass litigation is threatening the production and use of glyphosate in Idaho. To date, Bayer has settled tens of thousands of glyphosate lawsuits, paying over $11 billion — with more cases being filed every year. Bayer has informed glyphosate users that absent a manageable resolution to the mass litigation, we are at risk of losing the domestic production of glyphosate.
The safety of glyphosate has been extensively debated before EPA and European authorities for decades. EPA reaffirmed in 2020 that there are no risks of concern to human health when glyphosate is used in accordance with its current label, and that glyphosate is unlikely to be a human carcinogen.
European regulators reached similar findings in 2022, concluding that peer review of the risk assessment of glyphosate on the health of humans did not identify critical areas of concern, and that a hazard assessment of glyphosate found that it did not meet the scientific criteria to be classified as carcinogenic.
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This legislative session, Idaho’s leaders should adopt legislation that reinforces the ability of Idaho’s agricultural businesses to rely on a pesticide’s label after it has undergone extensive and rigorous health and safety approval processes. Left unchecked, the glyphosate litigation will likely force Idaho farmers to rely on foreign sources for glyphosate.
