The makers of Roundup, the world’s top weedkiller, will pay $6.9 million for violating an agreement with the state of New York to stop making false claims about the safety of its best-selling herbicides.
Bayer and Monsanto, which was acquired by the German agrochemical giant for $63 billion in 2018, violated a 1996 agreement with the state of New York to “immediately cease and desist” from making false and misleading claims about glyphosate-based Roundup products, the New York attorney general’s office announced Thursday.
Studies have linked glyphosate, the active ingredient in many Roundup products, to a wide range of harmful effects in pollinators, lab animals and people. In March, a first of its kind study linked Roundup to liver and metabolic disease in children.
And yet, mega farms across North America are still allowed to spray it on wheat 2-3 days before harvesting for making all those wonderful wheat products we love. There can’t be any risk from that practice - never tested by the FDA or Canadian authority AFAIK - of ingesting dried glyphosate, right? Naah, of course not…
FDA is afraid of the blow back if they were to perform proper tests on Roundup products!
Roundup, the World’s Favorite Weed Killer, Linked to Liver, Metabolic Diseases in Kids
Children exposed to glyphosate, once touted as “safer than table salt,” face increased risk of conditions found primarily in older adults that can lead to cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Eskenazi, who runs the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas study (known as CHAMACOS, Mexican Spanish slang for “little kids”), has tracked pairs of mothers and their children for more than 20 years. She’s collected hundreds of thousands of samples of blood, urine and saliva, along with exposure and health records. This treasure trove of data has produced unprecedented insights into the effects of environmental hazards on children living in California’s Salinas Valley, an agricultural region often called the “world’s salad bowl.”
So when Charles Limbach, a doctor at a Salinas health clinic, saw an explosion of fatty liver disease in his young patients and found a study linking the condition in adults to the weed killer glyphosate, he contacted Eskenazi.
Eskenazi, who also heads the Center for Environmental Research and Children’s Health at the University of California, Berkeley, offered to pull samples from her freezer to test Limbach’s suspicions about glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup and the most popular herbicide on the planet. The pair enlisted the help of Paul Mills, chief of U.C. San Diego’s Behavioral Medicine Division, who led the glyphosate study in adults, along with several other scientists at Eskenazi’s center.
Just because it’s allowed doesn’t mean it’s done. I’ve never seen it done before harvest. Here’s a few quotes from the article.
So, the majority of herbicide usage happens before, or shortly after planting. That is around eight to nine months prior to harvest. Spring and durum wheats, in particular, have higher percentages of herbicide use than winter wheat, according to the USDA. However, Dr. Dille was quick to point out that there is no time frame for the data presented, so a large majority of the herbicide usage described was most likely before, or right after wheat was planted.
“Glyphosate is typically applied with a ground rig, and a ground rig will only run the wheat down,” said Brett Carver, Wheat Genetics Chair in Agriculture at Oklahoma State University. “In most U.S. wheat regions, it takes a situation of no-other-choice desperation to consider glyphosate as a harvest aid….certainly not the usual scenario.” The truth about Roundup in wheat | Kansas Wheat (kswheat.com)
I just commented on the claim that glyphosate is used prior to wheat harvest. There isn’t any equipment that could be used to apply it in a wheat field that is weeks away from harvest. It would crush the crop.
But your concern over herbicides is justifiable. I have them too. There are a LOT more herbicides being applied now since no till farming took over being the most common practice. Are the herbicides leaching into our food supply? I wonder.
That is simply not true. Before Roundup ready crops like soybeans, farmers had to apply preemergent herbicide to every square ft as insurance against weeds. Now the field can be sprayed after the weeds appear. So much less herbicide is used. And then only when there is a weed problem.
No-tillage farming may require special machinery such as a “no-till drill” to drill through crop residue. Such equipment can cost more than $100,000[sc:1].
Not Appropriate for Every Soil Type
No-tillage farming may not be successful in certain types of soil. Farmers should do research to determine if no-till farming is appropriate for local soil and climate conditions[sc:2].
My wife’s family farms/ranches in western Oklahoma and central Kansas. 30+ years ago they sprayed weeds after harvesting the wheat, then either plowed, disced, or harrowed the section depending on the weed infestation. Wheat back then had not been genetically modified to resist glyphosate, so it could not be applied once the seed had sprouted.
Farming is considerably different today. I challenged the OP on the claim that glyphosate was used often on wheat right before harvest. In this area of the country it is not. I do wonder what the science will say 30 years from now about our farming methods today. Time will tell.