Agriculture may soon be forced to change how it goes about growing crops as a key tool for years may be forced out of the ‘farm toolbox’.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) came out some time ago suggesting the widely used agricultural herbicide glyphosate may cause cancer in humans.
The report started a shock wave of response, most of it negative toward the herbicide. Consumers have voiced concerns and those concerns have fostered court challenges and governmental reviews.
The reaction is not good news for farmers who have been using the herbicide as a key weed control tool for decades.
Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide and crop desiccant. It is used to kill weeds, especially annual broadleaf weeds and grasses that compete with crops. It was discovered to be an herbicide by Monsanto chemist John E. Franz in 1970. Monsanto brought it to market in 1974 under the trade name Roundup.
The farmer pick-up of the product was widespread because it was found to be an effective tool in the battle to control in-crop weeds which can impact production through competition with the crops.
In 2007, glyphosate was the most used herbicide in the United States’ agricultural sector and the second-most used in home and garden (2,4-D being the most used), government and industry, and commerce, according to Wikipedia. By 2016 there was a 100-fold increase from the late 1970s in the frequency of applications and volumes of glyphosate-based herbicides (GBHs) applied.
It became more of a farm tool with the development of glyphosate resistant crops, which have been rapidly adopted in soybean, maize, cotton, canola, and sugarbeet in large part because of the economic advantage of the technology. Such crops allow for use of glyphosate as a weed control method.
But the IARC report has certainly started processes which could push farmers away from using glyphosate.
As recently as last week the U.S. Right to Know website reported more than 265 lawsuits are pending against Monsanto Co. in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, filed by people alleging that exposure to Roundup herbicide caused them or their loved ones to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and that Monsanto covered up the risks.
And European Union countries failed last week to vote on a licence extension for glyphosate. The current licence expires at the end of the year.
The EU did pass an 18-month extension in June 2016 pending further scientific study. “That research came in the form of a European Chemical Agency conclusion in March that there was no evidence to link glyphosate to cancer in humans,” reported www.reuters.com “It was the same conclusion as that of the European Food Safety Agency and of regulatory bodies of other countries such as Canada and Japan.”
No doubt the delays relate to the European Parliament calling for the product to be phased out in the next five years.
Muddying the waters even more is another Reuters storyline which suggests the IARC report may not have had all the data, including that suggesting glyphosate was not a cause of cancer, when it made its decision.
Sadly, even if the IARC report is found flawed, the damage done may not be repairable, as consumers and governments are clearly looking for bans and the machinations to achieve that will not be easily stopped.
Calvin Daniels is Editor with Yorkton This Week.
