Have you ever thought
about how your favourite picnic spot in
the local city park is managed? Or what
happens when herbicides are sprayed on the
crops that make up your breakfast cereal?
The truth is that in both city parks and
the intensive agriculture used to produce
breakfast cereals, weed killers
are used on a massive scale, under the unproven
assumption that they are safe. Roundup,
one of the most common commercially available
herbicides, is marketed by US agrochemical
company Monsanto as “safe” for the environment,
and for humans – but “deadly for weeds”.
Our new report, Herbicide Tolerance and
GM Crops written jointly with fellow non-governmental
organisation GM Freeze, however, paints
a very different picture.
One of the main ingredients
of Roundup, as well as several other herbicides,
is a chemical known as glyphosate. Numerous
studies covered in the report associate
exposure to glyphosate with cancer, birth
defects and neurological illnesses (including
Parkinson’s). Alarmingly, lab testing suggests
that glyphosate can cause damage to cells,
including human embryo cells. Other studies
mentioned in the report indicate that glyphosate
may be a gender-bender chemical that interferes
with our hormonal balance. Do you still
feel like having your picnic and breakfast
cereal?
The environmental impacts
of glyphosate are not much better with evidence
suggesting that the chemical has a damaging
impact on our rivers and on the animals
that live in them. It also disrupts nutrients
in soil, exposing plants (that are not weeds)
to disease and could end up contaminating
drinking water.
Whether we like it or
not, we all receive exposure to herbicides:
sometimes from aerial spraying, sometimes
through chemical residues in our food and
sometimes because of chemical run off from
agricultural land that pollutes nearby fields,
seas or rivers. Nobody is happy with this
situation, as an extensive survey on attitudes
to the environment published by the European
Commission last week shows that, across
the board, Europeans feel they need more
information on chemicals and farming.
Of particular worry
is the association between glyphosate and
the cultivation of genetically modified
(GM) herbicide-tolerant crops, known as
Roundup-Ready. These crops, so far are mostly
grown in the Americas, are genetically engineered
to tolerate glyphosate, so that they can
survive massive spraying of Roundup to eliminate
weeds. However, these weeds are now becoming
increasingly resistant to glyphosate-based
herbicides like Roundup.
Resistance to glyphosate
has now been confirmed in over 20 weed species,
with over 100 resistant strains identified,
covering nearly 6 million hectares, primarily
in Argentina, Brazil and the U.S, where
GM Roundup Ready crops are grown. Controlling
these glyphosate-resistant weeds has become
a major problem for farmers, prompting manufacturers
of glyphosate and GM crops like Monsanto
to recommend further increases in the deployment
and concentration of herbicides - including
the use of chemicals that are even more
toxic than glyphosate. This escalation in
the pesticide ‘arms race’ is creating a
vicious circle that is producing a new breed
of superweeds.
There are no winners
in the war against superweeds - but human
health, the environment, farmers and you,
the consumer, all the losers. Given the
problems identified so far, Greenpeace is
demanding a review of the use of glyphosate
in the EU and that no glyphosate-tolerant
GM crops should be authorised in Europe
or elsewhere. With a major reform of European
farming policy just underway, governments
need to recognise that the industrial agriculture
system where GM crops and chemicals thrive
is profoundly unsustainable.
Failure to act will
threaten food production, jeopardise human
lives and put the environment severely at
risk. It is time to round up glyphosate
for good and embrace ecological farming
allowing us to once again enjoy our picnic
and breakfast cereal.
