Roundup is the brand name of an herbicide produced by the U.S. company
Monsanto, and contains the active ingredient glyphosate. Glyphosate is the
most widely used herbicide in the USA, according to the EPA. "Today, Roundup WeatherMax, Roundup UltraMax, and other glyphosate agricultural herbicides produced by Monsanto are among the world's most widely used herbicides." --
From Monsanto's own history.
Monsanto has followed its introduction of Roundup (1974) with an increasing number of genetically modified (GM) crops that are resistant to Roundup, including: Roundup Ready Soybeans (1996), Roundup Ready Cotton (1997), Roundup Ready Canola (1997), Roundup Ready Corn (1998), Roundup Ready Corn 2 (2001), YieldGard Plus (2005), Roundup Ready Flex cotton (2006), Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans (2008), and Genuity Roundup Ready Alfala (January 27, 2011). [source: Monsanto website]
It's obvious Monsanto makes Roundup-resistant crop seeds to sell more Roundup and introduce a dependency on Monsanto for agricultural seeds, often called "vendor lock-in" in other industries. It helps guarantee their long-term profits and is good business sense.
Monsanto claims that these products provide "immense benefits to growers, the environment and consumers around the world." Do they?
Benefits to Growers?
Let's first examine the benefits glyphosate offers to growers. Farmers have always fought to control weeds in their crops, and looked for better ways to do it. Roundup promised to make that job easier. And the invention of crops that were resistant to Roundup was claimed to make it still easier, more profitable and result in greater crop yields (more food to sell -- which is a good thing in the opinion of many).
But is that all true? It seems logical that better ways of killing weeds would help. It's certainly the simple logic marketing uses to sell herbicides like Roundup.
Bad for soil
However, it's not so simple. If the herbicide used to kill weeds stays in the soil long after the harvest, or it causes damage to the fertility of the soil such that future crop yields suffer, has the grower really come out ahead? In fact, it would be pretty easy to say that repeated use, year after year, of a chemical which damages the soil this way would lead to ever increasing costs and reduced crop yields. The grower would enjoy less profit over 5 or 10 years than if he had not used the herbicide.
It turns out this is precisely the case for Roundup. Despite claims by Monsanto that Roundup breaks down rapidly, and is harmless to the soil, it is not so.
Research by Dr. Don Huber, professor emeritus of botany and plant pathology at Purdue University and Barney Gordon, agronomist at Kansas State University, have shown that plants are more vulnerable to disease and malnutrition when exposed to glyphosate (Roundup). Dr. Huber has also shown that Roundup
damages the nutrient quality of the soil. Huber and Gordon also found that Roundup Ready Soybeans were more vulnerable to soil nutrient deficiencies than normal varieties of soybeans.
Planting Roundup Ready Soybeans in a field treated with Roundup is a triple whammy against healthy, high-yield plants: (1) the soil nutrient is damaged, (2) glyphosate causes plants of all kinds to be vulnerable to nutrient deficiencies, and (3) the particular genetically-modified Roundup Ready soybean is extra vulnerable to nutrient deficiencies.
Plant diseases and pathogens are also affected by Roundup. In a paper published in the European Journal of Agronomy in October 2009, Huber and co-author G.S. Johal, from Purdue’s department of botany and plant pathology, state that the
widespread use of glyphosate can “significantly increase the severity of various plant diseases, impair plant defense to pathogens and diseases, and immobilize soil and plant nutrients rendering them unavailable for plant use.” Further, glyphosate stimulates the growth of fungi and enhances the virulence of pathogens such as Fusarium and “can have serious consequences for sustainable production of a wide range of susceptible crops.” Fusarium head blight is one of the most widely damaging of grain crops, such as wheat and barley.
Other research has shown that the
half life of Roundup in the soil is
up to 22 years, rather than the
biodegradable claims Monsanto originally made before being
stopped by court orders.
Bad for people
Glyphosate is the active ingredient of many of the most common herbicides used in gardening, as well. These products have been promoted as quickly biodegradable and non-toxic to humans.
It is sprayed on roadsides while people are driving by, on footpaths when people are walking and in schoolyards and sports fields, exposing children to drift and residues. People buy it from supermarkets or garden shops, and use it without any protective clothing because it is deemed safe. It is sprayed in national parks and other environmentally sensitive areas in the belief that it is not toxic and leaves no residue.
Unfortunately, the facts show this is not the case. While pure glyphosate has a low acute toxicity (the amount in one dose needed to cause death), when it is sold as a commercial herbicide it is combined with surfactants and other ingredients to make it more effective at killing plants. Studies show that the commercial products, such as Roundup, can be three times more toxic than pure glyphosate.
In California, where there is a mandatory system of reporting pesticide poisoning, glyphosate is the third most common cause of pesticide illness in farm workers. It is the most common form of reported pesticide poisoning in landscape gardeners.
A 1999 Swedish study found
clear links between Roundup and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a form of cancer. Another Swedish study linked glyphosate to hairy cell leukemia. Both forms of cancer are rare, but non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is the most rapidly increasing cancer in the western world. It has risen 73% in the USA since 1973.
Farmers exposed to glyphosate have an
increased risk of miscarriages and premature birth, as well as
lower fertility among men. Other studies have found increased incidence of Parkinson disease among farmers using herbicides.
Residues
A report from The United States Environmental Protection Agency states that Glyphosate is 'extremely persistent under typical application conditions'. It is one of the most residual herbicides, with studies in Sweden showing that one application can last up to 3 years.
In warmer climates, it can take less than a year per application for Glyphosate to degrade. However, when it breaks down it does not disappear into harmless basic elements. It degrades into an even more tenacious residual compound called aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA). While AMPA has a low acute toxicity, very few long-term health and environmental studies are conducted on the breakdown products of synthetic chemicals.
Residues of Glyphosate have been found in a variety of fruits and vegetables. This is because it readily moves into all parts of a plant. As it is inside the plant tissues, it cannot be washed off.
Residues can be detected long after glyphosate treatments have been made. One study showed that lettuces contained residues five months after the field was treated with glyphosate. The disturbing thing about this research is that the lettuce seedlings were planted four months after the field was sprayed for weeds. The seedlings absorbed the glyphosate from the soil residues. A World Health Organisation study revealed significant glyphosate residues in wheat after harvest. Milling did not remove it, as it moves into the plant and the wheat seed. The study showed that cooking does not break down glyphosate.
Environment
In addition to the above mentioned problems, there are additional environment effects to consider.
Glyphosate-based herbicides have been shown to cause a significant decline of beneficial insect species in farms. Studies by the International Organization for Biological Control and other researchers have found that between 50 to 80 percent of beneficial insects are killed from exposure to residues of a glyphosate herbicide.
Roundup is very toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms. Concentrations as low as 10 parts per million can kill fish. Daphnia, a very important part of the aquatic food chain, especially for fish, can be killed by as little as three parts per million. This is an important reason why it should not be used near waterways or in drains.
Roundup spray-drift from both ground and aerial applications has been measured from one quarter to half a mile from the target site. Studies have shown that Roundup drift will cause more severe and extensive damage than many other herbicides. This is because it is a broad spectrum, non-selective herbicide and it is transported throughout the plant causing damage to the unexposed parts. This damage, when it does not kill the plants, can last for many years.
Drift that is one thousand times less than the usual application rates has been shown to damage surrounding vegetation, including the killing of wild plants. This is an important reason why it should not be used in national parks and environmentally sensitive areas for weed control.
Glyphosate exposure damages or reduces the populations of earthworms. A New Zealand study showed that 5% of the usual application rate caused delayed development and increased death in earthworms.
Roundup reduces populations of small mammals and birds by damaging the vegetation that provides food and shelter for these animals. The populations of all of these living organisms can take years to recover due to glyphosate's persistence in the soil.
Conclusion
Roundup is widely used in the mistaken belief that it is harmless, safe and readily breaks down leaving no residues. Consequently, it is sprayed in public areas while people are present and by operators without protective clothing. These people are exposed to the drift of this herbicide. The facts show that Roundup causes a range of health problems to humans, plants and animals, it causes environmental problems and that it is highly persistent.
It is time that the widespread use of this toxic chemical on roadsides, footpaths, parks, gardens, schools, farms, forestry, national parks etc was stopped or highly restricted. It's also a very good reason for eating organic foods.
