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This is Monsanto’s RoundUp.
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It’s in cookies, breads, corn, crackers, chips, breakfast cereals, and beer.
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The list goes on, and on, and on.
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The active ingredient in RoundUp is called glyphosate, and it’s used by backyard gardeners
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and industrial farmers alike to kill invasive weeds.
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And whether glyphosate is harmful to humans or not
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is something of a 66 billion dollar question
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But first: What is glyphosate?
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Commercial: There’s never been a herbicide like it before.
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Glyphosate was originally introduced in 1974 by Monsanto.
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Its use in American agriculture has soared nearly tenfold since Monsanto introduced the
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first genetically-modified RoundUp Ready seeds in 1996.
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Glyphosate is now used in more than 160 countries, with more than 1.4 billion pounds applied per year.
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And while Monsanto lost patent protection over glyphosate herbicides in 2000, the company
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still has about 40 percent of the 8 billion dollar global herbicide market because of
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what is called the “virtuous cycle”:
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Monsanto sells its genetically modified RoundUp-ready seeds to produce cotton, corn and other commodities
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to make them resistant to glyphosate’s herbicidal effects.
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More sales of the GMO seeds beget more use of Roundup; more herbicide use drives up demand
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for Monsanto's GMO seeds.
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For 25 years that cycle has enjoyed an unblemished run in our crops, soil, and food.
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Until now.
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Now Monsanto has its own invasive species creeping in: doubt.
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On its website, Monsanto says glyphosate is “about half as toxic as table salt and more
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than 25 times less toxic than caffeine."
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More than 1,000 farmers and herbicide applicators stricken with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma disagree.
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Hundreds of plaintiffs with cancer have filed a class-action lawsuit against the company.
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In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, known as IARC, determined glyphosate
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to be a “probable carcinogen.”
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Remember that 66 billion dollars?
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That’s where this comes in. It’s how much Bayer is offering to buy Monsanto for, but
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if glyphosate is thought of as cancer-causing, it may back out of the deal completely.
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But what would life without glyphosate look like?
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According to Bloomberg agriculture expert Christopher Perrella, it wouldn’t be pretty.
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The alternative would be a step back.
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And it would definitely affect farmers, income, their profitability, the way they do business.
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Eventually filters down to the consumer in terms of higher prices for meats… for all food products.
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The question now, after the EPA's own hand-picked experts have also voiced concerns, is what
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the Trump EPA will do about it.
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But with administrations from Clinton to Bush to Obama promoting GMOs, it seems unlikely
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Trump’s EPA will be any different.
