Rady Ananda, Contributing Writer
Activist Post
Two new studies by the U.S. Geological Survey reveal the pervasive spread of the biocide, glyphosate, mostly used as a weedkiller for crops genetically engineered to resist it.
Used in formulations by Monsanto, Bayer, Dow and others, glyphosate has been linked to spontaneous abortions in livestock, birth defects in humans, insect resistance, and weed resistance.
Worse, regulators have known for years of these links, Earth Open Source reported.
In early August, Dr. Mercola reported:
Weekly air particle and rain samples were collected during two growing seasons in agricultural areas in Mississippi and Iowa. Rain was also collected in Indiana. The frequency of glyphosate detection ranged from 60 to 100 percent in both air and rain.”
Weeks after Mercola’s report, the USGS just issued a press release:
‘Though glyphosate is the mostly widely used herbicide in the world, we know very little about its long term effects to the environment,’ says Paul Capel, USGS chemist and an author on this study.
This study is one of the first to document the consistent occurrence of this chemical in streams, rain and air throughout the growing season. This is crucial information for understanding where management efforts for this chemical would best be focused.
The Environmental Protection Agency, the USDA and FDA continue to permit our land, air and waters to be polluted by this highly toxic agrochemical, despite a growing body of scientific evidence of its lethality to the biosphere.
Mercola explains:
Glyphosate is the most commonly reported cause of pesticide illness among landscape maintenance workers in California, and researchers have now linked it to Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS), a serious plant disease, in many fields around the world. Numerous studies have also shown that glyphosate is contributing not only to the huge increase in SDS, but also to the outbreak of some 40 different plant and crop diseases! It weakens plants and promotes disease in a number of ways, including:
- Acting as a chelator of vital nutrients, depriving plants of the nutrients necessary for healthy plant function
- Destroying beneficial soil organisms that suppress disease-causing organisms and help plants absorb nutrients
- Interfering with photosynthesis, reducing water use efficiency, shortening root systems and causing plants to release sugars, which changes soil pH
- Stunting and weakening plant growth
Another problem with aerial application of herbicides is aerial drift. Citing a Canadian report from 1998 on the environmental fate of glyphosate, Mercola quotes:
Aerial drift of the herbicide will cause injury to nontarget plants… Minute quantities of mist, drip, drift or splash of glyphosate onto nontarget vegetation can cause severe damage or destruction to the plants or other areas on which treatment was not intended.
Indeed, earlier this year, Food Freedom reported that the Mississippi Rice Council (MRC) sounded a national alarm over damage caused by aerial drift of glyphosate, calling for severely restricted aerial application:
Glyphosate needs to be banned outright and the industrial monoculture system needs to be converted to mixed farms that work with nature instead of against it.
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