Glyphosate - the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup - is the most widely sold weedkiller in the world.
Government figures show its use in UK farming has increased by a shocking 400% in the last 20 years. Between 2014 - 2016 area treated with glyphosate increased 24%, and amount applied by 26%.
In addition to its use as a normal weedkiller, its manufacturers advise farmers to spray their wheat with glyphosate to kill and dry the crop, making it easier to harvest.
But glyphosate can follow the grain into our food. Tests by the Defra Committee on Pesticide Residues in Food (PRiF) found that almost two thirds of wholemeal bread sampled contained glyphosate.
Glyphosate’s manufacturers insist the levels in our food are safe. But a report by the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer has concluded that glyphosate is a ‘probable carcinogen’. And research published since the IARC report suggests there is no safe level of glyphosate in food.
We need to get this weedkiller out of our bread, and out of our bodies.
Using glyphosate, and glyphosate-based products, as a pre-harvest treatment is fundamentally wrong, and we have been calling for an end to it.
You can help put an end to this dangerous practice.
Join us, and support our work with a regular donation, and you will be supporting farmers to find and share ways of farming that are good for the earth and good for us.
