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ON THURSDAY OF this week there was quite a rare occurrence in the European Union institutions. Member States failed to agree or even disagree on an issue of major importance to human health and to Ireland’s biodiversity.
In Brussels, we might be used to plenty of bad compromises, good mistakes and fantastically mediocre outcomes, but rarely do we get no decision at all.
On that day, representatives of EU Member States met in an appeals committee to decide once and for all if the weedkiller glyphosate, better known by the brand name RoundUp, would be taken off the shelves for good. By the end of that meeting, no decision was taken. No majority was reached, no compromise made.
And so, with no direction from EU governments, the European Commission now sees no other option than to allow the chemical glyphosate to remain on the market for another decade.
The continued use of glyphosate is a highly political issue, with serious consequences for human health and wildlife.
It is perhaps the most widely used pesticide in the world, with a market of about €4bn a year. As well as its general use to treat weeds and mosses on driveways and lawns, it is more widely used in agriculture and forestry. In tillage farming, it has been used to facilitate harvesting as well as for weed control. It has now even made its way into our bloodstream. A recent study by the University of Galway found traces of it in the urine samples of 25% of Irish families tested. In some countries, such as the USA, those numbers are closer to 80%.
This widespread use, the low price, and the open availability of glyphosate come at a cost. A cost we are only starting to come to terms with.
The European Chemicals Agency has classified glyphosate as toxic to aquatic life. Given the known presence of glyphosate in Irish rivers, this should start ringing alarm bells. Other studies have shown glyphosate seriously damages the ability of pollinators like bees to maintain a colony – pollinators which four out of five European crops and flowering plants depend on to survive.
In human health, it has been linked to liver cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. While the jury remains out on the carcinogenic link to glyphosate despite the WHO defining it as ‘probably’ carcinogenic in 2015. Millions have already been paid out in settlements taken by farmers in the US, France and Australia who have been hospitalised from the effects of the weedkiller, including a campaign of 5,000 affected farmers in the US.
Despite this, the European Food Safety Authority released a risk assessment earlier this year on glyphosate, which concluded “no critical areas of concern” around the active ingredient. This had us scratching our heads, especially as the same report found a “high long-term risk to mammals” in 12 of 23 proposed uses of the chemical.
Unfortunately, the same report did not take into account the impacts on biodiversity, despite what we know about the detrimental impact of this weedkiller on our natural heritage.
Moreover, the report found massive gaps in the data. Most worryingly perhaps was the lack of information about how glyphosate reacts with co-formulants and adjuvants – chemicals commonly mixed with glyphosate and designed to amplify its effects.
The chemical itself was branded and marketed by the agrochemical giant Monsanto and was designed essentially to kill everything that wasn’t a Monsanto plant. So it is no surprise then that the same company (since bought out by rival giant Bayer) has put a lot of money into lobbying to keep glyphosate on the market. In 2021 and 2022, companies with a stake in glyphosate spent over €600,000 in lobbying European officials and MEPs via the Irish PR firm Hume Brophy (now known as Penta), according to the EU Transparency Register. Elsewhere, the US government and agrochemical lobbies have pressured countries like Thailand and Mexico to drop proposed bans on glyphosate, threatening trade wars in retaliation.
The EU appeals committee’s failure to come down hard on glyphosate this week will likely lead to the product staying on our shelves for another decade. It is a bitter pill to swallow for campaigners, farmers, market gardeners and communities who have fought hard over the decades to take on the lobbies and the special interests.
As an MEP working on the Environment Committee, I am determined to keep up the momentum. We are calling for the President of the Commission to intervene, and for Ireland to take a step forward in restricting the use of glyphosate as has already been done in countries like Luxemburg, Belgium and France.
With more and more countries opposing the use of glyphosate, it is just a matter of time before it is taken off the shelves. I just hope that day comes before its impact on human health and on biodiversity is already irreversible.
Grace O’Sullivan is a Member of the European Parliament for Ireland South, trained field ecologist and former Greenpeace activist.
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Grace, Can I please ask you this, Why is your leader Eamon Ryan Promoting Dangerous Road Safety measures by pushing out junctions with concrete and stainless steel poles? and narrowing down roads with cycle lanes that cyclists don’t even use??
Also Why has given free use of the road to E-Scooters? They draw electricity from the grid and the people that use them can’t be seen coming up behind you with traffic as they don’t even wear black clothes and no hi-vis
@Luka Roche: how is making drivers slow down at junctions making things more dangerous lol? they do this in urban areas for the safety of pedestrians.
i hope you never go to a spanish city where this is just normal.
also councils are doing this. eamon ryan doesn’t micromanage the whole country like you weirdos seem to think.
@eoin fitzpatrick: Then who funds local authorities across Ireland?
This narrowing of roads with cycle lanes and planting concrete at junctions with concrete and stainless steel poles STARTED WHEN THIS GOVERNMENT WAS FORMED IN JUNE 2020.
@eoin fitzpatrick: I was driving a while ago,approaching a roundabout. Naturally,I slowed down.It was dusk,so cars had their headlights on,either through automatic driving systems,or manually switched on. I looked right,nothing coming,so moved on. Wow! All of a sudden,e-scooter in front of me,slammed on the brakes. No lights,head to toe in black clothing. Finger on the button,scooting around,he had right of way,but jeez,make yourself more visible! Any collision,he was the one that would come off worse. As I stopped to let him by,was subjected to a torrent of abuse.
Errr……Glyphosate. Given that it is apparently very toxic to it’s users (as well as to everything and anyone else – not attached to a Monsanto / Bayer product,) it seems odd that the EU or indeed the Irish government is so disinterested in the health of it’s citizens that neither has done a follow up study on what the WHO has found to try to identify if more farmers are getting cancer from using it than is the case with the rest of the respective populations. 5000 farmers in the US are so concerned they have set up a group to sue or get the regulatory agencies to ban Round Up. Are we to believe that farmers in Europe are not concerned? Or is it the case that whoever pays the piper calls the tune in the case of the bought and paid for politicians and main stream advertising dependent media in this country and in Europe? I won’t even go to the implications for future cancer, diabetes and heart disease figures as well as health care costs and deaths or the fact that Glyphosate has invaded the bloodstreams of 25% of Irish families and up to 80% of US families. We are truly mad to accept this.The difference is that in the US families can sue the manufacturer but in many other countries the US government threatens trade tariffs if the courts or governments exercise their rights to protect their people by trying to ban the product. Economic imperialism at it’s worst.
@michael mcsharry: They know very well the consequences of using it, they don’t care, They care about self enrichment.
@michael mcsharry: Stop telling Porky’s
@michael mcsharry: it’s worse than that. Glyphosate is found in crops we eat – a UK study found it in 60% of bread as it’s sprayed on wheat before harvesting. And don’t get me started on our water supplies full of sewage. Also look up biosolids on crops. It’s all enough to make you resort to collecting rain water and growing your own crops. Lastly, US are looking to introduce some preemptive legislation to prevent people suing Monsanto/Bayer. We are being slowly poisoned – it’s in the waterways, killing wildlife, sprayed all over crops and fruits and yet, despite countless research linking Glyphosate to cancer, the EU cowards have bowed down to agri lobbyists – the nonsense report that says Glyphosate is safe was funded by the same agri lobbyists.
If glyphosate is as bad as portrayed it would be well known as a health hazard to its users after years and years of use. There is no study that I’m aware of that shows excess mortality among tillage farmers because of its use.
@JP: emerging parkinson cluster.?
@JP: what do you mean by “excess mortality” and what is your idea of the amount of mortality that is more than nessessary, permitted or desirable?
@Robert Duggan: sheep dip is the cause of that. Farmers would be up to the elbow in the dipping tank and clothes soaked thru with organophosphate
@JP: no study that you’re aware of? – oh you’re the Oracle? You might start with some basic level Google research, or maybe get your urine checked if you think it’s so far fetched that Glyphosate, which has been found in multiple long term global studies to cause cancer – somehow doesn’t do just that -because you know best. You’re so right. Why didn’t we think of that? We must all humbly apologise on behalf of this article and person who thought they knew they’re stuff that @jp knows more. We must bow to our learned colleague @JP. Please @jpbthr Oracle, enlighten all of thise plagued with cancers caused by Glyphosate, as to why it’s okay to spew into our waterways, be sprayed over all the crops we eat, be evident in 80% of random sampled urine. We anxiously await your reply….
Mark this day. Nature does not respect profit. Remove food safety from agriculture dept as this may be an expensive future class action by parkinson or cancer patients with the polluter liable?
@Robert Duggan: they are writing legislation in the states to prevent future class action for Monsanto/Bayer being sued. Australia ongoing. They’ve forked out over half billion already in states.
I don’t think religious fanatics should be allowed opinion pieces. unfortunately that’s what the Green doomsday cult is these days. won’t be happy until most of the world is starving.
@edw: Not spraying dangerous chemicals on our food and into our rivers is such a ridiculous idea isn’t it
EU policy of profit before people. It’s disgusting.
Let’s stick to the point people. Glyphosate is a carcinogenic, biosphere-destroying pesticide which is being used indiscriminately and has ended up in people’s bloodstream analyses. Why would anyone want to endanger themselves and others for the sake of a neat garden and
weedless soil. Obviously to take the easy option and to hell with the invisible toxic consequences. There’ll also be no bees or butterflies left to pollinate a vast number of plants. How many times……..?
@Patricia Cautley: this isn’t about gardening. This is caused by agri spraying it all over crops, found in 60% breads, throughout waterways across the globe and in 80-90 humans in their urine. But heck, it’s too tough for these factory farmers to try something that doesn’t deliver fat pockets, so let’s kill of waterways, wildlife and countless millions of humans as it’s easier that way. Sure the planet and humans are fkd anyways.
The Irish Greens have shown us that they are mere shills for corporations and business interests.
All their policies are for the enrichment of these, and to hell with the rest of us. It matters not to them the cost to us, via taxation or the cost to our environment.
There is simply no point to them anymore.
Can’t see the current generation out with hoes weeding the fields. If you want your food to cost 10 times as much ban away. Sitting on your couch all day is a far greater risk to your health as is malnutrition. Same lot of you are probably anti vaxers who don’t seem to recall half of children died, yes 50% before the age of 5 before vaccines. There is a risk with everything and it generally the lesser of 2 evils that win out. As it stands there is no alternative to round up presently apart from the hoe.
@gregory pym: well said.majority don’t even know what a hoe is.
I’m less concerned for adult farmers wilfully spraying glyphosate across their land for profit despite the damage it does to the environment and more concerned about its link to autism and diabetes in children.
@Pat the Baker: yeah, never mind the cancer debacle and all those class actions in the us Australia and across the globe. So long as you’re less concerned about cancers that Glyphosate causes, that’s all that matters.
The Monsanto name was so toxic that when they merged with Bayer, the company that invented Heroin and supplied the Zyklon-B gas for Nazi Death Camps, they decided to keep the Bayer name.
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