Glyphosate: 5 billions pounds of this poison sprayed last year

5 billions pounds of this poison sprayed last year, you heard that right. With staggering rates of autism, cancer and disease rising yearly our food supply and health is at  risk for corporate profit. Sonoma County uses over 2 million pounds of the poison a year and Napa isn’t far behind. No wonder there are childhood cancer rates and high rates of asthma in these counties. Farmworker children have 58% higher asthma rates.

If you live in Sonoma  County, don’t forget March 24th, 1-3pm, Sebastopol Center for the Arts Pam Strayer, organic wine and health writer will show you how to “drink the change you want” with graphs of pesticide concentrations in Sonoma County.   

From our friends at Organic Consumers Association:

Farmers now apply nearly 5 billion pounds of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup® weedkiller on farm crops each year, worldwide. Approximately 300 million pounds are applied on U.S. farmland.

How does Monsanto get away with it? Given the mounting evidence of the damage to human health and the environment?

Mercola.com recently interviewed Carey Gillam, author of “Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science.” An investigative journalist and research director for the consumer watchdog group U.S. Right to Know, Gillam talks about Monsanto’s long and corrupt path to dominance in global agriculture.

Here’s just one fascinating fact from the interview: Our own government won’t test foods sold in the U.S. for glyphosate—but it tests some foods destined for other countries, because those countries require it. Gillam tells Mercola:

“It’s interesting to note that while we don’t test [foods for glyphosate] here in the U.S. … we do test grains and alfalfa and other things that are going overseas. We have a grain inspection agency that does glyphosate testing on different grains. Not those destined for American dinner plates but those destined for foreign dinner plates. Why? Because so many countries around the world don’t want glyphosate residues in their food …”

That situation is unlikely to improve under the Trump administration which, as this in-depth NBC News report suggests, is determined to make it easier—not more difficult—for chemical companies to unleash their poisons on us.

Some great reads:

New German Government Would Ban Glyphosate Herbicides in Shock to Monsanto-Bayer Merger

European Commission Issues Formal Objections to $66 Billion Bayer-Monsanto Mega Merger