Herbicides

For the past 2 weeks, I had several interesting encounters with the use of Roundup (an herbicide sold by the chemical giant Monsanto - who is still stuck in the false utopia of the "Green Revolution" ushered in by Norman Borlaug). In a conversation, I was told the story apparently used by some agricultural reps that Roundup is safe and could be drank like Iced Tea! Then, I was out for a run and saw a man spraying a chemical that smelled like Kerosene around his driveway. When I asked him what it was, he stated that it was Roundup. I wondered if it was legal in town and he said that he bought it at the store so, he assumed it was. Furthermore, he was not worried about any harmful effects because there were no wells in the area. Then, this morning I was shown an article in the local paper, The Invermere Valley Echo, called All chemical herbicides are toxic, written by K. Jean Cottam, Ph.D.

A little research showed that there is tremendous controversy surrounding this chemical including court cases and scientific allegations against Monsanto. Glyphosate is the main active ingredient in Roundup but the surfactants used may be the key to toxicity in humans. I was surprised that Wikipedia, being often from a conventional approach, had a great article on Roundup which included a lot of the controversy.