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RoundUp aka Glyphosate aka N-[phosphonomethyl]glycine.
Farmers and gardeners hate weeds and often spray something to try to get rid of them. (It's funny that they keep coming back!) The weed killer market hit $33 billion in 2023 alone (imarcgroup.com, n.d.) Weed killers, aka herbicides, are used to kill unwanted plants, in other words—WEEDS. The weed-killer market is all about chemistry. The old way was to dig them up. Another option is to burn them, but that is just too difficult.
The sad part is that many farmers and gardeners do not realize that weeds are indicators of soil health. If they looked at the weeds and their purpose and function, they would learn that many weeds are trying to help heal the soil. Crabgrass can indicate that the soil pH is off or that the soil is too tight. Dandelion can indicate a calcium deficiency. Plantain indicates low fertility and compact soils. Purslane can indicate poor soil nutrition and a high pH. Online searches or books on weeds can help farmers and gardeners selectively pick what to do. And, not all weeds are taking the nutrients from your plants. Some actually fix nitrogen, or in the case of dandelions, bring calcium up from below the surface using their long tap roots.
There is literally a war on weeds and unwanted plants!
In 1974, when glyphosate was introduced to the market, many herbicides, including glyphosate, killed weeds and crops; glyphosate was better and worked on more weeds than the other herbicides. This was a problem. The guys in the kitchen (Breaking Bad reference here!) came up with a formula for the crops that could selectively kill weeds but not the crops. Glyphosate-resistant crops were created using genetic modifications in plants, creating RoundUp-Ready crops. This modification was introduced in 1996. It worked so well that it changed the herbicide market forever. This history is detailed in Stephen Duke’s 2017 paper, “The history and current status of glyphosate.”
With this knowledge and the push for no-till, the USDA and the NRCS launched the war on weeds with a nice little term called “chemical mowing.” (I learned of this at a USDA workshop in 2012) These government agencies helped promote the expansion of glyphosate to most of the corn and soybean growers throughout the midwest and then outside of the United States, effectively making glyphosate the number-one herbicide in the world. The chemical mowing killed the weeds, but not the crops—because they were genetically modified (GMO) to not absorb the herbicide. See Benbrook’s charts on the usage spike: https://enveurope.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s12302-016-0070-0/figures/1 The jump in usage is through the promotion of these government agencies.
In 2024, it has become common to see advertisements for lawsuits and settlements due to various cancers caused by exposure to the chemical, regardless of the following: “Glyphosate has been the focus of intensive scientific study and product innovation. The number of scientific publications and patents involving glyphosate has increased to almost 20,000 in the past 40 years, with most of them in the past 15 years” (Duke, 2017).
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