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herbicides
The Truth About Roundup Herbicide
For decades Roundup has been sold as an effective herbicide, one that was safe for humans and the environment. It isn't.
Mar 01, 2026
Mark Twain supposedly once said, "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story," but there is a difference between a good story told in fun and a story (supposedly backed by independent scientific research) that people are led to believe because, well, science is supposed to be true. And so we come to the story of Roundup, the herbicide developed by Monsanto that swept the world because it worked and was the “safe” alternative to widely used weedkillers like Dicamba and 2,4-D,—it was said to be safer than table salt!
Roundup was developed in the 1970s as a non-selective herbicide, meaning it would kill almost any growing plant it touched. It was an effective burn-down herbicide farmers could apply prior to planting, and it assured an almost weed-free field at the beginning of the growing season. Roundup could be used in non-agricultural situations as well, to kill weeds and grass growing in sidewalk and patio cracks, around buildings, etc, but care was needed because, as noted, it was non-target and could kill whatever plant it touched.
For farmers, it worked well, except while it did kill growing weeds, buried weed seeds were not harmed, so a weed-free field at planting time did not ensure a weed-free field throughout the growing season. Weeds would continue to sprout, and more herbicide applications would be needed during the growing season.
Then Monsanto developed their big fix released in 1996, genetically engineered (GE) soybeans resistant to Roundup, followed by GE versions of other commodity crops: corn, cotton, sugar beet, and canola. Over-the-top spraying of these GE crops would kill everything but the crop, and Roundup became one of the most widely used herbicides in the world and GE crops came to dominate world commodity crop production.
Companies like Bayer have to protect their product and their profit even if they have to tell a few lies to do so.
While Monsanto sold Roundup with the slogan, “One spray is all you’ll ever need,” in time, it became clear that some weeds were developing resistance to Roundup and farmers were right back where they started, looking for herbicides that worked consistently. More genetic modifications were made to commodity crops making them resistant to other herbicides, like Dicamba and 2,4-D, the herbicides Roundup was supposed to have replaced. These multiple GE or “stacked” crops could be sprayed with a cocktail of herbicides, hopefully ensuring weed-free fields for the entire growing season.
Farmers are using more herbicide, even on the GE crops, and costs for GE seed have risen much faster than non-GE seed. Of course, the motive was never to reduce the farmer’s production costs or agricultural herbicide use but to increase it—that's where the profit is.
For farmers who didn’t jump on the GE bandwagon, finding non-GE seed is often difficult. Even more onerous, some farmers have found it necessary to plant GE seed as a preventative measure because non-GE crops can be damaged by chemical drift from neighboring GE fields.
So much for effectiveness, what about the safety of Roundup? In 2000 a study was published in the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology that deemed the active ingredient in Roundup (glyphosate) was safe and not a human health risk. Since then, that study has been cited consistently as proof of Roundup’s safety. Numerous other studies have shown that glyphosate could cause cancer and that the inert ingredients that are part of the patented Roundup formulation increase the toxicity of glyphosate. Further, the practice of using Roundup as a desiccant on small grain crops (oats, wheat, and barley) prior to harvest puts Roundup directly on grain that enters the human food chain.
Since acquiring Monsanto in 2018, Bayer has paid out about $11 billion to settle almost 100,000 cancer-related lawsuits with approximately 61,000 still pending. In December of 2025 another blow to the claimed safety of Roundup came when the Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology journal withdrew the 2000 article that had touted Roundup’s safety. While the study claimed to be independent and peer reviewed, it has come to light that Monsanto's scientists played a significant role in conceiving and writing the article. Oops.
For decades Roundup has been sold as an effective herbicide, one that was safe for humans and the environment, and without which “consequences would be dire.” Companies like Bayer have to protect their product and their profit even if they have to tell a few lies to do so. They claim to produce safe products that help farmers thrive—real independent research refutes that. Bayer and the agribusiness industry may be thriving, but farmers are not and in these times, too few people seem to care that lies are accepted as truth.
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'Life-Threatening Catastrophe': Trump Gutting of USAID Halts Agent Orange Cleanup Work
"The damage this administration has already done throughout the world is pretty staggering."
Mar 17, 2025
The Trump administration's unlawful dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development has ground to a halt critical Agent Orange cleanup efforts in Vietnam, which American forces sprayed extensively with the toxic, cancer-linked chemical between 1961 and 1971—impacting an estimated 3 million people.
ProPublica reported Monday that "workers were in the middle of cleaning up the site of an enormous chemical spill, the Bien Hoa air base, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio abruptly halted all foreign aid funding" last month.
"The shutdown left exposed open pits of soil contaminated with dioxin, the deadly byproduct of Agent Orange," the investigative outlet noted. "After Rubio's orders to stop work, the cleanup crews were forced to abandon the site, and, for weeks, all that was covering the contaminated dirt were tarps, which at one point blew off in the wind."
"And even more pressing, the officials warned in a February 14 letter obtained by ProPublica, Vietnam is on the verge of its rainy season, when torrential downpours are common. With enough rain, they said, soil contaminated with dioxin could flood into nearby communities, poisoning their food supplies," the outlet continued, observing that hundreds of thousands of people live around the air base.
Officials who sounded the alarm didn't receive a response from the Trump administration, according to ProPublica. The officials in Vietnam warned their colleagues in Washington that "we are quickly heading toward an environmental and life-threatening catastrophe."
The Vietnamese Red Cross estimates that more than 150,000 children in the country have been born with ailments attributable to Agent Orange.
Last month, as U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk took aim at USAID, The New York Times spotlighted the story of Nguyen Thi Ngoc Diem, who the newspaper noted was "born with a malformed spine and misshapen limbs—most likely because her father was exposed to Agent Orange."
"It makes no sense," Diem told the Times in response to the Trump administration's assault on USAID. "Agent Orange came from the U.S.—it was used here, and that makes us victims. A little support for people like us means a lot, but at the same time, it's the U.S.'s responsibility."
In the wake of Trump's illegal funding freeze at USAID, the Times noted that "bulldozers that were cleaning up contamination at a former American air base in southern Vietnam—which both countries might eventually want to use—have gone silent."
"Around 1,000 mine-removal workers in central Vietnam have been sent home," according to the Times. "Even if funding returns, in a year meant to mark recovery from the darkness of a cruel war, fundamental damage has already been done in ways that feel—for partners and victims in both countries—like a knife shoved into old wounds."
ProPublica stressed Monday that the Trump administration has not just ordered cleanup work to stop. It has also "frozen more than $1 million in payments for work already completed by the contractors the U.S. hired."
Jan Haemers, the CEO of Haemers Technologies—a company that has worked on Agent Orange cleanup in Vietnam—told ProPublica that "halting a project like that in the middle of the work" amounts to "an environmental crime."
"If you stop in the middle," Haemers said, "it's worse than if you never started."
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New GM Wheat Is a Phony Climate Solution That Threatens Farmers and Wildlife
if we really want safety—for farmers’ finances and the environment—we ought to work more on promoting regional and local seed varieties instead of looking to multinational corporations for guidance.
Oct 13, 2024
The precautionary principle—the ethical equivalent of the common sense notion that it’s “better to be safe than sorry”—means that when some economic or policy change may endanger the public, business and government leaders ought to thoroughly conduct research so as to avoid exposing anyone to unnecessary risks.
Unfortunately, with our food system, our government continues to ignore ethics and common sense, recently approving as “safe for breeding and growing” a new genetically modified (GM) variety of wheat—HB4. Copying and combining certain genes from sunflowers to create this new variety, HB4 is not only pitched to farmers as a tool they could use to battle our ever increasingly dire climate crisis, but also to increase yields.
The truth is another, as this latest proposed tech solution to address our climate crisis stands to improve the financial situation of agribusiness corporations more than farmers, while also likely harming our environment instead of helping it. Not only should the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) rethink their decision, but our officials ought to instead support publicly financing regional and local varieties of seed. Strengthening key provisions of the Farm Bill that is currently in Congress could make such proposals a reality.
We need to develop diverse kinds of seeds that suit different ecosystems instead of global “one size fits all” varieties like we find with GM options.
The overarching problem with HB4—particularly for U.S. farmers—is economic.
According to USDA data from the past 25 years, operating costs for wheat farmers have more than tripled in terms of dollars spent per acre—increasing from just over $57 in 1998, to more than $187 in 2023. Also during this time, while the input cost of seed has more than doubled, going from $7 to $16, chemicals have tripled, climbing from $7 to $22. Fertilizer expenses have risen the most—going from $18 to over $78—representing nearly half of what farmers spend per acre.
Wheat is more than a crop, or ingredient that ends up in bread, but an industry, with chemical, fertilizer, and seed companies each clawing for a share.
Meanwhile, wheat prices in our global marketplace have been volatile. The 28% price jump that farmers experienced in the first months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 quickly stabilized thanks to the Black Sea Grain Initiative—the plan that allowed grain to leave the region for a time until Russia left the agreement in 2023—and different countries easing their export restrictions. Prices then fell, as Ukraine, regularly one of the world’s top wheat exporters, saw its production rebound to pre-invasion levels. Russia’s 2023-2024 exports also exceeded expectations, increasing by 7% over the prior year, making this country the world’s leader in export sales by far.
Meanwhile, the U.S.’ share of wheat exports has steadily fallen for decades, from about 45% in 1980 to just over 15% in 2014. With worldwide production increasing, U.S. wheat farmers may take a loss in 2024.
Maintaining open export markets for wheat can spell the difference between financial life or death for U.S. farmers. On this point, there is no indication that world markets are currently willing to accept HB4, as major international buyers of U.S. wheat have not approved it. With contamination of non-GM wheat a problem that we have been aware of for years, we need to be careful as U.S. farmers can only sell what importers will accept.
The other issue with HB4 wheat is that the seed not only resists drought, but also glufosinate herbicides. Farmers who purchase the seed will have to buy this chemical, in addition to fertilizer. And despite what the USDA claims about safety, studies show that this class of herbicides is toxic to wildlife and humans.
Overall, in addition to potential environmental harm, we have a case of the “price-cost” squeeze that farmers suffer too often, with the inputs that they need taking a significant chunk of their earnings, while the prices that they receive for their labor either shrinking or fluctuating in ways that are largely out of their control.
Accordingly, if we really want safety—for farmers’ finances and the environment—we ought to work more on promoting regional and local seed varieties instead of looking to multinational corporations for guidance.
Both versions of our beleaguered Farm Bill contain such provisions, with the House and Senate versions of the legislation dedicating grant funding to the development of regional seed varieties (referred to as “cultivars” in the legislation).
The operative word here is “regional,” as grant funding may lead to the creation of new seed varieties that would be suited to particular areas and climates. Droughts in general entail a lack of water; but soil conditions and weather patterns vary significantly by region. As a result, we need to develop diverse kinds of seeds that suit different ecosystems instead of global “one size fits all” varieties like we find with GM options.
When the USDA decided that HB4 was “safe,” they must have left out considerations for farmer financial well-being and the environment. But our legislators can make up for this mistake with the Farm Bill—whether it emerges in a lame duck session this year following the elections in November or awaits our next Congress—taking heed of the risks that GM crops pose, and supporting more local and regional food system development.
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