Sunday 8 November 2015

"Glyphosate is Definitely Genotoxic": Prof. Christopher Porter


Quote; "Glyphosate is the most widely sold weedkiller in the world. You may recognise it as the active ingredient in Roundup. The big chemical companies advise farmers to spray their wheat crops with glyphosate a few weeks before harvest - to kill the crop and remove weeds to make it easier for them to harvest.
Government figures show its use in UK farming has increased by a shocking 400% in the last 20 years. Nearly a third of UK cereal crops (over 1 million hectares) were sprayed with glyphosate in 2013.

A report by the World health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer has just found that glyphosate is a probable carcinogen for humans.

Sadly, glyphosate doesn’t break down immediately, and can follow the grain into food manufacturing processes. Tests by the Defra committee on Pesticide Residues in Food (PRiF) have found that as much as 30% of UK bread contained this weedkiller. It’s even making its way into our bodies.
Two new scientific papers now suggest there are no safe levels at which glyphosate can be eaten in bread.
We need to act now to keep this harmful chemical out of UK bread, and other foods such as biscuits and cereals, for good.
We strongly believe that using glyphosate, and glyphosate based products, as a pre-harvest treatment is fundamentally wrong and are committed to calling for an end to it. 

About glyphosate

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in many weedkillers. It is the world’s most widely sold weedkiller. Government figures show its use in UK farming has increased by 400% in the last 20 years.
Did you know that glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup - used in farming, public places like parks, streets and schools and also by people in their back gardens?
In March 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (part of the World Health Organisation), published a report in which glyphosate was identified as a probable carcinogen to humans.
Read more on the IARC’s conclusions
New data shows glyphosate is appearing more frequently in our bread. This is because farmers, on the advice of the chemical companies, spray their wheat crops with glyphosate a few weeks before harvest to kill the crop and ripen it faster making it easier to harvest.
There is a maximum residue level (MRL) set for glyphosate and the residues found in bread do fall below the current MRL, however this level has not been reviewed since the IARC’s announcement. There has been long-standing scientific concern that glyphosate can have a damaging effect on human health at levels well below the MRL, and there is therefore unlikely to be a level at which glyphosate can be safely eaten. Two recently published reports confirm these concerns, making it even more pressing for the MRL for glyphosate to be re-assessed.
Read more on the evidence

 

What you can do

Do you want to eat bread free from glyphosate?

Become a member or donate to our appeal to get glyphosate out of UK bread." Go to: http://www.soilassociation.org/notinourbread

 

 

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