The Soil Association is calling for a UK ban on the use of Glyphosate sprayed on UK wheat as a pre-harvest weed killer and its use to kill the crop to ripen it faster. New figures analysed by the Soil Association from government data were released at a scientific briefing in London on 15 July 2015. This revealed Glyphosate use in UK farming has increased by 400% in the last 20 years and it’s one of the three pesticides regularly found in routine testing of British bread – appearing in up to 30% of samples tested by the Defra committee on Pesticide Residues in Food (PRiF).

Professor Christopher Portier, one of the co-authors of the Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC) recent report which determined Glyphosate’s status as World Health a probable carcinogen, reiterated the IARC’s conclusions, and said: “Glyphosate is definitely genotoxic. There is no doubt in my mind.”

Dr Robin Mesnage of the Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics at Kings College in London, revealed new data analysis showing RoundUp is 1,000 times more toxic than Glyphosate alone. “Glyphosate is everywhere throughout our food chain – in our food and water. The lack of data on toxicity of Glyphosate is not proof of safety and these herbicides cannot be considered safe without proper testing. We know Round Up, the commercial name of Glyphosate based herbicides, contains many other chemicals which, when mixed together are 1,000 times more toxic than Glyphosate on its own.”

In response to the IARC conclusions, Claire Robinson, an editor at GMWatch.org said: “Outside the United Kingdom, the reaction to the WHO IARC report has been dramatic. Some retailers in Switzerland and Germany have removed Glyphosate products and France has committed to do so by 2018 and German states are calling for an EU wide ban. The Danish Working Environment Authority has declared it as a carcinogen and El Salvador and Sri Lanka have banned it and the Colombia government has banned aerial spraying on coca crops.” To read more go to:

http://www.soilassociation.org/news/newsstory/articleid/8110/soil-association-calls-for-ban-on-glyphosate-the-world-s-most-widely-sold-weedkiller