Glyphosate on the road

March 2020

After the World Health Organisation's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded there's enough robust scientific evidence to consider glyphosate herbicide "probably carcinogenic to humans" [1], Edinburgh and Barcelona City Councils announced their intention to take action [2].

Edinburgh commissioned a report on the options and costs of alternative weed control methods such as special blow-torches, hoeing and hot water.  Barcelona was looking at a ban on the herbicide in favour of a sustainable, ecological style of management for its gardens.

Four years later, where have these flagship initiatives led?

Organic farmers pay the price of GM

April 2016

While America wakes up and finds itself with a GM alfalfa pollution problem [1], and Spain scrambles to control its GM maize pollution problem [2], the UK has just found itself with a GM oilseed rape which nearly became a pollution problem.

Britain doesn't, of course, grow GM anything commercially.  The offending genes were found during routine trials of seeds seeking new plant variety registration.  DEFRA quickly recalled the seeds, and ensured that all affected plants will be destroyed by the company which supplied them.  Mysteriously, the seed was imported from France which doesn't grow GM oilseed rape either.

A grass going feral and becoming a conduit for gene contamination is predictable [1].  An invasive gene-transmitting weed from the other side of the world in today's globalised market [2] is something we have to start watching out for.  The possible pollution of our entire seed supply is simply stupidity.

The problems caused by GM contamination aren't abstract or ideological threats. 

GM pollution by invasion

April 2016

America is just beginning out to find out the hard way that growing GM crops with no wild relatives to share their genes with doesn't actually mean they'll stay in the field and under control.  Even after very few years' cultivation, GM alfalfa is now flourishing on US road verges and spreading its genes far and wide [1].

Europe has an interestingly different version of the same problem.

GM crop failures 2015

February 2016

GM in Europe

There's only one kind of GM maize being grown in Europe, and it isn't doing too well.

Edinburgh ditches Glyphosate

February 2016

 

What do Barcelona and Edinburgh have in common?

 

They are two of the most picturesque cities, they both have stunning architecture and an awful lot of tourists, and both can boast lots of green spaces. Also, they each have City Councillors on the ball enough to notice that they are treating their green spaces with a probable carcinogen, to which their citizens and tourists will probably be exposed. Therefore, they've both come to conclusion that it's probably a good idea to ban the offending substance.