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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Monsanto's Glyphosate: Impacts on Human Health and Plant Life
  • Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2010 12:08:00 -0700


Monsanto's Glyphosate: Impacts on Human Health and Plant Life
Scientist Warns of Dire Consequences with Widespread Use
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21039.cfm
by Prof Don Huber December 10, 2010
The Organic and Non-GMO Report, Organic Consumers Association - 2010-06-14

The December/January 2010 issue of The Organic & Non-GMO Report featured
an interview with Robert Kremer, an adjunct professor in the Division of
Plant Sciences at the University of Missouri, whose research showed negative
environmental impacts caused by glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto's
Roundup herbicide, which is used extensively with Roundup Ready genetically
modified crops.

The following interview is with another scientist, Don Huber, who recently
retired from Purdue University, who has also documented negative
environmental impacts from glyphosate. To Subscribe to the Non-GMO Report
call 1-800-854-0586 or visit http://www.non-gmoreport.com/

The widespread use of glyphosate is causing negative impacts on soil and
plants as well as possibly animal and human health. These are key findings of
Don Huber, emeritus professor of plant pathology, Purdue University.

Compromise agricultural sustainability, animal and human health

In a paper published in the European Journal of Agronomy in October 2009,
Huber and co-author G.S. Johal, from Purdue's department of botany and plant
pathology, state that the widespread use of glyphosate that we see today in
agriculture in the United States can "significantly increase the severity of
various plant diseases, impair plant defense to pathogens and diseases, and
immobilize soil and plant nutrients rendering them unavailable for plant use."

Further, the authors state that glyphosate stimulates the growth of fungi and
enhances the virulence of pathogens such as Fusarium and "can have serious
consequences for sustainable production of a wide range of susceptible
crops." The authors warn "ignoring potential non-target detrimental side
effects of any chemical, especially used as heavily as glyphosate, may have
dire consequences for agriculture such as rendering soils infertile, crops
non-productive, and plants less nutritious. To do otherwise might well
compromise not only agricultural sustainability, but also the health and
well-being of animals and humans."

Please tell me about your research with glyphosate.

Don Huber: I have been doing research on glyphosate for 20 years. I began
noticing problems when I saw a consistent increase in "take-all" (a fungal
disease that impacts wheat) where glyphosate had been applied in a previous
year for weed control. I tried to understand why there was an increase in
disease with glyphosate.

I found that glyphosate has an effect on reducing manganese in plants, which
is essential to many plant defense reactions that protect plants from disease
and environmental stress. Glyphosate can immobilize plant nutrients such as
manganese, copper, potassium, iron, magnesium, calcium, and zinc so they are
no longer nutritionally functional.

Glyphosate kills weeds by tying up essential nutrients needed to keep plant
defenses active. Glyphosate doesn't kill weeds directly but shuts down their
defense mechanisms so pathogens in the soil can mobilize and kill the weeds.
Glyphosate completely weakens the plant, making it susceptible to soil borne
fungal pathogens.

That is one reason why we see an increase in plant diseases. Glyphosate
causes plants to be more susceptible and greatly stimulates the virulence of
pathogens that kill plants.

How many plant diseases are linked to glyphosate?

DH: There has been a general increase in the number of plant diseases in the
last 15 to 18 years.

There are four primary soil fungi-Fusarium, Phythium, Rhizoctonia, and
Phytophthora- that become more active with the use of glyphosate.

There has been an increase in take-all, Fusarium diseases, such as head scab,
Gibberella (Fusarium) in corn, Pythium, Corynespora or root rot in soybeans,
crown rot in sugar beets, and bacterial and fungal diseases. Fusarium head
blight (which affects cereal crops) is a disease that produces a mycotoxin
that could enter the food chain.

There are more than 40 diseases reported with use of glyphosate, and that
number keeps growing as people recognize the association (between glyphosate
and disease).

Has research confirmed the link between glyphosate and Fusarium?

DH: There is plenty of data to show that, and it raises concerns about toxins
in food.

Can you give an example of a specific crop that has been negatively impacted
by glyphosate?

DH: Last summer I visited farms that had typical glyphosate damage. I
received a call from a potato seed farmer in Minnesota who grows 1000 acres
of seed potatoes. There was so much glyphosate in the potato tubers from a
previous crop of Roundup Ready soybeans that the potatoes can't be used as
seed and could not be certified.

Proponents of glyphosate say it is environmentally benign. Would you agree
with that assessment?

DH: Absolutely not. That's an outright mistaken notion. Glyphosate is the
single most important agronomic factor predisposing some plants to both
disease and toxins. These toxins can produce a serious impact on the health
of animals and humans.

Toxins produced can infect the roots and head of the plant and be transferred
to the rest of the plant. The toxin levels in straw can be high enough to
make cattle and pigs infertile.

In your paper you say that "the introduction of such an intense mineral
chelator as glyphosate into the food chain through accumulation in feed,
forage, and food, and root exudation into ground water, could pose
significant health concerns for animals and humans and needs further
evaluation." Could you elaborate on this?

DH: Micronutrients such as manganese, copper, potassium, iron, magnesium,
calcium, and zinc are essential to human health. All of them can be reduced
in availability by glyphosate; mineral nutrients are less in glyphosate
treated plants. We are seeing a reduction in nutrient quality (in food crops).

There are also reports of allergic reactions, such as stomach lesions,
produced by the Roundup Ready (genetically modified) gene.

These reactions need to be studied; there needs to be a lot more information
that we don't have. This type of research has been prevented by a lack of
access to information.

What other impacts do you see caused by the Roundup Ready gene?

DH: The gene will reduce micronutrient efficiency up to 50% for zinc and
manganese. It's very significant unless the plant is supplemented with
micronutrients. This could also account for the yield drag (reported with
Roundup Ready crops).

Unfortunately, most researchers are forbidden to do work in the area. They
don't have access to isogenic lines (conventional and Roundup Ready plant
lines that are otherwise genetically identical); the materials are denied to
researchers.

In your paper you recommend using as small a dose of glyphosate as possible.
Why is this?

DH: To my knowledge we've never had this much reliance on one herbicide. It's
hard to find an acre in the US that hasn't had glyphosate applied on it in
the last three years.

We need to have judicious use of glyphosate and remediate the damage that it
does. If we continue to abuse the use of glyphosate, it's just a matter of
time before we see more serious negative ramifications. We will have
increasing toxin levels (in crops), reduced nutrient values, and the direct
presence of glyphosate in crops.

There are a lot of serious questions about the impacts of glyphosate that we
need answers for in order to continue using this technology. I don't believe
we can ignore these questions any more if we want to ensure a safe,
sustainable food supply and abundant crop production.





  • [Livingontheland] Monsanto's Glyphosate: Impacts on Human Health and Plant Life, Tradingpost, 12/12/2010

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