If you’ve looked around my blog at all, you probably know that I am an environmentalist at heart and try the best that I can to be a steward of the land.
My goal in this article is to be unbiased and scientifically grounded. I will share data and information from various scientific studies.
This article will explore the complexities of glyphosate, so that you can decide for yourself if you’d like to use it on your garden, homestead, or farm.
It is very effective at what it does, and helps farmers and home gardeners alike to control weed pressure.
Glyphosate is the chemical in products in the Roundup line of herbicides. According to Harvard University, some crops have been modified to be “Roundup Ready” so that they are not impacted by the herbicide. These crops are only available to large-scale farmers and cannot be purchased by the home gardener.
The United States EPA deems glyphosate as safe for human health when applied “according to label directions.”
However, there is a lot of debate out there as to just how safe glyphosate is for humans, local ecology, and the greater environment.
For the ordinary person, this is pretty confusing. How can the EPA and WHO see the issue so differently?
Some folks say that the EPA’s proclamation is more accurate, since they reviewed more documentation than the WHO.
Although, when you dig a little deeper, there is an interesting distinction to note about the kinds of studies each organization reviewed.
According to research published in Environmental Sciences Europe in 2019, the EPA looked at “registrant-commissioned, unpublished regulatory studies,” where 99% of the studies concluded no causes of cancer. It appears that some of the studies evaluated by the EPA were commissioned by Monsanto, the manufacturer of RoundUp.
These studies mostly looked at the average person who was not applying glyphosate in their gardens or farms.
On the other hand, the WHO looked at peer-reviewed studies, where 70% of the studies saw a connection between glyphosate and cancer.
The WHO evaluated a mix of studies from both dietary ingestion and occupational use of the chemical.
Lianne Shappard is a statistician in the field of environmental statistics. She was a member of the US EPA Scientific Advisory Panel that reviewed the EPA’s stance on glyphosate. She says “I was shocked to see that the EPA’s approach to distilling the scientific information obfuscated the evidence.” It also seems like the EPA went against their own guidelines for evaluating studies.
Yes, and here are a few of them:
Additionally:
These are some of the reasons why glyphosate products like RoundUp are banned for household use in France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. It is also totally prohibited in Vietnam.
Germany has prohibited its use in public places and hopes to ban it country-wide by the end of 2023. Mexico hopes to follow their lead in 2024.
If you’re ready to ditch the RoundUp for something more environmentally friendly and human-health friendly, here are some options:
I’ve personally found mulching to be very effective as a weed barrier. As a bonus, it breaks down to increase soil organic matter. You can mulch with organic straw, hay, or grass in your raised beds or garden areas, while wood chips work well in pathways or perennial plant zones.
Even when weeds do push through the mulch, their population is less than it would have been without the mulch. I’ve also noticed weeds that are growing through mulch are much easier to pull out fully.
Mulch is one of the core tenants of regenerative gardens for a good reason! In addition to weed prevention and the addition of organic matter, mulch also keeps soil hydrated. This means you'll need to weed less and water less!
On our homestead, we have also had success with black plastic tarps covering extreme weedy soil during the heat of the summer. My initial thinking is that this could harm the soil microbiome, but Cornell University says that it may actually increase soil microbial activity.
University of California shares that solarization (with clear plastic in summer instead of black plastic) can increase levels of beneficial microorganisms as well. Solarization is another technique to control weeds, pests, and soil-borne diseases. They state, “many beneficial soil organisms are able to either survive solarization or recolonize the soil very quickly afterwards.”
Many organic regenerative farmers terminate their cover crop plantings with black plastic tarps as an alternative to roller crimping.
While it’s more time-intensive and takes more physical labor, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure when it comes to weeds.
Checking out your garden, lawn, and landscape regularly and pulling up any troubling weeds can help prevent weed problems down the line. If a plant is removed and comes back multiple times, you can still prevent it from going to seed by continuously cutting it back until winter temperatures help you out.
When we first moved to our homestead, I delighted in the large and vibrant Bull Thistle plants that were scattered around the property. I was happy to see their fluffy whisps of seeds floating in the wind in the late summer. That winter, however, I learned that Bull Thistles are a non-native plant in my area, and are highly invasive.
Not surprisingly, I had a large number of Bull Thistle seedlings come up the following year. The population might have increased 10 or 20 fold. However, I was persistent about picking the seedlings out. I didn’t get the root all of the time. However, I knew that each time I cut the plant back, I was one step closer to preventing that plant from setting seed. I became really good at spotting small Bull Thistle plants from afar.
The following year, there were still a few Bull Thistles that came back, but the population was much smaller and far more manageable.
This year I only had a few Bull Thistle seedlings emerge.
This exemplifies the same principles of integrated pest management, but in this case, the pests are the weeds.
In conclusion, you may wish to avoid the use of glyphosate and Roundup. If not for your own health, then for the health of the environment.
It’s true that the US EPA considers glyphosate safe when used according to label directions. However, the classification of glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic" by the World Health Organization raises concerns.
Recent studies have linked glyphosate to cancer and neurological impacts, pollinator populations, soil health degradation, and even global warming.
It seems safer to implement alternative methods for weed control, such as organic mulching, plastic tarps, and manual removal of weeds. These alternatives help mitigate the potential risks associated with glyphosate and can be effective weed management practices.
Find out the basics of regenerative practices, and learn what steps to take to make your garden regenerative.
