Weedkiller debate escalates in the US
Fears over glyphosate’s link to cancer has led to an initiative to lower the weedkiller’s safety level in California, which may have global repercussions. State scientists are proposing a safe level that is over 100 times lower than the US Environmental Protection Agency’s legal guideline. The use of glyphosate herbicides on crops in the US has risen significantly since the mid-1990s, when biotech companies introduced genetically engineered crop varieties that can withstand glyphosate. However, earlier this year the European Chemicals Agency concluded that glyphosate should not be classified as carcinogenic in the EU, despite the European Citizens’ Initiative’s invitation to the European Commission (EC) “to propose to Member States a ban on glyphosate” being formally registered in January. This registration started a one-year process of collecting signatures in support of the proposal – over one million from at least seven Member States have been received, the amount needed for the EC to make a decision about the request to propose a glyphosate ban.