‘Carcinogenic herbicide in bread’
About half of South Africa’s maize crop and 100% of the soya crop are grown with the use of glyphosate. But Bayer South Africa disagrees that it causes cancer
Before he contracted cancer, Dewayne Lee Johnson had a rich life, with his best days ahead of him, according to court papers filed in the United States. He cherished spending time with his wife and children, loved his job and found joy in writing, music and athletics.
Johnson had, since 2012, worked as a school district groundskeeper in the San Francisco Bay area, which involved spraying Roundup, a herbicide with glyphosate as its active ingredient, as well as using other glyphosate-based herbicides produced by Monsanto, the global seed and chemical firm.
In August 2014, he was diagnosed with non-hodgkin’s lymphoma. In legal action, Johnson claimed his exposure to Monsanto’s glyphosate-based weedkillers, including Roundup, were the culprit. In August 2018, in the first trial against Monsanto, a unanimous jury found the company had spent decades hiding the cancer risks of Roundup.
It awarded Johnson $289-million, a figure later reduced to $20.5-million on appeal. But Johnson’s legal victory would spark thousands of similar lawsuits in the US, and in June last year, Bayer AG, which bought Monsanto, agreed to pay out billions of dollars to settle nearly 100 000 legal claims.
“Bayer took an additional provision in Q2 2021 to reasonably account for future litigation exposure in the event of an adverse outcome,” Bayer South Africa told the Mail & Guardian.
“The company is spending $11-billion in settling with claimants in the class action and has set aside a further $4.5-billion on litigation liability.” This effort to resolve claims “amicably” is a step it is taking in “good faith” to bring an end to the litigation and liability risk.
Bayer, too, has announced that it will remove glyphosate as an active ingredient from the US market by 2023 to “exclusively manage litigation risk” and “not because of any safety concerns”.
The glyphosate formulations in the US professional and agricultural markets will remain.
According to Bayer South Africa, there is no intention to remove glyphosate as the active ingredient in Roundup used in homes and gardens.
This is being contested. Professor Michael Herbst of the Cancer Association of South Africa (Cansa), who has developed a 28-page fact sheet and position statement on the use of glyphosate, said: “Cansa is, at the moment, looking into advocating … for the removal of the current
Roundup from shelves in South Africa and to be replaced with the new formulation that will become available in the US.”
By volume, glyphosate is the world’s most widely produced herbicide, and has become more popular with the increasing market share of crops that are genetically engineered to be tolerant to the herbicide, states Cansa. Glyphosate is widely used in South Africa and has been found in bread flour and maize meal.
According to the African Centre for Biodiversity, half of South Africa’s maize crop and 100% of the soya crop is genetically modified, “meaning it has to be grown with the use of glyphosate”.
In 2015, the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans”. In its position statement, Cansa said it “accepts the finding of a positive association between glyphosate exposure and non-hodgkin’s lymphoma”.
It further accepts research results that indicate that glyphosate could be responsible for, among others,
“endocrine disruption, increasing risk of breast and other cancers; cytotoxic changes (toxic changes to living cells); genotoxic changes (the ability to cause damage to the genetic information within a cell causing mutations, which may lead to cancer); teratogenic changes (capable of forming or tending to form tumours); and pulmonary oedema (excess fluid in the lungs) in exposed individuals”.
Herbst pointed to research in 2017 by Barend Koortzen, of the University of the Free State, which detected glyphosate in herbicide-tolerant maize and soybeans. A total of 81 food products were analysed from several local retailers, with the findings confirming that glyphosate is present in 66% of South African food products studied. The study suggests the consumption of maize and soybean food products does expose South Africans to glyphosate, but at low levels.
Janse Rabie, the head of natural resources at Agri-sa’s natural resources centre of excellence, said Roundup is indispensable to the agricultural sector. “We can’t do
without it,” he said, “and there are no viable alternatives.”
That Bayer AG had settled the US lawsuits raised questions. “It was a surprise to those of us following the case,” said Rabie. “If you’re fully confident in the safety of your product, then why would you settle? The necessary inference is there that there is something to be settled — and that’s a big concern in the public’s mind.”
Pieter Taljaard, the chief executive officer of Grain SA, also said glyphosate is of critical importance for agriculture in South Africa and has gone through rigorous regulatory tests and safety requirements.
“It has been safely used for many years in South Africa by our farmers. Responsible use according to the corresponding label is, however, of utmost importance.”
Glyphosate controls weeds, he said. “As South Africa is a semi-arid country, our grain and oilseed producers are farming with moisture. If you cannot conserve moisture in the soil, grain and oilseed production in many regions will not be possible under dryland or rain fed conditions.”
Glyphosate has allowed producers to adapt systems with reduced tillage or conservation agriculture systems, where they are able to not disturb the soil to control weeds that compete for moisture and sunlight with crops.
Rico Euripidou, the environmental health campaigner at groundwork, said that at least 40 countries and local jurisdictions have banned or restricted glyphosate and Roundup.
“Quite frankly, we have to re-think our agricultural sector in terms of its carbon intensity, climate resilience and ‘adaptiveness’ and the current model of production that relies on glyphosate does not necessarily speak to climate resilience,” he said.
Mariam Mayet, the executive director of the African Centre for Biodiversity, said the use of glyphosate-based herbicides in South Africa for the control of alien invasive plants and weeds is “well established, extensive and currently unregulated”.
“It’s been reported that the overall use of glyphosate has increased from 12-million litres in 2005 to 20-million litres in 2012 with current data on quantity used or sold incredibly difficult to find as this is the sole knowledge of the industry.
“The key question is why does our government not protect us adequately? Bayer can easily be brought in line if our government lays down the rules firmly,” she said.
Bayer South Africa said farmers globally and in South Africa, “rely on glyphosate herbicides as safe, costeffective components of their integrated weed management practices, helping to ensure more productive harvests.
“Glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides, which have been on the market around the world for more than 40 years, are among the most rigorously studied products of their kind. In addition to the rigorous registration that it goes through in the US and the EU … glyphosate has been approved for use in 160 countries including South Africa. The overwhelming conclusion of experts and regulators worldwide support the safety of glyphosate and that glyphosate does not cause cancer.”