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ON THURSDAY OF this week there was quite a rare occurrence in the European Union institutions. Member States failed to agree or even disagree on an issue of major importance to human health and to Ireland’s biodiversity.
In Brussels, we might be used to plenty of bad compromises, good mistakes and fantastically mediocre outcomes, but rarely do we get no decision at all.
On that day, representatives of EU Member States met in an appeals committee to decide once and for all if the weedkiller glyphosate, better known by the brand name RoundUp, would be taken off the shelves for good. By the end of that meeting, no decision was taken. No majority was reached, no compromise made.
And so, with no direction from EU governments, the European Commission now sees no other option than to allow the chemical glyphosate to remain on the market for another decade.
The continued use of glyphosate is a highly political issue, with serious consequences for human health and wildlife.
It is perhaps the most widely used pesticide in the world, with a market of about €4bn a year. As well as its general use to treat weeds and mosses on driveways and lawns, it is more widely used in agriculture and forestry. In tillage farming, it has been used to facilitate harvesting as well as for weed control. It has now even made its way into our bloodstream. A recent study by the University of Galway found traces of it in the urine samples of 25% of Irish families tested. In some countries, such as the USA, those numbers are closer to 80%.
This widespread use, the low price, and the open availability of glyphosate come at a cost. A cost we are only starting to come to terms with.
The European Chemicals Agency has classified glyphosate as toxic to aquatic life. Given the known presence of glyphosate in Irish rivers, this should start ringing alarm bells. Other studies have shown glyphosate seriously damages the ability of pollinators like bees to maintain a colony – pollinators which four out of five European crops and flowering plants depend on to survive.
In human health, it has been linked to liver cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. While the jury remains out on the carcinogenic link to glyphosate despite the WHO defining it as ‘probably’ carcinogenic in 2015. Millions have already been paid out in settlements taken by farmers in the US, France and Australia who have been hospitalised from the effects of the weedkiller, including a campaign of 5,000 affected farmers in the US.
Despite this, the European Food Safety Authority released a risk assessment earlier this year on glyphosate, which concluded “no critical areas of concern” around the active ingredient. This had us scratching our heads, especially as the same report found a “high long-term risk to mammals” in 12 of 23 proposed uses of the chemical.
Unfortunately, the same report did not take into account the impacts on biodiversity, despite what we know about the detrimental impact of this weedkiller on our natural heritage.
Moreover, the report found massive gaps in the data. Most worryingly perhaps was the lack of information about how glyphosate reacts with co-formulants and adjuvants – chemicals commonly mixed with glyphosate and designed to amplify its effects.
The chemical itself was branded and marketed by the agrochemical giant Monsanto and was designed essentially to kill everything that wasn’t a Monsanto plant. So it is no surprise then that the same company (since bought out by rival giant Bayer) has put a lot of money into lobbying to keep glyphosate on the market. In 2021 and 2022, companies with a stake in glyphosate spent over €600,000 in lobbying European officials and MEPs via the Irish PR firm Hume Brophy (now known as Penta), according to the EU Transparency Register. Elsewhere, the US government and agrochemical lobbies have pressured countries like Thailand and Mexico to drop proposed bans on glyphosate, threatening trade wars in retaliation.
The EU appeals committee’s failure to come down hard on glyphosate this week will likely lead to the product staying on our shelves for another decade. It is a bitter pill to swallow for campaigners, farmers, market gardeners and communities who have fought hard over the decades to take on the lobbies and the special interests.
As an MEP working on the Environment Committee, I am determined to keep up the momentum. We are calling for the President of the Commission to intervene, and for Ireland to take a step forward in restricting the use of glyphosate as has already been done in countries like Luxemburg, Belgium and France.
With more and more countries opposing the use of glyphosate, it is just a matter of time before it is taken off the shelves. I just hope that day comes before its impact on human health and on biodiversity is already irreversible.
Grace O’Sullivan is a Member of the European Parliament for Ireland South, trained field ecologist and former Greenpeace activist.
Delete instagram. Problem solved.
@Mr. Cullen: big time.
@Mr. Cullen: came to say that. I have deleted all social media apps. It’s a rabbit hole of disinformation. Leads to the next thing you don’t want in life. Can’t have a conversation about anything without the phone picking it up and bombarding me with adverts about whatever we were chatting about.
I have twitter and Facebook account under a fake name and only follow news and local things in my area. I block all who try add me as friends etc and only check them about once a week.
Social media is anti social.
@Mr. Cullen: comment of the day/week/month
@Rafa C: also a hood comment however less is more.
@Dman: thx
It’s mental, especially when the thing that affects a child the most is how happy their parents are. They worry about us just as much as we worry about them.
Social media is an increasingly polluted sewer.
People on social media complaining about being on social media, yawn.
Give me strength! Don’t be influenced!! Very easy….
@Caroline Urch: it’s a supply and demand thing though isn’t it?.. in the real world I mean.
I’m also a neurotic woman, can I write a weekly article here?
@: She left the comments open though. Oh and she put her name on it. So not that much of a pu$$y.
@Louis Jacob: Yes I’m sure that she has control over whether the comments are open or not.
Stay off Instagram & Tiktok. Full of nothing but degenerates ‘living their best lives’
Parents now have to deal with social media, parents before them lived under the gaze of the church. At lest parents of the “modern” era can just log out or press delete.
I think this is an extremely accurate and well written article, that will resonate with huge portion of parents.
In all fairness. Anyone taking life tips off influencers really need a reality check.
Anyone who cares what strangers think about them also really need a reality check.
Ah, another expert to advise us. Just what we need. Her problems are her problems, let her sort them in private
I think you need to wonder if even writing this column is good for you. It’s exhausting just reading it, never mind actually living it once and then recalling it for this column. Not necessary and not healthy.. and I can’t help but wonder do you maybe secretly welcome the mayhem as it’s content for your piece? With the greatest of respect, I think it was obvious to a lot of people that social media was always going to turn out this way. It’s not much more than a continuation of school yard ‘look what I got’ jealousy/popularity contest.. and most of it lies.
Look up Daniel Schmachtenberger on the tube, begin from there. Continue to grow past the strictures you describe!
@Chutes: I’ve seen that. Yeah. It’s very good. This is all very addictive shit though. We’re all trying so hard to be distracted.
We aren’t bombarded with images of perfection. We are bombarded with feigned images of what some people think perfection is. (and it’s often far from.)
It started with advertising, in terms of capitalism in the early 1900′s your ‘parents’ did have the same problems, but it infiltrated our lives less at the time. These days people’s lives exist on ‘their’ platforms, so the money machine is now creating housing for us to digitally live in. At the end of the day, Musk and Zukker are your bosses Margret. (It’s an old and obvious one but the Adam Curtis doc; Century of the Self lays some of it out really well).
You admitted your only get a snap shot of other lives – u know it’s not all sunshine and roses but yet it’s upsetting you? I think people who have this mind set should do themselves a favour and come off social media. If u can’t do that id advice you to think about it all in a different way. Also maybe look inward as to why this is upsetting you & I mean that with the best intent! Good luck
My parents were bombarded by my perfection. Lol.
I don’t agree. Back in the 70s, there were numerous adverts for diet aids and how compulsory is was to have a perfect beach bikini body. It was indicated you would only get men’s attention if you were slim. My mother was always miserable and moaning about being fat, yet my dad loved her no matter what size she was. When I look back at old photos she was not fat!
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