How Monsanto’s ‘RoundUp’ is Cursing the Global Food Supply

 Sayer Ji/ Wake Up World

What if the very GM agricultural system thatMonsanto claims will help to solve the problem of world hunger depends on a chemical – glyposate – that kills the very pollinator upon which approximately 70% of world’s food supply depends?

A new study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, titled “Effects of field-realistic doses of glyphosate on honeybee appetitive behavior“, establishes a link between the world’s most popular herbicide – aka Roundup – and the dramatic decline in honeybee (Apis mellifera) populations in North American and Europe, labelled as ‘colony collapse disorder‘ (CCD). [1]

The researchers found that concentrations of glyphosate (GLY) consistent with the type of exposures associated with standard spraying practices in GM agriculture and neighboring eco-systems reduced the honeybees’ sensitivity to nectar reward and impaired their learning abilities – two behavioral consequences likely to adversely affect their survival abilities.

Moreover, while sub-lethal doses were not found to overtly affect their foraging behavior, the researchers hypothesized that because of their resilience, “forager bees could become a source of constant inflow of nectar with GLY (glyphosate) traces that could then be distributed among nest mates, stored in the hive, and have long-term negative consequences on colony performance.”

Let’s take a deeper look at this new study.

Roundup Interferes with Bee Appetite and Learning

Roundup herbicide is a ubiquitous toxicant, with an accumulating body of research now showing it is a common contaminant in our air, water, rain, soil and food, and in physiologically relevant concentrations (even in concentrations of 1 part-per-trillion) demonstrates endocrine disruptive and potentially carcinogenic properties to microbial, insect, animal and human life.

When Roundup herbicide was first evaluated for toxicity to the honeybee, the focus was on acute toxicity of the ‘active ingredient’ and not sub-lethal and prolonged exposure effects; and certainly not the amplified toxicological synergies present in glyphosate formulations like Roundup. When the so-called ‘inert’ adjuvant ingredients (e.g. surfactants) are taken into account, the result of these toxicological synergies have been found to be at least 125 times more toxic than glyphosate alone. By only taking into account acute toxicity – as measured by the so-called LD50 (lethal dose, 50%) – and focusing only on the ‘active’ ingredient, government regulators were premature in approving glyphosate as relatively harmless to honeybees.

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