Over the course of the past two centuries, agricultural practices across the world have gone through several distinct transformations. With the invention of motorized farming implements and improved crop rotation practices our abilities to produce food greatly increased. Yet, the most profound advancement comes not from machines, but the introduction of chemical agents that are capable of inhibiting or completely stopping the growth of crop destroying weeds (Adler, 2011). Focusing specifically on the introduction of herbicides, one such chemical stands out clearly amongst the others, that being N-(phosphonomethyl) glycine (C3H8NO5P) (Paz y Miño Cepeda & López-Cortés, 2014, p.6). The common name for this compound being either glyphosate …show more content…
At first it appears as if this “wonder herbicide” is without any negative side effects. Nonetheless, despite all of the positive benefits that originated from this massive improvement in the agriculture industry, there are hidden dangers associated with using glyphosates so heavily. It increases the chance of developing cancer, causes cellular degeneration, and is not nearly as benign as the chemical corporations previously led the United States populace to believe. For these reasons, the use of glyphosates should be banned across the United States. Looking into the first issue, since the compound “glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world” our food supply is always in contact with it (Campbell, 2014). This alone would not be an issue in and of itself because the “half-life of glyphosate is between 2 and 197 days in soil and between a few days to 91 days in water” (Campbell, 2014). With this in mind, we would never need to worry about ingesting glyphosates because they would break down before farmers harvested their crops. Incidentally, there is actually some cause for alarm since glyphosate is systemic in nature. This means that it will be readily absorbed by a plants leave or roots, then spread throughout and permeate a plants internal structure (Adler, 2011; & Campbell, 2014). Putting this into perspective, even if the glyphosate on the plant breaks down, traces of it can still be left in the plants tissues when …show more content…
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considered glyphosate as Toxicity Class III: “mild irritant compound” (Paz y Mino Cepeda & Lo´pez-Corte´s, 2011, p. 4). Because of this, the use of glyphosates has only ever been regulated in accordance by the preexisting laws pertaining to herbicide sale and production. Fortunately, glyphosates impact on human health has once again come under the scrutiny of the World Health Organization. As of 2015, “the herbicide glyphosate was classified as probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A)” (Guyton, et al., 2015).