this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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But not from scientists. It's been researched for decades and there's still no proof that it's harmful for people who consume the food it helps growing. Sure, there may be some health issues for farmers who use it and there are some concerns regarding insect populations, but at least for comsumer health it's clear that the effects are small. If they weren't we'd have proof by now.
Hence right now continuing its use is without alternative. Other herbicides, reducing food supply and therefore prices, everyone going vegan - all these things are clearly worse or not politically feasible.
some concerns regarding the insect population is a brazen statement. We lost more than 90%of the insect biomass in western Europe compared to just five decades ago. We are on the verge of our biosphere collapsing.
There is plenty alternatives to herbicides. But they require to create a healthy balance, do crop rotations, operate smaller fields with more variation and so on. So the stuff that would benefit small farmers instead of big agro-conglomerates.
Glyphosate is hardly a main culprit. As you said, it's a herbicide. It's designed to kill plants, not insects. That doesn't make it safe for insects and there are indeed issues, but it's a fairly safe bet that the continuing use of insecticides that are actually made to kill off insects, is a much larger concern.
Glyphosate doesn't affect insects
It shouldn't. But there's a few studies that find a correlation with bee mortality. For example: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969721004654#
Man, meta studies are suspicious as hell to me. I could believe that in field trials there might be slopover from neocotininids, but I have not heard of a mechanism that glyphosate could use to affect bees, and this study doesn't idenfify one either.
Here you go:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35193702/