Toxin Gonibillas – Another View

Prof. Chandre Dharmawardana has been a great defender of the use of Glyphosate, as he claims that traditional organic methods are not feasible for food production.

He claims that Glyphosate is not a toxin and goes further to say that, even 300 mg of vitamin A is a toxin.

If we go by that argument, everything and anything in the world is toxic depending on the dose.

For example, we know of instances where law enforcement authorities have force fed water to suspected convicts to make them talk. Even water can be toxic when over-consumed in a brief period of time.

He further claims that Glyphosate contaminated soils rejuvenate and the biomass of microorganisms, earthworms etc., increases in number. He cites a research paper in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

As general readers of the newspaper, we have to be very careful in accepting various claims made by various parties.

There are two best ways to find out whether Glyphosate is harmless for soil and biomass. One way is to find out how other countries handle this problem, and secondly explore the conclusions of other research scientists in the relevant fields such as environment and chemistry.

Luxembourg is the first country to ban Glyphosate effective from December 31,2020.

Germany will totally ban the use of Glyphosate by the end of 2023. At least ten countries including France, Italy, the Netherlands, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam have banned the use of Glyphosate in their countries. These technically advanced countries would not decide to ban the use of glyphosate, without seriously considering the pluses and minuses of such a decision.

The second relevant source is the Google Research. There are numerous research articles by scientists on this topic, and they emphasize the negative effects of the use of Glyphosate.

One can perhaps quote research outcomes, contrary to this effect. But we should not forget that the multinationals are famous for influencing even the scientific researchers by providing them grants for research and PhD degrees. So, if such contrary results can be found, we may have to accept that the scientific community has not conclusively given their verdict on this issue.

But the ban of Glyphosate by advanced countries is a strong indication that there is a problem with the use of Glyphosate.

Ravindra Jayananda