Major oat buyer Grain Millers, based in Western Canada, announced that it will no longer source oats that have been coated with glyphosate.
“In an April 20 memo to Prairie oat growers, Grain Millers said the new policy was ‘driven by functional performance attributes of finished products manufactured from oats known to have been treated with glyphosate and by customer demand.’ [1]
For years scientific data has conclusively proven that the primary active ingredient found in Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide Roundup — glyphosate — is highly toxic to plants, dangerous to animals, and can be detrimental to human health. Unfortunately, Roundup (as well as other glyphosate-containing herbicides) also happens to be the world’s number one weed killer with no signs of slowing down … until now.
One major oat buyer has now stepped forward to reject glyphosate-treated oat crops. Having consistently experienced and seen the actual damage that Roundup does to the oat crop, Grain Millers has rejected it.
Why would any company accept such an inferior food product when organic alternatives are readily available? Likewise, why would oat farmers continue to pay for herbicide applications which cause such obvious and predictable damage to their yearly harvests?
But seemingly more importantly (to companies, at least), why would companies continue to choose pesticides and GMOs when consumers are demanding organic and non-GMO? This is actually the driving force behind the recent changes instituted by many companies.
Here’s what repeatedly happened to annual oat crops treated with glyphosate:
“Terry Tyson, Grain Millers procurement manager in Yorkton, Sask., said the company has been considering this policy for a few years.
About three years ago they started to notice problems with oat groat quality, which resembled frost damage, but weren’t sure about the cause.
‘When mills cut, flake or roll the groat, it is chalky, it’s brittle, it breaks apart and the finished product doesn’t make spec, in terms of granulation or absorption,’ Tyson said.
‘The groat integrity is affected much like an early frost affects groat integrity…. (But) frost damage you can see on the groat. You can control it… by rejecting a truckload or carload…. The damage with this issue is somewhat subtler.’” [1]
Their are a number of important takeaways from this excellent sleuthing.
- First, that glyphosate, because of its toxicity, probably has deleterious effects on every crop that it is applied to. However, the corporate toxicologists and herbicide experts are literally paid not to conduct the necessary scientific research that will demonstrate those problems. What they will do is give their blessing to Roundup year after year in spite of so much anecdotal and circumstantial evidence that clearly indicates it’s high level of toxicity.
- Second, Roundup, by its very nature and extraordinary effectiveness, has shown that it is poisonous to life. After all, it is an extremely effective weedkiller; therefore, why would it not be harmful to all living organisms? In order to successfully function as a broad spectrum herbicide it must contain powerful and poisonous ingredient(s) which can quickly kill weeds.
“In March the World Health Organization issued a report on glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, and four other pesticides. WHO experts concluded that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic to humans.” [1]
- Third, that when even the World Health Organization (WHO) has reported on the likely carcinogenicity of glyphosate, it’s especially alarming. The many layers of vetting, both scientific and bureaucratic, at the WHO is legendary which only solidifies the body of evidence against the safety of glyphosate for human consumption.
- Fourth, when it can be proven — with absolute certainty — to farmers, produce buyers, and food processors that good crops are altered for the worse, the case will be taken seriously by corporate management as well as the boards of directors. Both groups are paid well to ensure that high integrity food products are made for sale, not inferior ones.
As more and more farmers and food processors identify the various ways in which glyphosate-treated crops are clearly substandard (and unnecessarily toxic), there will likely be a noticeable change throughout the Agriculture and Food Processing Industries.
The day may not be far off when similar press releases are issued by many more companies terminating their use of glyphosate herbicides, once and for all.
Source
[1] The Western Producer
Reference
SF Source Natural Society May 2015