Why Are We Still Using RoundUp?

Conservationists should know better.

A loyal reader wrote in with this question:

I was at a workshop led by [redacted] who said that in restoring a prairie they first used RoundUp to kill everything. He said that it’s not bad stuff and is gone within a week. I was so surprised if not incredulous. If you have an opinion about this I’d be glad to hear it.

I responded: “The evidence I’ve seen suggests that RoundUp is one of the most horrible substances ever created by man.”

Here’s why:

1. RoundUp, and its active ingredient glyphosate, binds up nutrients in the soil, making them unavailable to plants. That decreases the health of plants and makes them more susceptible to disease, thus requiring the use of—you guessed it—more pesticides. A brilliant business model by the pesticide companies, but poor management practice for land stewards trying to build healthy ecosystems.

2. These nutrient deficiencies are passed on through the ecosystem. If the goal in planting a prairie is to provide food for pollinators, then by treating the soil with RoundUp, you’re basically feeding them nectar with the nutritional value of Diet Coke.

3. Glyphosate is an antibiotic. In addition to wreaking havoc on the soil microbiome, it has been shown to effect at least half of species in the human microbiome¹ and has been linked to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in healthcare.² 

4. Regarding the specific point that RoundUp is gone within a week, a study from the University of Missouri showed high glyphosate residues in test plots that had gone a year without applications.³

5. Glyphosate breaks down into a substance called AMPA, which has similar effects, but doesn’t break down easily. AMPA can persist in soils for over a year, at concentrations 10-50x higher than glyphosate.

6. RoundUp is probably carcinogenic.

7. Studies of glyphosate exposure on mice show fertility problems in future generations, even if those generations were not directly exposed to glyphosate.⁴

8. The most extreme view I’ve encountered is by Zach Bush, who predicts that the human species will go extinct within 70 years due to chronic disease and infertility caused by RoundUp exposure. 

I should note that the scientific literature is extremely muddy for a layperson like me to wade into—every paper is refuted by another paper—and much of the pro-RoundUp research is sponsored by its maker Monsanto—everyone’s favorite corporate Bogeyman—so emotion and financial interests can further obscure the hard data.

Hans Holbein. “The Alchemist” from Dance of Death. 1523-5

But because of the growing body of evidence, I find it mind-boggling that conservationists of all people continue to use RoundUp heavily. In addition to the above-mentioned practice of killing sod before seeding native plants for a prairie, RoundUp is widely used for invasive species control. I’ve written previously that RoundUp is one of the accepted best practices for controlling garlic mustard; the same goes for buckthorn and countless other invasives. Every person I know who has worked in conservation or restoration has used RoundUp in their work.

Of course, RoundUp is also used heavily in agriculture—to the tune of 287 million pounds per year in the U.S. And every garage I’ve ever been in has a bottle stashed away for killing dandelions or grass in the cracks of the driveway. But reducing agriculture’s RoundUp dependency requires proving the financial advantage of chemical-free alternatives and then helping farmers implement them—a massive task. And changing the habits of the manicured-lawn crowd will require a major shift in cultural values.

Conservationists, however, should know better.

The problem with conservationists’ embrace of RoundUp is the exclusive focus on a single objective, e.g. native species restoration, without considering the broader ecosystem and human consequences.

And in this case, the cure is worse then the disease.

1. Puigbò et al. “Does Glyphosate Affect the Human Microbiota?” Life (Basel). 2022 May 9;12(5):707. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9145961/

2. Raoult et al. “Role of glyphosate in the emergence of antimicrobial resistance in bacteria?” Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, Volume 76, Issue 7, July 2021, Pages 1655–1657, https://doi.org/10.1093/jac/dkab102

3. Kremer, Robert. “Soil and Environmental Health After Twenty Years of Intensive Use of Glyphosate” Advances in Plants & Agriculture Research. 2017. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314396426_Soil_and_Environmental_Health_After_Twenty_Years_of_Intensive_Use_of_Glyphosate

4. Milesi et al. “Glyphosate Herbicide: Reproductive Outcomes and Multigenerational Effects.” Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2021. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8293380/