Your toast and your porridge might soon have an unwelcome new ingredient. The Luxon Government has recently announced it wants to allow 100 times more glyphosate residues – the main chemical in Roundup – on the grains that feed us every day.
Let’s not sugar-coat it. Glyphosate is dangerous and has no place in our food system.
Make a submission today to let the Government know what you think of raising the Roundup/glyphosate limits on food.
Glyphosate: Bad for people, bad for the planet
The Luxon Government is proposing to increase the Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) for glyphosate on wheat, oats and barley from 0.1 mg/kg to a whopping 10 mg/kg.
That’s a 100-fold increase in a chemical the World Health Organisation classifies as a probable human carcinogen. And for wheat, that is twice what is allowed in Australia and Canada.
Not only does the World Health Organisation say glyphosate probably causes cancer, they’ve also said there is strong evidence it is ‘genotoxic’, meaning it can damage DNA – the very instructions that keep our bodies functioning.
Glyphosate is the poster child chemical of industrial farming – made famous by Monsanto (now Bayer), and used globally in staggering volumes.
It’s also at the centre of legal stoushes, with Bayer (which now owns Monsanto) already ordered by U.S courts to pay billions in damages to people harmed by Roundup. There are 60,000 legal cases against Bayer’s Roundup that are still pending
But the impact doesn’t stop with human health. Glyphosate is designed to kill and its use in the food system has environmental impacts as well. It can harm soil microbiology, reduce biodiversity on farms, and disrupt the health of freshwater ecosystems.
This is not a chemical that belongs on our plates or in our paddocks.
From GE crops to glyphosate-laced bread
There’s a reason the Government wants to raise glyphosate limits now.
Bayer sells both glyphosate and the glyphosate-resistant GMO seeds, known as Roundup Ready crops designed to withstand being drenched by the herbicide. The more these crops are planted, the more glyphosate gets sprayed – and the more of it ends up in our food.
The Government’s Gene Technology Bill would allow these kinds of GMOs to be grown outdoors in Aotearoa for the first time ever. But first, they need to weaken food safety standards – so high glyphosate levels don’t become a regulatory problem for Bayer’s bottom line.
By lifting residue limits 100-fold, Luxon’s Government isn’t just rewriting the rules – they’re rolling out the red carpet for Bayer, while rolling back the protections that keep our food safe.
Pushing pesticides while public health crumbles
The Luxon Government is already presiding over a crisis in our health system. Hospitals are creaking. Healthcare staff are overworked. And instead of funding public health, this Government handed out tax cuts to Big Tobacco. Now they want to prioritise the profits of Big Ag over the health of New Zealanders and the safety of our food.
Public health is being auctioned off to the highest bidder. In this case, Bayer and the agrichemical lobby are lining up.
But we’ve been here before – and we know how to fight back. Aotearoa became a GE-free nation because people stood up together to defend nature and defend the health of our communities.
Now we have to do that again.
Submissions are open now. The Government wants to sneak this one through quickly – and they’re hoping people are too distracted, too tired, or too cynical to act.
Let’s prove them wrong.
Say no to more glyphosate in our food.
Say yes to ecological farming that protects people and the planet.
✍🏼 Make your submission before May 16.
Because breakfast should nourish us – not poison us.
