The Government has stopped testing our food for glyphosate residues and refuses to prosecute agrichemical criminals. Read on to learn about the toxic cover up.
Thanks to overwhelming public pressure, the Luxon Government has backed down on its poisonous plan to allow 100-times more glyphosate residues on the grains that feed us every day. Every single submission on the proposal was against the idea.
We all have a right to safe, healthy food we can trust – and a government we can trust to protect it. But despite this win, our food still isn’t safe from illegally high levels of glyphosate.
Because ten years ago, Government testing found glyphosate nearly 60 times over the legal limit on food, and a third of wheat samples contaminated. Shockingly the Government responded by shutting all glyphosate residue testing down.
A decade on and they are still not testing – keeping us all in the dark about how much glyphosate is really on our food.
Sign the open letter today to demand the Government re-start testing our food for glyphosate.
Agrichemical criminals are getting away with it
Across Aotearoa, families should be able to trust that what they’re feeding their kids has been checked and is safe. But that trust is being broken.
Despite finding multiple significant breaches of the legal residue limits for glyphosate on our food the Government did not prosecute a single company. They just looked the other way – literally, by no longer testing glyphosate residues again.
And it’s not just glyphosate. Over the last ten years the Government has repeatedly found illegally high levels of other pesticides on our food, yet they have not prosecuted a single company – even repeat offenders.
When they find pesticide residues above the legal limit, there is no enforcement for breaking the law and no accountability, and in the case of glyphosate they just stop testing.
Turning a blind eye to illegal pesticide contamination isn’t regulation; it’s negligence.
Glyphosate bad for people bad for the planet
Glyphosate – the main chemical in Roundup – is dangerous and has no place in our food system.
The World Health Organisation says glyphosate probably causes cancer. It also says there is strong evidence it is ‘genotoxic’, meaning it can damage DNA – the very instructions that keep our bodies functioning.
Yet 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.
Together, let’s demand a food system free from harmful agrichemicals – one that protects and sustains both people and nature.
Sign the open letter to demand the Luxon government to restart testing glyphosate levels.
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