How Activists Are Restricting Use of a Major Pesticide

Glyphosate, the world’s most widely-used herbicide, has become a major target for environmentalists. But despite growing evidence of the chemical’s potentially dangerous health effects—the pesticide was deemed a “probable human carcinogen” by the World Health Organization last year—efforts to ban the chemical in the U.S. have repeatedly failed. Supporters of glyphosate, which is often used together with genetically modified crops, respond that no study has proven that the chemical definitively causes cancer in humans, and note that the pesticide effectively protects crops that feed millions around the world. But on the Hawaiian island of Maui, nearly 5,000 miles from the offices of federal regulators in Washington D.C., a small group of activists have figured out how to use a little-known provision of a federal law to stop some uses of glyphosate in their community. The law is known as FIFRA, short for the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, and it requires pesticide sprayers to do something you might imagine they’d be doing anyway: follow the safety instructions on the product’s label down to the letter. But because those safety instructions can be difficult to meet, activists have been able to use the label to force sprayers to change their ways. Read More: How to Make Better Pesticides Without Chemicals “Most people are unaware that that’s a requirement of the label. They just spray it and think ...
Source: TIME.com: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized activists Agriculture Cancer crops Environment Farming glyphosate hawaii Roundup toxins Source Type: news