Macron backs down on pledge to ban glyphosate in France

[Islander]

Sarah Elzas
1-25-2019

French president Emmanuel Macron says that the phasing out of glyphosate-based weed killers in France by 2021, as previously announced, will be impossible, as it would hurt the agricultural industry. Glyphosate is a weed killer which the World Health Organisation has classified as “probably” carcinogenic in humans. But farmers say there is no good alternative.

In November 2017 President Macron rejected a European Commission decision to reapprove the use of glyphosate for five years. He pledged to ban the product within three years.
Speaking yesterday during a public debate in south-eastern France, Macron said that if he went ahead with that promise he “would be completely killing some sectors”.

Keep reading: http://en.rfi.fr/environment/2019012...phosate-france

[Islander]

And how do you suppose farmers controlled weeds throughout the millennia, up to 1974 when RoundUp first became available? They were cultivated. With a cultivator. That might have meant human hands, or someone with a hoe. It could have meant a simple wheeled machine that disturbed the roots of weeds. It could have been a device drawn by a mule, ox, horse or tractor. I have seen it done efficiently with a horse in the states and with an ox in Cuba. These are the traditional methods that have served us well through history. They are all still effective, and best of all, most of them use no fossil fuel.