Soil Association
500 signatures reached
To: UK bread manufacturers and retailers including Hovis, Warburtons, Allied Bakery, Brace’s and all major supermarkets to keep weedkiller out of their bread.
Weedkiller: Not in our Bread
We want UK bread manufacturers and major retailers to remove weedkiller from the millions of loaves, toast, bread rolls and sandwiches consumed in UK homes every day.
Why is this important?
Glyphosate is the most widely sold weedkiller in the world; you might know it as the active ingredient in Roundup. Government figures show its use in UK farming has increased by 400% in the last 20 years.
Many farmers routinely use glyphosate and other herbicides to clear their fields of weeds before crops emerge in the spring. On the advice of the big chemical companies like Monsanto, farmers also use herbicides on crops shortly before they are harvested, in order to dry out the plants and make them easier to harvest. Tests by the Defra committee on Pesticide Residues in Food have found up to 30% of Britain's bread contained glyphosate.
Recently, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organisation, identified glyphosate as a ‘probable carcinogen’ to humans. The safety regulators in the UK and EU only look at glyphosate on its own. But in the real world, glyphosate is always mixed with other chemicals to make sure the glyphosate sticks to, and penetrates the plants it’s sprayed on. Many of these other chemicals are toxic. According to recent research, some of these mixtures can be up to 1,000 times more toxic than glyphosate alone.
A recent European study found 7 out of 10 people had traces of the weedkiller in their urine. Glyphosate has also been found in the breast milk of German women.
We now know that glyphosate has potentially significant health implications for all of us. There is no excuse for glyphosate use. Please sign our petition and keep weedkiller out of our bread.
