Glyphosate may be safe. Glyphosate may be carcinogenic. There are convincing arguments and studies to support either point of view, I certainly don't have the answer, but here's what I see as the major problem. Let's say gly gets banned. Then what? Roundup ready corn, soybeans, and god knows what other crops are mainstays of world agriculture; remove gly and you're taking a step back to 40 acres and a mule. Right now those big farmers are coaxing 250 or 300 bushels of corn out of an acre where their grandfathers got 30 or 40 bushels from the same acre. Without some of their practices, which are definitely questionable, yields will plunge and the price of your Cheerios (and everything else) will skyrocket.
When or if glyphosate gets banned or restricted the chemists will have "a new, more effective, and safer" product ready to sell at high prices at least until the patent expires. Some farmers will get old school and go back to Atrazine and the like- you really don't want that stuff back again.
I don't have answers. Cars kill a lot more people than Roundup. DDT saved countless lives and is still used in some countries. Life is a series of compromises. Should I tell my daughter to forget about her M.B.A. and nice executive job and get out here and start hoeing? Totally organic farming is nice when we buy everything from our local farmer but I don't think anybody is exporting boatloads of organic grain anywhere as the production scale isn't there and may be impossible to achieve..
