U.S. Ag Retailers Weigh in on the Future of Glyphosate
As of early November, the main plaintiff in the several thousands of lawsuits filed against glyphosate in U.S. courts, Bayer, is working towards a settlement agreement that would in theory wipe most of them off the legal ledgers, writes Eric Sfiligoj at CropLife. Once this agreement is reached, it is estimated that approximately 1,800 lawsuits would still be left to work through.
But more importantly for glyphosate, what impact will all this “courtroom drama” have on the herbicide’s future within the agricultural marketplace? This is a question CropLife attempted to find out during our 2020 CropLife 100 survey of the nation’s top ag retailers. And the answers were enlightening, to say the least.
First off, virtually no one thinks glyphosate will “disappear from agriculture” because of the settlement agreement being reach by Bayer. In fact, only 1% of respondents to the 2020 CropLife 100 survey agreed with the statement “glyphosate use will decline rapidly, driven by consumer sentiment and farmer preference.”
However, it was when the survey percentages were totaled for the remaining 99% of respondents that things got a bit more interesting. A slight majority, 54%, of the nation’s top ag retailers don’t foresee any long-term negative aftereffects for glyphosate within the agriculture industry because of the lawsuits being settled. “Glyphosate will remain an important tool for agriculture for years to come,” this group indicated on their survey forms.
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