Bayer says legal woes could force it to pull weedkiller

France24 | AFP ^ | April 25, 2025

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Berlin (AFP) – German chemicals giant Bayer said Friday it could be forced to pull its Roundup weedkiller from the market if it is not able to limit simmering legal troubles.

"We're nearing a point where the litigation industry could force us to even stop selling this vital product," CEO Bill Anderson said at Bayer's annual general meeting.

Bayer has been dogged by lawsuits linked to Roundup since it acquired the US manufacturer Monsanto in a blockbuster deal in 2018.

Claimants have alleged that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, causes blood cancers but Bayer says scientific studies and regulatory approvals show that the weedkiller is safe.

Bayer has battled to draw a line under Roundup litigation, spending more than $10 billion (8.8 billion euros) to date to settle suits alleging that Bayer failed to disclose health risks.

[sphinx]

150,000 large commercial farms, mostly family owned, produce over three quarters of the country’s agricultural produce. The big farmers do most of the production. The mid-size and smaller farmers are getting relentlessly squeezed; most of them actually get most of their family income from their jobs (or spouses’ jobs) in town. They are larger in number but only marginally significant in terms of food production. Then there are large numbers of hobby farms.

Neither your carburetor not Bossie the cow care if GMO corn is fed to them or processed into ethanol. Most sensible people don’t care either, but the Luddites have whipped up hysteria among the ill-informed.

[Wallace T.]

There are eight billion people on Earth. The "green revolution" of the 1960s, mechanization of agriculture, and advances in genetics and chemistry have enabled most of these eight billion to be fed. If the world reverted back to the era of farms of 40 acres, mules pulling iron plows, planting last year's saved seeds, and using compost as fertilizer, we would have mass starvation. Countries like Australia or Ukraine can feed themselves but that would be it. Even if organic produce is superior to conventionally grown produce, this is an instance that the best is the enemy of the good. In any case, there is little nutritional difference between organic and conventional produce.

I have eaten pasture raised and finished beef and it is tougher than conventional beef fed on corn in feedlots.