Research into possible links between glyphosate and fusarium has triggered a war of words between the National Farmers Union and Monsanto.
The farm group is demanding that Monsanto produce studies to back up its assertion that a large body of scientific evidence indicates there is no such link.
The chemical company said it’s prepared to talk about the issue with NFU officials, but also questioned the organization’s motives in pursuing the matter.
“I don’t know what their objective is,” said spokesperson Trish Jordan.
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“Do they want to ban glyphosate? Do they want to ban biotech crops? What is their point?”
An NFU official said the organization’s objective is simply to protect farmers from a serious crop disease.
“We’re interested in any research that will pinpoint any factors that are leading to an increase in fusarium,” said Terry Pugh.
A recently published study by Agriculture Canada scientists identified a statistical correlation between previous application of glyphosate and levels of fusarium head blight.
The study, the results of which were first made public two years ago but not published in a peer-reviewed journal until this summer, does not suggest the herbicide directly causes an increase in head blight.
However, it does say that previous application of glyphosate was the only production factor that was significantly associated with high fusarium levels in each year of the four-year
study.
Monsanto says there is a large body of scientific studies showing glyphosate has a 30-year history of safe use and no other studies indicate a correlation between glyphosate and fusarium.
In comments published in the Sept. 29 issue of The Western Producer, Jordan said that while the NFU can point to the Agriculture Canada study, “we can probably throw 50 others back” to show there is no link.
NFU vice-president Terry Boehm said Monsanto should make public those 50 studies.
Otherwise, he said, people will have to conclude that the studies are “no more than a figment of (Monsanto’s) imagination designed to mislead the government and public.”
In an interview last week, Jordan said the company provided the Agriculture Canada researchers with an extensive list of previous studies into the safety of glyphosate, none of which indicated a link to fusarium.
“There is no other study in the literature anywhere that shows a correlation or a direct causal link between glyphosate application and fusarium,” she said.
On the other hand, there are many studies indicating that glyphosate does not have an impact on the level of pathogens in soil, she added.
In fact, research published by Robert Kremer, a soil scientist at the University of Missouri and a microbiologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has shown that Roundup Ready soybeans receiving the recommended application of Roundup (Monsanto’s glyphosate product) have significantly greater colonization of fusarium on their roots than untreated soybeans.
Kremer said approximately 50 scientific papers published around the world have noted an increase in fusarium or other microbes after the application of glyphosate.
