Glyphosate
Glyphosate is a
herbicide that was applied to plants and fruits to helped to maintain the
growth of plants and help have fruits be ripen. It was later used to kill off
weeds growing in agriculture areas, forest areas, your lawn and people’s garden’s.
In 1964, it was
patented as a metal chelator. This meant it was used to clean off dirt and substances
off heavy metals. They used it to clean commercial pipes and or boilers.
Glyphosate removes many minerals off these metals such as, copper, zinc,
manganese, calcium, and magnesium which are very important to our health.
“The paper, Trends in glyphosate herbicide use in the
United States and globally, reveals that since 1974, when Roundup was first
commercially sold, more than 1.6 billion kilograms (or 3.5 billion pounds) of
glyphosate has been used in the U.S., making up 19 percent of the 8.6 billion
kilograms (or 18.9 billion pounds) of glyphosate used around the world.”(Monsanto’s
Glyphosate most heavily Used Weed Killer in History, EcoWatch Article)
This
statement from this article online just blew my mind how popular round up was worldwide
and throughout the United States, as well. That is so much weed killer/round up
to be used around the world. With this particular substance, I would not
imagine it being so popular and used across the world so popularly but I guess
that shows how we are somewhat similar across the world and have the same needs
through a simple item as a weed killer.
In
the United States, we use it mostly in the area of agriculture. It is also
known as roundup here and most homeowners will have one around their house
somewhere. Round up is known for its amazing killer strength against weeds. This
chemical spray that is amazing at killing weeds. Most common people, use this
round up just simply for killing weeds in their lawn, garden and around the
house. But in the United States, this is
very popular with our farmers. Farmers need to protect their crops from weeds because
crops is their living and they can not afford losing their crops. So farmers
use this glyphosate and spread it all over their ground where their crops are
to keep weeds from growing there. Another bonus is that it also helps the crops
grow better and it does not hurt the crops at all.
Since we do use this in
our agricultural area, there are some risks with that. Farmers spray this all
over their crops because it does not harm the crops, but it can leave residue on
the crops, which we consume. There has been recent studies showing how much
glyphosate is left in our produce and how we need to make sure we clean off our
produce correctly to ensure that we do not intake any produce that has any left
over glyphostae on it because it can create health risks on oneself.
Crops are also known to
be roundup ready crops because they have built a resistant against this
herbicide genetically which helps farmers be able to just spray over the entire
field of crops and not be worried about damaging their crops.
Reference:
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