Cancer-causing glyphosate faces Presidential blocks
The removal of the ban on the import of glyphosate, now proven cancerous, sought by the authorities to appease tea estate owners has come against blocks by the President’s office.
Plantation Ministry Secretary Upali Marasinghe told the Business Times on Thursday that they were requesting authorities to lift the ban in a bid to ensure its use on tea estates.
“This is because the tea industry is (badly) affected and because the manual weeding is not possible and is a very costly matter (to use other herbicides),” he explained.
As a result they have been requesting the higher authorities to lift the ban on glyphosate imports for only the tea plantations, but no green signal has been forthcoming due to its adverse impacts like the Chronic Kidney Disease rampant in certain parts of the country.
The Plantation Ministry, while acknowledging the possibility of the herbicide’s cancerous properties as proven by the World Health Organisation (WHO), has faced a road block from the President’s Office to their constant requests to lift the ban on glyphosate. Europe is today campaigning against the most popularly used glyphosate branded products like Roundup which are cheap herbicides due to a WHO report by its International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2005 asserting that glyohosate could be cancerous. As a result the extension on the glyphosate products have not been granted and a decision is expected later this year on the possible ban on the herbicide in Europe.
In the meantime, Malta is one of the first European countries to ban glyphosate joining Argentina, Sri Lanka and the Netherlands.
The tea industry however, notes that since this has not been banned in other countries like the UK, Australia and the US where glyphosate is increasingly been used they were unaware of any scientific research on its cancerous properties.
Moreover, it was noted they used it in a controlled environment and had the substance been considered cancerous it should be proven through empirical data and validated research.