Frequently Asked Questions

Glyphosate is one of the most widely used active ingredients in herbicides designed to prevent unwanted weed growth in cultivated crops. Leading health authorities in the United States, Europe, for example Germany, Australia, Korea, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, and elsewhere around the world continue to conclude that glyphosate-based products are safe when used in accordance with the label instructions.

Glyphosate-based herbicides have been used safely and successfully for more than 40 years and are among the most thoroughly studied products of their kind.

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Honeybees and other beneficial insects play a pivotal role in agriculture because many crops are not wind-pollinated but depend on pollinating insects. In addition, spiders and insects such as beetles and wasps feed on small herbivorous insects, which make them important biological pest control agents.

Regulatory authorities conduct comprehensive evaluations to ensure pesticides can be used safely for the environment. As part of this process, the regulatory authorities specifically evaluate the potential for effects on non-target organisms, including honeybees. Glyphosate has been extensively tested in the laboratory and in the field to evaluate potential toxicity to honeybees. This extensive testing has found that glyphosate products pose no acute or chronic adverse effects to honeybees.

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Urine is a primary way to eliminate water-soluble chemicals or their metabolites from the body. Glyphosate is water-soluble, and our kidneys will filter any glyphosate present in the bloodstream prior to elimination via urine. Humans eliminate glyphosate from their bodies rapidly, with little remaining after a few days. This process also applies to naturally occurring chemicals in foods and, knowing this, some researchers study how urine chemistry changes after eating specific foods.  
Glyphosate and other pesticides can be present on foods at low levels called residues. Regulatory authorities establish the maximum allowable amount of each pesticide by setting maximum residue levels (MRLs). An MRL is the highest level of pesticide residue that can legally be present in or on individual crops or foods.
MRLs provide a means to determine 1) if a food can be sold, 2) if farmers are following product label instructions, and 3) upper end estimates of dietary pesticide exposures in a population. 
The German non-governmental organization BUND (Association for Environment and Nature Protection―German branch of Friends of the Earth) conducted a study titled “Determination of Glyphosate residues in human urine samples from 18 European countries”. 
The results found that the majority (56.1%) of the samples did not contain detectable levels of glyphosate and the highest level of the ones that did contain traces, translated to an intake that is over 1,500 times lower than what the European Union considers an acceptable daily intake (0.5 mg/kg body weight per day), and more than 3,000 times lower than the equivalent value from the World Health Organization (1.0 mg/kg body weight/day). 

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Glyphosate is currently approved for use in more than 100 countries. Various bodies and regulatory authorities around the world, including EFSA, ECHA, and other regulatory authorities (e.g., in Canada, Japan, Australia, Korea, etc.), routinely reviewing all approved pesticide products, have consistently reaffirmed that glyphosate-based products can be used safely in accordance with their current labels, and glyphosate is not carcinogenic for humans. Among the four World Health Organization (WHO) agencies that have evaluated the safety of glyphosate, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is the only entity to find an association between glyphosate and carcinogenicity. In 2015, IARC classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans“ and included it in the same category as everyday products like red meat and hot beverages. 
However, the WHO’s International Programme on Chemical Safety and Joint FAO/WHO Meeting on Pesticide Residues (JMPR) found that glyphosate is not carcinogenic, and its Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality found that glyphosate does not present a hazard to human health. 
In the EU, on June 15 2022, the designated European Member States for the current glyphosate renewal process – known as the Assessment Group on Glyphosate (AGG), published the main conclusions of their draft Renewal Assessment Report (dRAR) for glyphosate. Based on its assessment, the AGG proposed that a classification of glyphosate with regard to carcinogenicity is not justified.
More than five years after reaching its opinion, IARC remains an outlier, as leading pesticide regulators around the world continue to conclude that glyphosate is not carcinogenic and that glyphosate-based herbicides are safe when used in accordance with the label instructions.

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Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder, a progressive neurological condition characterized by its chronic and progressive nature.
It occurs due to a disruption in the production and transport of dopamine, a key neurotransmitter responsible for regulating motor functions, although not the sole one.
PD is an intricate condition that unfolds gradually over an extended period and is influenced by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. The precise triggers behind the degeneration or loss of the dopaminergic cells underlying PD are still unknown.
Environmental factors include exposure to neurotoxins that can alter the normal activity of the nervous system (also known as neurotoxicity). Neurotoxicity is one of the many aspects checked by the regulators before the approval of any active substance in plant protection products.
To date, there is no credible evidence that glyphosate interferes with the production and transport of dopamine, and it is therefore not a cause of PD.
Reviews by The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have consistently concluded the same, that, glyphosate does not damage nerves in mammals, even when applied at high doses. 
Most recently, on 26 July 2023, EFSA published its Conclusions on the peer review of the pesticide risk assessment of glyphosate, which clearly states that there is no indication of the neurotoxicity potential of glyphosate. It further underlined that there is insufficient evidence of an effect of the active substance glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides on neurotransmitters.

Glyphosate, or N-(phosphonomethyl) glycine, is one of the world’s most widely used broad-spectrum herbicides and accounts for around 25% of the global herbicide market. Glyphosate was first introduced in 1974 under the trade name “Roundup” and has since been marketed as the active ingredient of hundreds of plant protection products around the world.

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The Glyphosate Renewal Group (GRG) is a collection of companies seeking the renewal of the EU authorisation of the active substance glyphosate in 2022. To this end, the Glyphosate Renewal Group’s member companies join resources and efforts to prepare a single dossier with the scientific studies and information on the safety of glyphosate.
This dossier was submitted to the evaluating Member States and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) as part of the EU regulatory procedure to continue the authorisation of glyphosate and glyphosate-containing products on the EU market.
The GRG changed its name from Glyphosate Task Force 2 at the end of 2019 to avoid confusion with previous glyphosate submissions.
Members of the GRG are Albaugh Europe SARL, Barclay Chemicals Manufacturing Ltd., Bayer Agriculture BV, QEMETICA Agricultural Solutions Poland S.A., Crop Alliance Unipessoal LDA., Nufarm GMBH & Co.KG, Sinon Corporation, Syngenta Crop Protection AG. 

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On 2 December, the European Commission adopted Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/2364, extending the current approval of the active substance glyphosate by one year – until 15 December 2023.
The extension followed the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) statements on the updated timelines for the re-evaluation process in May 2022.
Such a procedure is not unique to glyphosate; it was granted to every other plant protection active substance that required this temporary administrative extension in the EU to complete the evaluation, as provided in Article 17 of Regulation (EC) No 1107/20091 concerning the placing of plant protection products on the market.

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In several European countries, glyphosate-based herbicides are used on almost half of their total crop area. By using glyphosate for weed control, farmers in Europe have been able to forgo or significantly reduce traditional ploughing methods. Conventional plough tillage is an energy-intensive process that releases tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from the soil. If farmers are forced to fall back on these weed-control methods, CO2 emissions and fossil fuel consumption in Europe are predicted to more than double, while soil erosion could increase six times over.

Recent case studies conducted by researchers in Germany and the UK predict that losing glyphosate would have a considerable effect on crop production costs and would also have an impact on the international trade in several European winter crops and sugar. Food prices would increase and the EU’s share of the global agricultural market would decrease. In fact, it is estimated that crop yields for farmers would be reduced by 5% to 40%, depending on the region, and diminish the global market share of several EU crops if glyphosate was no longer available.

A limitation in the availability for farmers of glyphosate is also predicted to have potential negative implications for land use, biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions and water quality.

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For farmers, glyphosate-based herbicides provide simple, flexible and cost-effective weed control as glyphosate helps to remove perennial weeds for several years. Unlike several other herbicides which act on certain type of weeds, glyphosate is effective on all weeds, providing broad-spectrum control. Applying glyphosate before the new crop is planted has the potential to produce 30%-60% higher harvests for many of Europe’s major crops, depending on the weed population and other conditions.

Its effectiveness as a broad-spectrum herbicide has ultimately reduced the use of ploughing as a means of controlling weeds, which exposes fertile topsoil to water and wind erosion. Some studies have estimated that ploughing approaches are approximately twice as costly and time consuming as chemical weed control.

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By controlling a broad spectrum of weeds and their entire root systems, glyphosate has eliminated or reduced the need for ploughing the soils. These reduced tillage practices allow farmers to plant crop seeds directly into stubble fields.

A large proportion of Europe’s cultivated land is prone to soil erosion, and minimal soil disturbance practices are sustainable alternatives that help to protect the soil from degradation and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption. Several important crops in Europe, including corn and sugar beet, are predominantly managed with these practices in combination with glyphosate. This makes glyphosate a popular tool for many farmers that decide to pursue these soil conservation practices.

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Glyphosate-based herbicides are a safe and effective tool to control weeds when used in accordance with the label instructions. 
Besides the fact that it is illegal to apply higher rates than recommended on the label, there is no added benefit in applying more than needed for optimum efficacy. Furthermore, it is a waste of resources, and farmers would typically avoid such practice.
Nevertheless, no harm is caused to humans or the environment if rates are accidentally exceeded within certain limits since the safety evaluation of the products adds large safety factors. Toxicity is over-estimated in the risk assessment by up to 1,000 times to make sure that all unforeseen events, including an accidental over-dosing, are taken into account.   
It could be compared to the safety measure of having a distance of several kilometres to the next car on a highway.