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The founder of an organic food company has called for tighter restrictions on glyphosate, arguing the weedkiller has become embedded in Britain\u2019s food system despite mounting public concern over its health and environmental impact.<\/p>\n
Riverford founder Guy Singh Watson\u2019s new campaign says the herbicide, best known under the Roundup brand originally developed by and now owned by, was being used in ways that created a \u201cdirect route from field to plate\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, speaking to Retail Gazette, Singh-Watson stopped short of calling for a total ban. Instead, he is targeting one specific practice: the act of spraying glyphosate onto crops shortly before harvest to dry them out and make combining easier.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we are calling for is a ban on its use as a pre-harvest desiccant,\u201d he says. \u201cYou are spraying it onto wheat, barley and oats a few days before harvest in full knowledge that people are going to eat that wheat.\u201d<\/p>\n
We caught up with Singh-Watson to speak about the human and environmental dangers of using glyphosate, organic farming and whether the UK has become too dependant on chemicals in farming.<\/p>\n
The dangers of glyphosate<\/h5>\n
Glyphosate remains one of the world\u2019s most widely used herbicides. In the UK, analysis of government data by Pesticide Action Network UK found glyphosate use had risen from around 200 metric tonnes in 1990 to more than 2,200 tonnes in 2024, with treated farmland increasing to more than 2.6 million hectares.<\/p>\n
The debate around the chemical has intensified globally since the World Health Organization\u2019s cancer agency classified glyphosate as \u201cprobably carcinogenic\u201d in 2015. Bayer has consistently maintained glyphosate is safe when used correctly and regulators in both Europe and the United States have repeatedly said current evidence does not justify a full ban.<\/p>\n
Even so, the company has spent billions settling lawsuits in the United States brought by users who claimed exposure to Roundup caused non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Reuters reported this year that Bayer had already paid around $10bn in settlements, while tens of thousands of cases remain ongoing.<\/p>\n
When speaking about the potential dangers to human health, Singh-Watson points repeatedly to the US litigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere have been thousands of cases in the US over Hodgkin\u2019s lymphoma,\u201d he says. \u201cThe courts defended that very vigorously, and they lost.\u201d<\/p>\n And many people are inadvertently consuming glyphosate, with Singh-Watson quoting 30% of people in the UK have glyphosate in their urine, and 50% in the states, with some studies reported by The Guardian placing this figure even higher at 80%.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just seems an egregious,\u201d Singh-Watson says. \u201cThis is grievous biological harm. This is intentional, we are poisoning people intentionally in the full knowledge of the dangers of glyphosate\u201d.<\/p>\n He also questions whether existing safety testing goes far enough. Regulators typically assess glyphosate as an active ingredient, but Singh-Watson argues that commercial formulations also contain additional chemicals designed to help absorption.<\/p>\n \u201cThe regulatory regime is inadequate,\u201d he adds. \u201cYou only test the active ingredient, whereas it is invariably applied with adjuvants that help the plant absorb the toxin.\u201d<\/p>\n These fears have been supported by recent research, including King\u2019s College molecular geneticist and toxicologist Professor Michael Antoniou who has become a leading scientific voice warning about the health risks of glyphosate-based herbicides.<\/p>\n His research challenges the regulatory consensus by demonstrating that even \u201csafe\u201d levels of exposure can cause DNA damage, liver disease, and cancer.<\/p>\n As the sole UK-based contributor to this landmark international research, Antoniou helped demonstrate that long-term exposure to glyphosate can cause multiple types of tumours and cancers in rats, even at levels deemed safe by EU and global regulators, with data from his lab showing that\u00a0<\/span>low doses of glyphosate-based weedkillers alter the healthy bacteria in the human gut, which can lead to chronic inflammation and metabolic issues.<\/span><\/p>\n The European Union renewed glyphosate approval in 2023 until 2033, but introduced tighter conditions around its use. EU rules now prohibit its use for pre-harvest desiccation designed to optimise harvesting. However, Britain has not followed suit.<\/p>\n Campaigners backing Riverford\u2019s latest initiative argue the economic benefits of pre-harvest spraying are marginal.<\/p>\n In the UK, wholesale wheat prices are currently hovering around \u00a3188 to \u00a3192 per tonne for feed wheat. Singh-Watson estimates that even if the practice reduced wheat costs by \u00a35 per tonne, the impact on a loaf of bread, which often has less than 10 pence worth of wheat per loaf, would amount to fractions of a penny.<\/p>\n \u201cYou are talking about something absolutely trivial and irrelevant to the cost of food,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Yet he acknowledges many farmers feel trapped between rising costs and relentless retail pressure.<\/p>\n \u201cFarmers are being squeezed and squeezed,\u201d he says. \u201cIf we want cheap food, let\u2019s not look to farming to reduce costs anymore. Better to look to the supply chain, particularly retailers and processors.\u201d<\/p>\n The comments come during another volatile period for British agriculture. Fertiliser and fuel prices have risen sharply following geopolitical disruption and instability in global commodity markets, most recently due to thee US-Iran war.<\/p>\n Nitrogen fertiliser markets in particular have faced repeated shocks linked to energy costs, Russian exports and fears over disruption in the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat farmers want is stability,\u201d Singh-Watson says. \u201cMost farmers just want to get on with farming. They don\u2019t want to be worrying about these global impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked whether the UK has become too reliant on chemicals, he argues conventional farming had become too dependent on chemical inputs, although rejected suggestions that Britain could switch overnight to entirely organic production.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not advocating that we all go organic tomorrow,\u201d he says. \u201cWith grain, it would be difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019d really struggle to feed ourselves, but actually, I don\u2019t think we would have any trouble with dairy, beef, lamb, and so on. I think we should be putting more effort into, into investigating the alternatives.\u201d<\/p>\n The alternatives being, he says, towards regenerative and agroecological farming systems, including improving soil health and reducing synthetic fertiliser dependence. And these alternatives could be more advanced if more investment and research went into the sector.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at the amount of money that\u2019s gone into supporting the agrochemical industry, the life sciences, such GM crops,\u201d says Singh-Watson. \u201cIf some of that money had gone into looking at more agroecological farming techniques, I think we would have moved a lot way forward further forward.\u201d<\/p>\n Riverford itself has operated organically for four decades. Singh-Watson says the company does not use synthetic herbicides such as glyphosate on its crops, relying instead on crop rotation, cultivation, soil management and manual weed control.<\/p>\n He also warns that fertilisers themselves carried environmental costs often overlooked in the pesticides debate.<\/p>\n \u201cWe should be mindful that their impact is every bit as high as pesticides in terms of damage to the soil and waterways,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n For all the controversy around glyphosate, Singh-Watson accepts the chemical remains highly effective for farmers, particularly against difficult perennial weeds such as blackgrass.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a brilliant chemical,\u201d he admits. \u201cThat\u2019s why it has become so widespread.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut we should be leaning towards safety. I think it always comes down to a balance of the risks against the benefits. When you know the dangers of glyphosate for this pre-harvest desiccation, there\u2019s just no way anyone can argue for it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I hear farmers claiming that they won\u2019t be able to farm without it,\u201d Singh-Watson adds.\u201d That\u2019s just a bare face lie.\u201d<\/p>\n The question facing policymakers is whether the convenience it offers the food system still outweighs the growing political, environmental and public health concerns surrounding it.<\/p>\n For all the dispute over glyphosate, looking ahead, Singh-Watson says the system will keep \u201csqueezed and squeezed\u201d until farming is given space to change how it produces food.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.retailgazette.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/shutterstock_1162953040-300x214.jpg\")
Could the UK drop the use of glyphosate?<\/h5>\n
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