Glyphosate suffers from the "superstar" effect. It's so good at what it does that its success draws attention. No one bothers to compare it to alternatives.
A way an orchardist put it to me once: "Making poison is easy - salt and vinegar. The point of using herbicide is to make something less dangerous than what you can make in your kitchen."
However, my understanding is that glyphosate is on its way out the door naturally - it's not so much that the toxicity or public campaigns that did it in so much as it is the rise of resistant weeds. Farmers are moving back to more toxic herbicides like dicamba.
Comments
Glyphosate suffers from the "superstar" effect. It's so good at what it does that its success draws attention. No one bothers to compare it to alternatives.
A way an orchardist put it to me once: "Making poison is easy - salt and vinegar. The point of using herbicide is to make something less dangerous than what you can make in your kitchen."
However, my understanding is that glyphosate is on its way out the door naturally - it's not so much that the toxicity or public campaigns that did it in so much as it is the rise of resistant weeds. Farmers are moving back to more toxic herbicides like dicamba.