Current Health Hunters Newsletter:

Glyphosate, more commonly known as Roundup, is a general, broad spectrum herbicide. In the mid-1970s, it was used in a limited scope prior to planting or post-harvest to kill weeds and other undesirable plants growing in fields, lawns, decorative gardens, and orchards. Due to its broad spectrum herbicidal action, it could be used for little else because it killed not only weeds but also crops. It was also discovered in Scotland in the 1980s that glyphosate applied typically to grain crops late in the growing season, just as they began to ripen, could speed up the death of the plants and make whole fields ripen together allowing earlier harvest.

Moving forward another decade, the 1990s saw the advent of the first Roundup Ready crops. These were genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that were made to be resistant to glyphosate. This meant that these crops (corn, wheat, and soy) could be planted and then glyphosate could be applied to control weeds and undesirable plants without disrupting the growth of these Roundup Ready crops because they were resistant to the action of glyphosate.