This news item is interesting for several reasons ... first it links the decimation of the Monarch butterfly population in the US to the use of Roundup. Roundup is Monsanto’s herbicide that kills milkweed - a perennial and the only plant on which the Monarch will lay its eggs. The caterpillars eat the milkweed on emerging from the cocoon, continuing the extraordinary life and migration cycles that take the butterflies thousands of miles from Southern Canada and Northern United States all the way to Mexico where they spend the winter. Click here and scroll down to see "Decline in monarch overwintering area compared to rise in US acreage planted in corn and rise in usage of glyphosate herbicide."
But there’s more to the story. Originally deemed “no threat to human health”, Roundup has now been shown to devastate the bacterial population in the soil, compromising its nutritive value to plants (and subsequently to us), at the same time Roundup chelates minerals, again significantly reducing the soil’s value to plants and their consumers.
And it gets worse. Roundup’s supposedly innocuous action was considered confined to the shikimate pathway in plants - a pathway absent in all animals. However that pathway is present in bacteria, which should set off alarm bells and send you reaching for your potent probiotic and for organically grown produce!
Get a pen while you're at it and sign the petition to ban Roundup’s use completely!
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