This page contains immensely important information that everyone should know, but especially commercial farmers. Glyphosate is the most heavily used agro-chemical in the world and is a leading example of the damage that can be done when one relies on such toxins.  Please keep an open mind when reading this.  Some will get upset if they've been using this herbicide all these years thinking it was harmless.  And why shouldn't they?  "Safe and completely harmless" is the line the manufacturer has been feeding us for decades.  If this is what you still think you may be in for a bit of a shock here, but please don’t shoot the messenger!  We’re giving you the facts you need to get informed; the facts you were never told.  At the bottom of the page are some excellent videos on the topic that you are strongly encouraged to watch.  

          Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Round-Up, and Glyphosate based sprays are by far the most widely applied herbicides worldwide.  The manufacturer that first marketed Glyphosate as a weed killer, Monsanto, also brought us DDT, Dioxins, Agent Orange and PCB’s, among many other toxins.  It initially claimed those toxins were harmless to the environment too.  It also initially advertised Round-Up as “biodegradable” and that it “leaves the soil clean” after use, until legally forced to retract these fraudulent descriptions.  Amazingly people continue to believe the statements these companies make; a testament to the influence of constant and slick marketing campaigns.  

          Round-Up is a systemic herbicide which accumulates in the soil, GM crops and even conventional (non-GM) plants when used as a desiccant.  Except for a few varieties of GM plants engineered solely to tolerate large doses of it, Glyphosate kills all other plant life (until resistance develops), destroys most soil microbes and is harmful to virtually every organism.  It was originally claimed Glyphosate would never leave the soil and pollute waterways but it’s been found in rivers and waterways everywhere, and the U.S. Geological Survey even found it in rainwater back in 2011.  It’s been found in appreciable amounts in the blood, breast milk, umbilical cords and fetuses of pregnant women.  This means it has both entered our food supply and is not eliminated in digestion but enters our bodies and even crosses the placental barrier into unborn children.  Glyphosate has become a ubiquitous toxin whose presence in ever increasing amounts is now virtually impossible to escape no matter where you are or what you consume. 

Is That Bad?

           The manufacturer claims the mode of activity for Glyphosate is via inhibition of the shikimate pathway in plants.  Since mammals don’t possess this metabolic pathway, they argue, Glyphosate is harmless to us.  You’ll see just how specious that argument is below.  This is not all that Round-Up does!  What you are not told is that Glyphosate causes massive and chronic environmental and health complications because it’s an extremely potent, indiscriminate, broad-spectrum mineral chelator. 

          In short, chelation describes a particular way in which ions and molecules bind metal ions.  Chelates are complex molecules usually existing as ring structures with a metal ion held by coordinate bonds.  Very importantly, chelators suppress the chemical activity of metal ions and render them physiologically inert and unavailable.  These metal ions remain unavailable until such time as the chelate can be compelled to release its mineral payload.  There are many naturally occurring chelates and chelating agents, many of them necessary and beneficial, such as chlorophyll and hemoglobin.  The wonder of naturally occurring biological chelation is that it happens in accordance with a genetic blueprint, and the chelate ring will release its captive ion at, and only at, the appropriate place and time.  For example, to avoid massive oxidative damage in our bodies hemoglobin holds oxygen tightly in place until delivered to its many cellular destinations where it is then liberated on demand to sustain life.  

          And then there are the more harmful, synthetic chelators that don't respect any DNA blue print or natural control mechanisms.  What do you suppose would happen if we applied a wonder chemical that bound up not just one metal ion, or a few, but many all at once?  Well now we know!  Glyphosate is an extremely potent synthetic chelator which binds up many, possibly all, positively charged metal cat-ions to form extremely strong and stable chelates.  Like all chelators, Glyphosate suppresses the chemical activity of these ions and renders them physiologically inert & unavailable to living organisms.  Unlike with naturally occurring beneficial chelators, such as hemoglobin, there is no corresponding biological mechanism to release Glyphosate's mineral payload when needed.  As a result it holds all positive cat ions in an iron grip, rendering them unavailable to virtually all living organisms, sometimes....for years. 

          Those among us blessed with a keen sense of the obvious recognize that, yes, this is bad.  Synthetic herbicides work by chelating a specific metal ion, such as copper for instance.  Copper is a necessary co-factor in the production of specific and vital enzymes in the target weed.  When the targeted enzymatic pathway is disrupted (b/c copper is now unavailable to the cell) key metabolic pathways are stopped dead in their tracks and the weed dies a horrible death.  This already has certain unseen consequences for your field and all end consumers. 

         Glyphosate, however, is a broad-spectrum chelator that ties up all of these positively charged metals: B, Ca, Co, S, Cu, Fe, K, Mn, Se, Mo, Mg, Ni, Zn (and others), simultaneously, rendering the bound nutrients physiologically unavailable to virtually every living organism, with a few known exceptions (such as certain pathogenic microbes, which are stimulated by glyphosate...see below for more on this).  All these minerals serve a multitude of functions in every cell, such as participating as co-factors in the production of legions of essential proteins or enzymes, for example.  By chelating and thus rendering so many vital nutrients unavailable, Glyphosate inhibits scores of cellular reactions and functions which are essential for the life and good health of every organism.  Yeah, that’s bad. This is also why you can never mix Glyphosate with AGGRAND natural fertilizers!  Glyphosate will neutralize all the positive cat ions in our fertilizers, or any fertilizer.  Do not mix AGGRAND with Glyphosate!  

          Glyphosate does destroy the shikimate pathway in standard plants, but this is only one of many modes of action, and presumably only it was mentioned as a distraction from the real narrative.  Much, much more serious damage is caused by its indiscriminate, broad spectrum mineral chelation.  Even minute amounts of Glyphosate, in the ranges of 0.5 to 10 ppm, have repeatedly been shown to be cytotoxic (depending on the type of cell) and is the root source of substantial cellular damage in virtually every area of cell life and function, because all cellular machinery needs the full spectrum of minerals and nutrients to function properly.  

         The kicker is, Monsanto knew all along what Glyphosate does, because it was first patented in 1964 by Stauffer Chemical Company as….a mineral chelator!  They chose to withhold that information from us however, and instead marketed their product as the most harmless and researched chemical in the history of agriculture.  As a result many thousands of farmers and the public have been duped for decades into thinking Glyphosate can be sprayed with impunity and even mixed in with one's Kool-Aid to no ill effect, so that today close to a billion pounds are doused on the global food supply and our environment annually. 

            Ever had that feeling you’ve been suckered in a deal, and that someone, somewhere, is laughing? 

​A Bugs Life

           The shikimate pathway is an essential component of a plant’s immune system, so when it’s destroyed by Glyphosate, (non-GM) plants are basically given an advanced case of Aids.  With its ability to defend against soil-borne pathogens destroyed, the plant rapidly succumbs.  Confirmation of this is found in the fact that non-GM plants growing in sterilized soil (in lab settings) are not killed by glyphosate.   

          But it's not just plants that get decimated.  Glyphosate inflicts the same carnage in soil microbe populations, killing them en masse via inhibition of their shikimate pathway, and by simultaneously starving them of multiple vital nutrients via chelation.  As such Glyphosate is also a potent biocide.  In fact the manufacturer holds patents for this chemical for use as a biocide, or anti-biotic.  It decimates soil biology like few other chemicals.  Yet the manufacturer still made the ludicrous claim that it “leaves the soil clean after use,” knowing full well what it does.  

          The beneficial bugs in the soil are particularly vulnerable to even trace amounts of Glyphosate, while go figure, certain pathogenic bugs are stimulated by it.  This results in dysbiosis in the soil’s microbial ecology.  When we eliminate the police and simultaneously empower the criminals we are left with one word: trouble!  Pathogens such as Fusarium, Pythium, Botryospheara Dothidea, etc. have become major problems in modern farming operations in many areas.  Goss’s Wilt has re-emerged as a serious problem in the mid-west due to extensive Glyphosate use.  Botulism is another serious condition stimulated by elevated levels of Glyphosate in animal feed and the dysbiosis that results in animal g.i. tracts.  This makes sense when you realize that beneficial microbe populations in the G.I. tract act as a natural check to pathogens.  Glyphosate also damages the epithelial cells in the gut lining, causing serious inflammation, leaky gut syndrome and many subsequent auto-immune conditions and other complications.  Many new and re-emergent agricultural diseases that were of lesser significance before are now a serious problem as a result of Glyphosate based agricultural systems. 

          We are still only beginning to understand much of this because again, the industry never bothered with long term health and safety testing before the product went to market.  The profits got in the way.  Industry safety tests, when they do happen, are extremely limited short-term acute toxicity tests of 3 months or less.  When no one gets sick within that time their position is: “see, no one fell down dead, so what's the problem?”  That’s the exact approach the tobacco industry took in defense of cigarettes.  Unless you're drinking it straight out of the bottle, Glyphosate is not an acute toxin, but a chronic toxin, and it’s unbelievable they get away with only the barest of short-term safety testing.  Glyphosate causes many & serious chronic health issues, not acute health issues.  Most credible long term studies (read: no industry ties) indicate numerous health issues and concerns with many of those serious.  And what else could we reasonably expect from a chemical that indiscriminately compromises or shuts down hundreds of vital enzymatic pathways and cellular functions across the board? 

​Misleading Bio-Tech Arguments

          Proponents are slowly becoming aware of this Achilles heel in their star product, and are saying “[N]o big deal; mineral chelation happens in nature all the time so we shouldn’t be alarmed that Glyphosate does so as well.”  This is a one-dimensional argument.  Yes, chelation occurs in nature and can be very beneficial, even vital.  The thing is, mineral chelation is only harmless and beneficial to living organisms when it occurs *naturally,* i.e., within natural biological systems, using natural control and regulatory mechanisms operating within normal parameters and all in accordance with the highly detailed, compressed blue prints for life that are encoded in the DNA. 

          There’s a vast gulf between anything God designed in toto and something the chemical industry tries its hand at.  If living organisms, or any part of them, are removed from their natural biological context and forced to express traits unnaturally, or excessively, or when unnatural extremes and imbalances are set up, as these bio-tech companies routinely do with their novel organisms, this invariably causes damage somewhere and leads to more trouble down the road.  This is doubly the case as these companies routinely tamper with and bypass natural genetic safeguards and force all manner of traits to express unnaturally in their engineered GM "creations" without any thought to long-term consequences or  safety concerns.  Yet they continue to claim their novel life forms and the toxins they are grown to tolerate are not only harmless but even normal! 

          The attempt to portray the chelating activity of Glyphosate as “natural” or “safe” isn’t an isolated case of such faulty reasoning.  Please allow me to take you on a small detour for a few paragraphs.  Consider another classic use of this kind of "tobacco science" from the bio-tech industry.  Bacillus Thuringiensis (BT) is a naturally occurring soil bacterium which produces an insecticidal protein.  For years organic growers used BT as a natural insect deterrent.  It worked great and was safe because it was used on a limited scale and was never systemically incorporated into the plant but only applied topically.  Because of this it only affected plant feeders, not pollinators.  Moreover, BT could be washed off before human consumption. 

          Then came the biotech companies.  They took genes from cultured, anti-biotic resistant strains of BT, no less,  and shot them into the very DNA of corn, cotton and potatoes to develop patented GMO’s that grow into living pesticide factories. The thinking was that these plants will be able to produce their own internal insecticide and so kill any pests that eat them all by themselves.  Well, plants possess more wisdom than these corporations do, because they will not express bacterial genes.  Ever.  They have control mechanisms to prevent this.  Remember, bacterial genes are not supposed to be in plant DNA in the first place, and never are when plants reproduce naturally.  Not to be stymied, however, these companies then found a way to force the plant to express the BT trait 24/7 by shooting viral genes into the plant’s DNA. 

          The now systemic insecticidal protein synthesized 24/7 in every cell of the plant damages the stomach lining and G.I. tract of whatever eats it.  It kills many beneficial insects along with pests (until they adapt), because the BT is now produced in every cell of the plant, including even the pollen.  Systemic BT production contributes to many gut related health issues in mammals, despite assurances to the contrary.  These can be very serious, since roughly 70-80% of the immune system in most mammals (including us) is rooted in the gut microbiota.  And since digestion does not completely denature this pesticide as was claimed, the very real danger exists of having the genetic coding from the BT protein laterally transferring into the DNA of the microbes in our own G.I. tract, which generates a whole new set of dire implications.  Lateral gene transfer among bacteria is a frequent occurrence in nature. 

          Ramming foreign genes (from different biological Kingdoms) into an organisms DNA damages that DNA’s structural integrity.  Gene splicing, the process of shooting foreign genes into a genome with a gene gun is nowhere near as precise as many are led to believe.  It’s a clumsy process which causes site and collateral damage and many epigenetic effects up and down the plant’s genome, which is itself a delicate, finely tuned and immensely complex “ecosystem.”  Consequently, because the genome which contains all the blueprints for the cell's life giving micro machinery is damaged and altered,  the transgenic plant begins synthesizing novel, truncated or altogether foreign proteins. This is extremely concerning because of how precisely all cellular building blocks are constructed, and need to be constructed. 

         For example, proteins are complex molecules made up of amino acids.  The average amino acid is constructed of 20-40 atoms, joined in precise sequence.  The protein ribonuclease contains 124 amino acids, again, all in precise arrangement.  And that's the simplest protein known!  Some proteins contain over 10,000 amino acids, all with their components in exact sequence and arrangement. Moreover, these complex proteins all work together in complex interdependent systems that fail when one tiny component is missing or even slightly altered.  

           Proteins, like all molecules, have a 3D tertiary structure created by the shape and "fold" of its constituent molecules.  If a protein is altered, if even one component of one amino acid is altered, removed or replaced, the 3D shape of the molecule is altered, and the entire protein instantly alters it's function in some way.  It may cease to function, or become allergenic, or toxic, or do very weird, unforeseen things with the smallest of re-arrangements.  Genome damage and altered protein synthesis resulting from the transgenic process itself cannot be predicted due to our lack of understanding and the imprecise nature of gene splicing, but it happens nevertheless, and contributes to many health complications in both the plant and secondary consumers.  This is true for any form of current transgenic manipulation.  Of course, R-R crops are all sprayed with substantial quantities of Glyphosate on top of everything discussed here.   

           The entire current GM enterprise is based on grossly outdated science and was flawed from inception.  There is no simple "one gene = one trait" correlation in genetics, which was assumed to be true 70 years ago before the human genome project taught otherwise.  Yet, the entire current generation of GM technology is still predicated on this flawed model.  Bio-tech companies know all this, of course, but the current model is such a huge cash cow their unspoken attitude has been..."Don't bother us with the details."  Today we know that genetics and epigenetic expression is vastly more complicated than this.  There are untold numbers of harmful ramifications to GM technology, though we’re still learning what many of them are because the bio-tech industry is not required by our gov’t agencies to perform long-term safety tests or reveal what it knows.  

           Nevertheless, BT toxin and Glyphosate are both alike still promoted as safe and even natural by the industry.  “See, even organic growers use BT” so of course it’s safe in our products (is the implication).  And again, “[M]ineral chelation occurs naturally all the time, so there's no need to worry when Glyphosate chelates minerals.”  If only that were true.  When we mess with nature on such a fundamental level we always end up causing great harm to the biological systems in question and their eco-systems, whether we see it initially or not.  Always.  

          To ease worries, reduce regulatory burdens and help profits, bio-tech companies managed to get their friends in the regulatory agencies to categorize GM organisms as "substantively equivalent" to conventional crops.  They most certainly are not!  They never would have been granted patent protection if they were.  Plant synthesis of bacterial proteins, for example, is wholly unnatural and unprecedented.  Of course, when neighboring organic farmers have GM pollen blown onto their fields they are forced to incur the losses if they lose their organic certification, and Monsanto will gladly sue for "patent infringement," demonstrating great dexterity of tongue when speaking out of both sides of its mouth at once.  

          GMO's were fraudulently rubber-stamped via the GRAS (generally regarded as safe) designation because the presidential administration at the time gave it a green light: bio-tech was a cash cow it needed.  This was a travesty as GMO's were novel entities with no history or long-term safety testing done and there was no (requisite) consensus of thought by the scientific experts working on them at the time, as buried EPA scientific documents later brought to light aptly demonstrate.  The EPA's own scientists warned against many of the dangers of GMO's mentioned on this page but they were silenced and their concerns never saw the light of day.  

          Corporations not only engineered the products, but also the non-regulation of their products.  And this continues to this day with relentless efforts by the bio-tech industry to stifle reform initiatives, transparency & labeling laws, and expert independent scientific review.  The more recent law H.R. 1422 demonstrates the point, which effectively bars experts in the field from testifying and sharing their expertise on their own research...but allows corporately assigned "experts" to testify.  This law would prevent what happened earlier with the EPA's own expert scientific researchers from happening again, for example.  If there was ever a question that our governments have been completely infiltrated by corporate interests, it has been answered.  In fact, it's far worse than most realize.

​What...It Gets Worse?  

          Glyphosate accumulates in the soil, and in some locations has been used from long before GM crops arrived; since the 70's.  With the release of RR GM crops in the mid 90’s usage exploded, and now with the rise of the super weed it has exploded again.  It has been predicted annual global Glyphosate usage will rise to 1.35 million metric tons by 2017.  This situation escalates every year as more and more Glyphosate is urgently applied, some guys spraying it three to five times a season now due to increasing resistance and burn-down applications.  This all adds up to a lot of Glyphosate in our food and in our soils chelating more and more of the minerals, particularly the vital micro’s, that our plants and we need but are not getting in sufficient amounts. 

           In North America currently, the levels of this chemical in our food supply far exceed known safe levels.  Industrial farming doesn't appear to have much to worry about, however, because its friends inside our ever vigilant gov't agencies keep raising the allowable amounts whenever levels approach condemnation limits.  This helps keep the wheels of industry greased.  To see for yourself, follow this link to official U.S. gov't allowable Glyphosate levels.  (Canadian regs often mirror those of the U.S.)  Scroll down a third of the page to the section "180.364," or click the respective link at the top.  Many high Glyphosate use crops very recently had their allowable levels raised (again) to 100, 200, 300 ppm, even 400 ppm in animal feed!  And pig farmers wonder why their herds keep getting decimated.  Concentrations as low as 0.1 ppm have been shown to disrupt the gut microbiome of chickens, for example, and levels between 1-10 ppm have demonstrated cytotoxic effects on virtually all of our own cells, depending on their type.  So why in the world do they keep raising allowable levels?  That they do, without any questions asked, speaks volumes about the intention of regulators and their cosy relationship with the agro-chemical industry.  

          Nutrients that have been chelated by Glyphosate will still show in soil analysis, but for all practical purposes they have gone to Florida for an extended vacation: they are unavailable for use.  The higher the clay content and the lower the soil pH, the greater the sorption of Glyphosate.  Glyphosate induced damage is real, even in GM crops, yet it is largely misunderstood and miss-diagnosed.  Appreciable yield drag has also been documented in Glyphosate based GM systems when juxtaposed with comparable conventional hybrids, despite all the propaganda that they increase yield.  They were not engineered to increase yield.  There is no introduced trait in GM crops that can increase yield, either BT or herbicide resistant varieties.  Their sole purpose has always only been to increase sales by getting farmers hooked onto a more convenient, labour saving spray regime.  It worked.

          Heavy use of Round-Up causes considerable damage to soil structure because of its potent anti-microbial properties.  Among many other useful functions, bacteria exude a natural bio-slime that functions like glue to help form and hold together soil aggregates.  Beneficial fungal populations branch out in every direction to increase aggregate stability.  All kinds of soil microbes work in conjunction to give your soil better tilth, structure and health.  This aids your plants and soil biology immensely.  Tilling and heavy machinery is hard on soil structure, true, but in the absence of healthy and diverse microbiology soil aggregates and top soil cannot be rebuilt properly.  And as icing on the cake, because Glyphosate is an organophosphate, applications of phosphorous can cause Glyphosate tied up in the soil to desorp back into a free state so it can do its damage all over again.  As it stands, if everyone stopped using glyphosate *right now* it could take many, many years for it and it’s by-products to go away completely. 

          And we haven’t even taken the other adjuvants added to Round-Up into account, like dispersants, surfactants and other chemicals, or the degradation by-products of these sprays, like AMPA, which is even more toxic, or the greatly multiplied toxicity of the complete formulation for that matter.  Current methods of assessing toxicity and allowable levels in feed and the environment only look at the active principle, or ingredient, not the complete formulation as it is applied in the real world.  In fact, manufacturers are only required to list a product’s active ingredient.  This is seriously flawed methodology and represents another major failure of the agencies that are supposed to be protecting us.  The complete formulation of Round-Up is many, many times more toxic than its active ingredient, Glyphosate, in isolation. 

          Some farmers won’t hear this well, but when taking the long view Glyphosate is arguably the single most damaging chronic toxin ever produced.  One of the greatest but largely unknown scandals of our age is that everyone has been duped into thinking it’s completely harmless.  As a result it’s been used ubiquitously on our soils and global food supply for decades, and not just with GM crops. 

          At recommended application rates it’s not acutely toxic, but it is very toxic chronically, inhibiting hundreds of vital cellular processes.  Glyphosate and its metabolites are both geno and cytotoxic, and its insidious effects touch every part of the body.  It’s very damaging to kidney, liver and brain cells and has been linked to an epidemic of kidney related deaths among manual farm laborers around the globe, and is being banned in various countries because of this.  It’s very destructive to the epithelial lining of our g.i. tract and the vital intestinal microbial flora that lives in the gut, causing dysbiosis and contributing to many related health issues.     

           In 2015 the World Health Organization, via the IARC, released their verdict that Glyphosate is "probably" carcinogenic.  They are very late to the party however, since studies such as the Seralini rat-feeding safety study clearly showed massive cancer as an outcome to exposure years ago, and that only duplicated what the EPA knew since the 70's when Monsanto did it's own animal studies: Round-Up causes massive cancer!  Infuriatingly, the EPA seems to have colluded with Monsanto to bury the results, until in the last few years Dr. Anthony Samsell forced regulators to disclose decades-old sealed and damning study results. Monsanto and key regulators have known about this danger all along.  All this time while Monsanto has been adamantly claiming how safe its star product is they have been hiding the truth from everyone, and our modern "western diseases" rage on to epidemic proportions.  

           Glyphosate contributes to major mitochondrial dysfunction, which has huge implications.  It impairs energy production.  It impairs our cells ability to detoxify themselves and greatly exacerbates pre-existing health conditions. It disrupts the endocrine system.  It increases system wide inflammation.  It has serious effects on our reproductive systems and all that entails. The list goes on, and all these things begin to happen via hundreds if not thousands of impeded or destroyed metabolic functions at residual levels many times lower than what is now present in our food supply.  Allowable levels should be massively curtailed, if not banned, not raised!  

          Current usage trends are a health and safety, ecological and economic nightmare unfolding before us, yet a lot of people are still asleep at the wheel on this one.  Needless to say this herbicide will undermine any natural farming or gardening operation.  We are sliding down the slippery slope of unintended consequences with all of these agro-chemicals.  The current system won’t change unless made to, so why not consider becoming pro-active and helping to reverse current trends?  Gain control of your inputs and the health of your operation again.  But how?  

​At Last, Good News!

          AGGRAND products are a great first step in the right direction and are very helpful in remediating Glyphosate induced damage and micro-nutrient deficiencies.  However: never mix Glyphosate with AGGRAND products!  If you mix the two together the Glyphosate will chelate all the positive cat ions in our fertilizer, rendering them unusable.  It will do this right in the mix tank and the two will cancel each other out, wasting you a lot of time & money.  If at all possible wait three weeks after a Glyphosate application before you use AGGRAND fertilizers.  Better yet, try not to use Glyphosate at all if you can manage.  

          When you work around this detail, however, it's very good to know that in scenarios of Glyphosate induced damage or micro nutrient hidden hunger you can really help mitigate and offset these conditions.  Our products contain all necessary macro and micro nutrients, and more besides.  Where the soil cannot feed the plant because of chelation, or the roots are damaged from Glyphosate and not functioning like they should, there is now this excellent option.  It is especially in these circumstances that AGGRAND really shines as a foliar spray, and this is great news for growers.  Another method that is showing to be effective at remediating Glyphosate damage of the soil itself is the use of certain microbial teas.