Hi everyone, yup another storm has hit, this time promising up to 1 inch of ice! So I had some time to research RoundUp, an herbicide made by Monsanto. You’ve probably seen the bottle on the shelf at your hardware store or caught their ads on the boob tube. Well, it seems that RoundUp is not just made for the home user. Their largest market is in agricultural uses.
RoundUp’s main active ingredient is Glyphosate which has been around since the seventies. Guess what?! It’s toxic to animals! Guess what else?! It has a half life of over 100 days when sprayed onto fields. Why does this matter? Well, besides poisoning the farmers and workers spraying the substance it can also get into waterways and still be on your hay when you go to cut, also killing an entire field at once is destroying habitats for many beneficial insects and critters.
It is apparently very common practice for farmers in my area to kill off everything before reseeding, their favored way to do this is by spraying RoundUp on the field. In the old days the farmers would burn the fields, over plant, or use legumes to rebuild the soil. It looks like I’ll be doing one of the older techniques in order to grow better hay for my horses.
This could mean having to get all of my own equipment so I don’t risk cross-contamination from other farmer’s equipment. That would mean a bigger tractor, manure spreader, no till seed drill, drag rake, a hay elevator and a lot of back breaking work. But it could be the only way to go.
For more information on the nasty side of RoundUp please visit Mindfully.org’s wonderful write up.
