Kellogg’s Is Getting Glyphosate Out of Wheat and Oats. Will Other Companies Follow Suit?
Earlier this year, Kellogg’s quietly announced that, by 2025, it will phase out pre-harvest use of glyphosate in its major wheat and oat supply chains. This important action comes after the company’s products appeared in several reports finding glyphosate residues in nearly every sampled popular breakfast foods (from Kellogg’s as well as General Mills, Quaker, and others).
As it turns out, no one wants to eat pesticides for breakfast — and glyphosate is particularly scary. In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer recognized glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen. Soon after, the state of California listed glyphosate (under proposition 65) as a known carcinogen. Increasingly, scientists are also connecting glyphosate exposure with a growing list of other health harms, including liver and kidney damage, endocrine disruption, and neurodevelopmental damage. Recent legal cases have awarded plaintiffs hundreds of millions of dollars for glyphosate causing their cancers.
Glyphosate is the key ingredient in Roundup, an herbicide in wide use across the world. While also popular with home gardeners, Roundup is most commonly used by farmers to combat weeds on corn and soy crops genetically modified to withstand the herbicide. Glyphosate use has increased by 15-fold since the introduction of “Roundup Ready” crops in 1996. In recent years, farmers have also been encouraged by agrochemical companies to expand their use of the herbicide by using it to dry out crops such as oats and wheat just before harvest. This practice, called pre-harvest application or desiccation, is increasingly common and the likely culprit for glyphosate residues remaining on cereals and other processed foods on our tables.
It is worth noting that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers the levels of residues found on foods to be “safe.” However, many public health advocates disagree. EPA’s process for determining safety has been highly criticized for relying on chemical producers to provide their own scientific studies rather than seeking independent, peer-reviewed research. Further, a lack of long-term data prevents us from knowing how exposure to small amounts of glyphosate will affect human health over a lifetime, or how we are impacted by combined exposures to a variety of chemicals, including glyphosate.
According to a consumer reports survey, 85 percent of American consumers are concerned about pesticide residues in food. Avoiding pesticides is the number one reason consumers choose to buy USDA-certified organic food, which must be grown without the use of persistent synthetic pesticides. But not everyone can afford the higher cost of organic foods. Consumers, public interest groups, and investors are calling on major food companies to take action to reduce the likelihood of glyphosate and other pesticides making their way into food products. Eliminating pre-harvest pesticide use is one important step on the way toward improving farming methods to greatly reduce and eliminate pesticide use.
By requiring wheat and oat suppliers to phase out the practice in the next five years, Kellogg’s is demonstrating a commitment to ensuring that its food products are free from glyphosate residues, even at low levels. The company is wise to protect itself from the risks of exposing consumers to chemicals.
With all these reasons to phase out pre-harvest glyphosate, is Kellogg’s the only major company taking action? We asked that same question in a November 2019 scorecard and report examining how 14 major food manufacturers are addressing the problem of pesticides in their supply chains.
Overall, the food companies in our report scored poorly on pesticide management, which includes everything from tracking pesticide use through supply chains to setting pesticide reduction polices. Only two companies (General Mills and Pepsico) scored more than 10 points (out of 30 possible). Kellogg’s was the only company to score points for glyphosate management. General Mills and Quaker (think: Cheerios and Quaker Oats) make some of the most popular products found on Environmental Working Group’s glyphosate contaminated list, so it is surprising that they are not yet specifically reducing pre-harvest glyphosate use.
Overall, the industry has a long way to go to reduce risks related to pesticide use and to improve transparency in agricultural supply chains. We’re happy to see Kellogg’s stepping up to address one source of the overuse of pesticides, and we’re looking to other companies to do the same.