Exploring the Impact of Herbicide Use on Food Safety and Health: A Concern for Barbados Today

The 1996 World Food Summit stated that: “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”

Recent articles in Barbados TODAY on this topic have emphasised the seriousness of the economics of this issue. However, a key component of food security is food safety.

There is a saying that food is medicine, but that is not accurate because while food can be nutritious, life-sustaining and healing, food can also be nutrient-deficient, life-sapping and debilitating.

Farmers repeatedly drench their fields with herbicides even before planting crops. Once they plant crops, they continue to apply herbicides during the growing process. I’ve witnessed herbicides being sprayed when a crop, in this instance, lettuce, had reached maturity. I’ve also seen evidence that herbicides are being used pre-harvest to desiccate crops such as onions.

The active ingredient in one of the most commonly used herbicides is glyphosate, and our local produce is contaminated by this toxin. I say this with confidence even though I haven’t conducted a single test because you cannot use such herbicides so liberally without contaminating the food that you’re growing.

In addition, the widespread and indiscriminate use of these chemicals is contaminating our air and threatening our water supply. The excessive use of herbicides on the island probably means that even our rainwater is likely to be contaminated.

One of glyphosate’s patents is as an antibiotic. This means that its use is potentially contributing to antibiotic resistance in our population. Glyphosate also disrupts our gut microbiome. This can lead to many health issues, including Alzheimer’s disease, autism, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, kidney disease, fatty liver disease, obesity, pancreatic cancer and thyroid cancer. Yet, many people are oblivious to the risks of using glyphosate-containing herbicides, like Roundup.

Some play down the risks by saying that they will only use a small quantity. Alarmingly, research has shown that glyphosate can cause hormone-sensitive breast cancer cells to proliferate in concentrations measured in parts per trillion – a concentration so low, it’s hard to visualise. The following will help to put this into context. A part per trillion is the equivalent of a drop of water in the Olympic-sized swimming pool at the Barbados Aquatic Centre.