Originally posted on Quora October 31, 2022
In a move that is likely to draw immediate ire from the USDA, EPA, and USTR, India has all but prohibited the use of glyphosate-based herbicides/pesticides except by pest control operators, which even in a country of 1.4 billion people are few and far between. Why would I make such a prediction? Because, as I mentioned in Our Food is Poisoned, those same alphabet soup agencies attempted to stop similar bans in Thailand and Mexico, by threatening to remove favorable trade status from the former and pressuring the later to remove the ban because it “supposedly” violated the USMCA (Trump’s rebranded NAFTA).
The implications of such a ban are much further reaching than they appear on the surface. Monsanto originally developed GMO crops, called Roundup Ready Crops, and the patented GMO seeds they are grown from to resist the herbicide/pesticide sprayed to kill weeds and insects. It is speculated that the glyphosate was partially a measure to curtail the growth of illegal GMO cotton in India. Demand for Bayer-Monsanto’s GM seeds will fall with the demand for their herbicide and in a market of 1.4 billion people (of whom 40% work in AG) that could put a serious dent in their bottom line.