I’m delighted that Acres magazine is at 650 issues. That’s an achievement. Longevity is scarce these days.
Your editorial (August 2025) quoted Thomas Sowell: “There are no solutions. There are only tradeoffs.” I read some more, and what do you know — glyphosate comes up in the discussion. “In the absence of glyphosate, farmers will use other herbicides.” This may be true in conventional agriculture, but I do not expect to hear this argument in a magazine that bills itself as the voice of eco-agriculture. Glyphosate for many of us is not acceptable, nor are the other herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, etc.
My solution to growing healthy produce and turf grass is to not use these toxins. My customers appreciate that. The ticket to not using pesticides in general is to read the weeds. Charles Walters’ book Weeds: Control without Poisons explains this principle. This book should be in every grower’s office, read and reread as needed. Mr. Walters’ observations are still relevant, believe it or not.
I may also add that diversity is key. Corn and soy is not a diverse farm. Grow twenty different things — maybe even some nursery stock or flowers thrown in the mix. Farm location to the markets does dictate some of the produce grown.
Thomas Sowell’s quotation has merit in politics and other areas of society, but to compromise and use glyphosate and other chemicals because a grower can’t find a solution doesn’t mean there isn’t a solution. The real question should be, Can we as a society afford NOT to have these chemicals, the medical industry, the chemical companies, the equipment companies, all employ thousands of people to produce, distribute and treat the damage these chemicals cause? Where would these people work? How would the economy be affected? What would the equipment shed look like? How many diseases like obesity, cancer, and Parkinson’s could suddenly be reduced? These are the questions that need to be answered.
Eric Hart
Eldersburg, Maryland
August’s issue of Acres arrived, and like I do every time I get a new copy, I settled down in the evening after animal chores and flipped to the “View from the Country.”
This time, though, I stopped short of the end: “We would be wise not to think that banning the herbicide glyphosate will solve all our problems … in absence of glyphosate, many farmers will resort to other herbicides that are even more toxic to humans, microbes and other creatures.”
Recently, this argument is being repeated by a diverse set of talking heads. I was surprised to read it in Acres.
Of course, ending the reign of glyphosate isn’t a panacea for ecological destruction and human health. And I’m not for the government telling people what they can and can’t do. But of all places to see this straw man argument parroted, I didn’t expect it in Acres.
Glyphosate is indeed not the most acutely toxic herbicide available. Paraquat and 2,4-D have a much lower LD-50 threshold in rats. But what makes glyphosate so insidious and significant is the sheer amount of it in the environment and the long-term ramifications of literally dosing the earth with it. Very few studies have been conducted about the chronic impact of glyphosate on humans and environmental health — and the few that do exist paint a horrifying picture.
Dr. Stephanie Seneff, in her extremely well-researched and cited book Toxic Legacy, documents a reality that should make all of us sit up straight and pay attention. Beyond the likeliness of being cancer-causing, glyphosate has extremely detrimental impacts to fertility, liver health, and the gut microbiome, and it has a strong chelating effect on essential minerals. In fact, glyphosate was originally patented in 1961 as a chelating agent for industrial use.
And for those of us that avoid GMOs, eat organic, and raise our own food? Well, we aren’t safe either. Glyphosate is repeatedly found in drinking water, rain, and even in hair samples from the most hard-core granola types you can find. Never mind us farmers and ranchers.
Perhaps most disturbing is the common practice of spraying glyphosate on crops right before harvest to induce maturation and desiccate crops like wheat and sorghum for easier harvest. These crops — with their high residues — are often fed to livestock (never mind the wheat flour we humans use). And we livestock keepers turn around and buy minerals because our animals are deficient. How is that smart?
No, I’m not saying we should ban glyphosate. But at a time when there are numerous legislative efforts being pushed by high-paid lawyers and lobbyists to grant legal immunity to the manufacturers of glyphosate and other herbicides, this truly is not an issue Acres should be instructing its readers to sit back and take a relaxed view on.
Chelsie Johnson
Paige, Texas
