Journal or Publishing Institution: InTech
Author(s): Szekacs, A. and Darvas, B.
Article Type: Journal Publication
Record ID: 2254
Text: If one were to pick the most notified pesticide of the turn of the millennium, the choice would most likely be glyphosate. Although DDT remains to be the all-time star in the Hall of Fame of pesticides, the second most admitted pesticide active ingredient must be the phosphonomethylglycine type compound of Monsanto Company, glyphosate. Indeed, the two boasted pesticides show certain similarities in their history of discovery and fate. Both were synthesised first several decades prior to the discovery of their pesticide action. DDT and glyphosate were first described as chemical compounds 65 and 21 years before their discovery as pesticides, respectively. Both fulfilled extensive market need, therefore, both burst into mass application right after the discovery of their insecticide/herbicide activity. They both were, to some extent, connected to wars: a great part of the use of DDT was (and remains to be) hygienic, particularly after Word War II, but also the Vietnam War; while glyphosate plays an eminent role in the “drug war” (Plan Colombia) as a defoliant of marijuana fields in Mexico and South America. And last, not least, ecologically unfavourable characteristics of both was applauded as advantageous: the persistence of DDT had been seen initially as a benefit of long lasting activity, and the zwitterionic structure and consequent outstanding water solubility of glyphosate, unusual among pesticides, also used to be praised, before the environmental or ecotoxicological disadvantages of these characteristics were understood.
Yet there are marked differences as well between these two prominent pesticide active ingredients. Meanwhile the career of DDT lasted a little over three decades until becoming banned (mostly) worldwide, the history of glyphosate has gone beyond that by now, since the discovery of its herbicidal action (Baird et al., 1971). And while DDT is the only Nobel prize laureate pesticide, glyphosate was the “first billion dollar product” of the pesticide industry (Franz et al., 1997). Moreover, meanwhile the course of DDT was rather simple: rapid rise into mass utlilisation, discovery of environmental persistence, development of pest resistance, loss of efficacy, and subsequent ban; the history of glyphosate is far more diverse: its business success progressed uncumbered, receiving two major boosts. First, the patent protection of glyphosate preparations was renewed in the US in 1991 for another decade on the basis of application advantages due to formulation novelties, and second, its sales were further strengthened outside Europe with the spread of glyphosate-tolerant (GT) genetically modified (GM) crops. This market success has been limited significantly neither by the recognition of the water-polluting feature of the parent compound, nor by the emerging weed resistance worldwide.
It is not a simple task to predict whether glyphosate continues to rise in the near future, or its application will be abating. To facilitate better assessment of these two possibilities, the present work attempts to provide a summary of the utility and the environmental health problems of glyphosate applications…
Keywords: Pesticide, Glyphosate, DDT, Monsanto, Vietnam War, Mexico, Marijuana, Drug War, Plan Colombia, Glyphosate-Tolerant, Genetically Modified Crops
Citation: Szekacs, A. and Darvas, B., 2012. Forty years with glyphosate. In Herbicides-Properties, Synthesis and Control of Weeds. InTech.
