Glyphosate: A Powerful Tool for the Sportsman

The use of herbicides in food production, land management bound to be controversial.

- Heath R. Curtis

On the one hand, modern farming produces vastly more calories per acre than our ancestors could have ever dreamed of. 

On the other, I don't particularly like the idea of eating, drinking or breathing glyphosate, the now out-of patent chemical in RoundUp. There's no doubt the destruction of hedgerows and wood lots encouraged by using modern agricultural chemicals has been a disaster for upland birds.

If I lived in an area without much farming, I don't think I would touch glyphosate. But I live and hunt in the Midwest. The three-acre plot of soybeans across from my house gets sprayed with both glyphosate and dicamba twice a year. Every patch of woods I hunt in is likewise surrounded by farm fields. These chemicals are all around us, so my hunting buddies and I don't worry about the judicious use of glyphosate each year for three tasks that this chemical does better than anything else: controlling invasive plants; maintaining trails; and establishing and caring for food plots.

Glyphosate was created by Monsanto during the 1970s. It quickly became the most used herbicide in North America. Like any chemical, it should be utilized according to label directions and with all sensible precautions, like wearing gloves, eye protection and either wearing a mask or keeping the wind blowing the chemical away from you as you spray. While the regulatory agencies of the European Union, Australia and the U.S. have all stated that glyphosate is "not likely to be carcinogenic to humans," it can't hurt to be careful.

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