Organic farmers denounce Monsanto herbicide

(ANSA) - Rome, March 24 - The Italian Orgnic Farming Association (AIAB) on Tuesday called on the government and the European Union to ban the use of glyphosate weed-killer because it may be carcinogenic.
    "We call on Italy and the EU to immediately consider the necessary measures to protect farmers and consumers from glyphosate," the AIAB said in a note.
    The Lyon-based International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) - an intergovernmental agency forming part of the World Health Organization of the United Nations - named glyphosate as a probable carcinogen in a March 21 report. A 2014 article in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that workers exposed to glyphosate were about twice as likely to get B cell lymphoma, the most common kind of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. American agribusiness multinational Monsanto discovered the compound in 1970, marketing it as a wide-spectrum herbicide under the trade name Roundup.
    Monsanto also genetically engineered seeds to produce plants that are resistant to Roundup, marketing them under the trade name Roundup Ready.
    "We have known for years that glyphosate is harmful to human and environmental health and that it accumulates in food and water," said AIAB President Vincenzo Vizioli.
    "We have been fighting for years against (glyphosate) and other pesticides, which are being passed off as harmless".