Glyphosat: Why not? No way! - Does anybody understand that?

On May 20, 2018 the second event in the context of the CEPLAS lecture series „An der Wurzel gepackt” took place at the Café Europa in Düsseldorf. This time, the event entited “Glyphosat: Warum nicht? Auf keinen Fall! Wer blickt da noch durch?” was dedicated to the most commonly used, but controversially discussed herbicide glyphosate.
The program was comprised of four short key note talks to introduce the topic and deliver some background information followed by a panel discussion where the audience had the opportunity to ask questions.

The fist speaker was Peter Westhoff, who explained what Glyphosate in fact is, for what it is most commonly used and what the connection between glyphosate and GMO plants is.
His talk was followed by a talk from “Bauer Willi” (Willi Kremer-Schillings), a farmer and blogger on agricultural topics. He stressed out why he uses glyphosate, which alternatives he has and what a ban of glyphosate would mean for him as a farmer, but also for the consumers.
Gerhard Fritz from the Institute of Toxicology gave exciting background information on the different ways to test the toxicity of chemicals and explained why apparently contradictory statements by different institutions do make sense.
Andreas Weber closed the talks with a short overview on the economic and regulatory framework in which agriculture has to be seen.
The talks were followed by an intensive, lively discussion on the putative toxicology of Glyphosate and possibilities to increase the transparency in approval procedures. The event was chaired by Tim Neumann from “Hochschulradio Düsseldorf”.

This time, the event also took place in the context of the worldwide “Pint of Science Festival”.

Fotos: HHU/Florian Kaiser-Winter