Opinion : Do you have a weedkiller sandwich at lunchtime?

A few years ago a particularly nasty and hard to get rid of weed invaded the formal flower borders of my beautifully manicured gardens.

No matter how yours truly tried the nuisance weed refused to be eradicated. There was only one thing to do, as a last resort I invested in some extra strong and powerful weed killer.

The weed killer my good self chose was based around glyphosate, a colourless liquid weed killer that is systemic in nature meaning that it enters the plants internal system and kills it from within.

The weed killer was applied to the troublesome weeds however there was a little over so the remainder went on an area around a particularly nice bush that was planted in the grounds of my ancestral home by my grandfather in the 1930’s.

During the application of the weedkiller a very tiny amount accidently splashed onto the bush. Within a couple of weeks the branch of the bush withered and died just like all the other weeds. By George! This weedkiller is powerful.

A short while after the whole bush died and my good self had to cut down the entire bush, it was a tragedy and a lesson in my own clumsiness that sticks in my mind to this very day.

Now you’re probably wondering what this blog has to do with sandwiches?

Well, last Sunday evening I was at my neighbours house watching their television when a programme about the countryside came on. The programme featured an article about farmers using glyphosate, the very same weedkiller that was used by my good self all those years ago.

What I learned from the television programme shocked me.

Apparently, once grown and ready for harvest, rather than let the wheat crop dry naturally some farmers are applying glyphosate to the wheat in order to kill it and therefore dry the crop to ensure the perfect harvest.

While watching the programme my mind flicked back to the bush that I accidently killed. The weedkiller is systemic, that means it enters the plants workings and kills from within, now would I want to eat a plant that had been poisoned to death? Especially with a substance that potentially can remain in the grain and then be eaten by me?

It seems that various organisations are raising concern about this farming practice, such as the Soil Association who have launched a campaign entitled ‘Not in our bread‘.

Would you eat a sandwich that contained bread made from grain that had been killed by weedkiller?

As far as I’m concerned my good self definitely does not want a ‘weedkiller sandwich’ so my trusty bread machine has been dusted off to make my own bread from organic flour.

To top things off it surprised me to discover that the organic bread made in my own kitchen is actually cheaper than the shop bought processed bread that may contain the tainted flour.

What do you think?

*My blogs are published every Tuesday and Friday evening around 8.00pm here on the WycombeToday.com website.

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