A company of contradictions….?

by Kenneth Keavey

When we started out 20 years ago, as we struggled to contain the weeds on our 0.25 acre plot, we had two pieces of wisdom imparted to us. Never let a weed see Sunday, a fair statement, meaning if a plant doesn’t go to seed you won’t have a million more minions to deal with in short order. The other was “Why not use a touch of Roundup?”, I love this one, because it frames the chemical as benign, but far from benign Roundup is!

A company that makes €2.9 billion a year from a product with 67,000 pending cancer lawsuits against it, while simultaneously targeting €10 billion in cancer drug sales by 2030, has structural incentives that are deeply misaligned with public health.

No conspiracy here, but there are two outrageously conflicting business units in operation under one corporation here. Bayer the giant Agri pharmaceutical company does just that. The question I often wonder about is why with all the litigation against it doesn’t Bayer withdraw Roundup from the market.

Well, there is the €2.9 billion in sales for one thing, but there is another massive revenue stream that is often overlooked where the discussion of Roundup is concerned, Roundup ready crops.

The US government’s own agricultural statistics tell the story starkly. In 2025, 96% of all US soybean acres were planted with herbicide-tolerant seeds — the highest adoption rate ever recorded. Around 92% of domestic US corn acres are produced with herbicide-tolerant seeds, and 93% of cotton acres are genetically engineered herbicide tolerant. So, the real Bayer agrochemical empire looks like this:

Glyphosate herbicide: ~€2.9 billion/year

Full Crop Science division (mainly Roundup ready crops): €21.6 billion/year

Cancer drug ambition by 2030: €10 billion target

It’s an interesting summary, Bayer OWN nearly the whole Soybean, Corn and Cotton production in the US, not to mention lentils and chickpeas too. They own the plants; they own the rights. They own the food system. They make a colossal sum from the crop sciences division, which is nearly entirely based on the patented Glyphosate resistant plants.

You couldn’t make this up, and now because the American food system is dependent on Roundup it looks like they are going to be protected by the US government from the fact that their product probably causes cancer.

Bayer’s strategy is explicit: a favourable ruling by the US Supreme Court could largely end the Roundup litigation — the argument being that since the EPA approved the label without a cancer warning, no state-based lawsuit for failure to warn should be allowed to proceed. If they win that case, which is currently before the Supreme Court in the US, the entire litigation mountain largely disappears — and they keep the revenue.

They are winning and make no mistake this will give them a green light to continue here in Europe also.

Now I may be wrong, and maybe it is just coincidence, but to me there seems to be a resurgence in the use of glyphosate right here on our home turf. Literally on our turf. Everywhere now there are fields sprayed, road verges sprayed.

I was at Bloom last weekend and had a several discussions about the addiction to this product and the damage it does to biodiversity and how unnecessary it is.

One thing for sure, Roundup has no place on our farm or food, so thank you for your support, it means we can keep biodiversity healthy and keep this toxic chemical out of our food supply.

Kenneth

PS To celebrate our 20 years in business, we are very excited to announce our very first Sustainability festival on the 12th of September, this promises to be an amazing day of celebrating all that is right and proper in the Irish food system, nearly half the tickets are already sold, so why not grab yours now.

Also, we will be running our usual farm walk but this year we have planned it for the 18th of July, there is a nominal charge for this, and again numbers are strictly limited, please find all the info here.

Weed Control & Roundup

by Kenneth Keavey

Over the last couple of months, I had forgotten how grounding growing food is. On a sunny day or sometimes even better on a wet and windy day walking through the crops, or sampling the fresh harvest, leaves you feelingconnected to the land and alive.  It is easy to forget all of this.  
 
These days it’s very difficult to know how the food we eat is actually produced. How could we be expected to know?  Life is so busy, and supermarkets give us a shiny happy reality that is often disconnected from the real food production processeshidden behind the scenes. 

The end of the growing season is a mad rush it always is and just when you think you are finished you discover you are not. We have finished planting, but the weeds have marched on relentlessly. This warm humid weather is ideal for cropgrowth but also for weed growth. 

This year our work apart from one or two mishaps has kept pace with the weeds. But our approach to weed control is notone of total dominance, quite frequently once you get the crops to a certain size the weeds are no longer a problem. 

In fact, they can provide a basis for a wide variety of life: flowering weeds that bees come to, the lush green undergrowth, a haven for a myriad of tiny creatures that would not be there otherwise. 

Thus, in turn providing food for the birds, and at times, the necessary predators such as ladybirds and hoverflies that feed on aphids. A natural ecosystem living below the giant shading leaves of the broccoli plants or cabbages develop. Each plant brings something different to the fray and generally none are unwelcome.

Now please do not misunderstand me, if we did not take a pragmatic approach to weed control and utilise all the tools at our disposal there would be no crops, no food, and no farm. We have worked extremely hard to ensure the crops are healthy and weed control is part of the process. No, our approach is just different, less harsh and embraces the idea that yes, we can work with these other plants, and they too have a place on our farm. 

Conversely conventional farming relies on the iron fist of chemicals to control weeds, there is no room for negotiation here, the chemicals are designed to disrupt metabolic pathways in plants, they are generally systemic in nature (get absorbed into the plant and reside there after application, all the way up the food chain onto our plates), the weeds are removed, and the residues of the chemicals remain in and on the food. Just look at the side of any road sprayed with roundup, it is ugly and yellow and dead. 
 
Using chemicals to fight nature will never work. In the short term it may give a temporary reprieve from a certain disease or pest, but that pest will come back stronger and more resistant next time. It is in a way a self-perpetuating industry.It is not the way and IT IS CERTAINLY NOT OUR WAY.

Organic agriculture is much more than saying no to the use of chemicals, it represents a holistic approach to working with nature, to our land and to our food. It means no chemicals, but it also means no artificial fertiliser, it means tree planting, it means hedge planting, it means allowing nature its place to thrive while also producing food. It means taking care of the soil and it means producing food that tastes fresh and good and crucially is good for us and for the environment.

Here’s to fresh organic food!

Kenneth

PS: It is a strange time, normality is creeping back into our lives, kids are going back to school as are ours, routines if there are ones will be re-established. It has been a strange year, some things are certainly outside of our control, but we can control what we eat. Keeping good healthy fresh food in our fridge, means we are more likely to use it, and this means we will eat healthier and feel better, as we head into autumnaldays this is one sure positive step we can take.