Food giant Kellogg plans to eliminate the use of glyphosate in its wheat and oat supply chains by 2025. The company quietly made the announcement on its “Open for Breakfast” website.
The announcement stems from use of glyphosate as a desiccant — or drying agent — before wheat or oat harvest.
“Although this practice is not widespread in our wheat and oat supply chains, we are working with our suppliers to phase out using glyphosate as pre-harvest drying agent in our wheat and oat supply chain in our major markets, including the U.S., by the end of 2025,” the company said on its website.
Kellogg and other food companies are under pressure from organizations like the Environmental Working Group to curtail or eliminate their glyphosate use. Last year, EWG and a host of food companies, many of them exclusively organic, petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to lower the threshold of glyphosate allowed in oat products to 0.1 parts per million instead of the current level of 30 ppm. Ag interests pushed back, saying the effort lacked a scientific basis.
Kellogg does not mention EWG or the petitioning effort in its announcement, but a linked webpage quotes EWG lobbyist Scott Faber praising the company’s efforts to dig “into how farmers are using pesticides, particularly glyphosate, and pushing to understand if there are viable alternatives.”
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