Oil on Canvas
24” x 36” – May 2019
For many, glyphosate conjures up images of vast industrial monocultures, genetically engineered crops, and huge global industries and corporations. But glyphosate in particular, as the world’s most widely used herbicide, has and continues to have many other applications, and its full impacts on human and environmental health are poorly understood.
No matter on which side of the “GMO debate” one falls, or how toxic or carcinogenic one believes glyphosate itself to be, or how long glyphosate residues actually stay on plants and within different types of soils, any fair assessment shows that there have been grave misuses and overuses of this “organophosphorus ” chemical compound (specifically a “phosphanoglycine”), with insufficient consideration for its potentially far-reaching consequences.
The indiscriminate aerial spraying of glyphosate in Colombia under the umbrella failure of “Plan Colombia” that was aimed at the eradication of coca plantations (coca being the base ingredient of cocaine), is a particularly egregious example of the misuse of glyphosate. Incredibly, despite the failures of Plan Colombia in curtailing cocaine production, and the poorly understood but widespread environmental and social impacts that were wrought by the aerial spraying of glyphosate, as of 2019 the Colombian government, supported by the United States, is re-initiating the “strategy” of aerial fumigation of glyphosate.
A symbolic depiction of the wide ranging impacts of aerial glyphosate spraying in Colombia. The drift of the spray can kill not only the targeted coca plantations, but also endemic and medicinal plants, while entering water bodies, and causing other potential health and environmental impacts.
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