Bayer officials announced on Thursday the company is removing glyphosate from the U.S. residential lawn and garden marketplace, effective as early as January 2023.
That is the earliest the decision could be implemented, according to Liam Condon, president of the Bayer Crop Science Division and a member of the Bayer AG board of management.
“This is from a regulatory and logistical point of view (of what’s) possible,” Condon said during a conference call with investors.
The company will replace glyphosate in the lawn and garden marketplace with what Condon described as active ingredients that are already known and well-established.
“What is new will be the formulation or formulations and will include multiple active ingredients,” he said, noting the product or products will still be sold under the Roundup brand.
More than 90% of the Roundup litigation claims Bayer has faced in recent years have come from the U.S. residential lawn and garden market business segment and is what led to the company deciding to abandon it, according to Werner Baumann, CEO of Bayer AG.
“Let me be very clear that (this decision) is exclusively geared at managing litigation risk and not because of any safety concerns,” Baumann said.
The company currently has about 30,000 unresolved cancer claims that it is working to address through a five-point plan developed earlier this year (read more at https://bit.ly/3zU6Rk5).
Baumann said farmers and retailers – who he described as professional and agricultural users – will continue to have access to glyphosate from Bayer for weed control.
“We know that farmers continue to rely on Roundup containing glyphosate to deliver crops to market using sustainable farming practices that reduce soil tillage, thereby reducing soil erosion and carbon emissions,” Baumann said.
“The agricultural segment is a completely different segment with very different volumes, of course, different labels and different dosages that are used,” Condon added. “We think from an overall labeling point of view, it is a very well-protected market.”
Baumann said the company is “advancing its plans to work with EPA” to provide more information about glyphosate to end users about the science to ensure more-informed purchasing and application decisions.
“We will also set up a new website by the end of 2021 that will provide even more transparency on the extensive science related to glyphosate,” he said.
Condon noted that the registrations of formulations that will be introduced in the lawn and garden markets in 2023 are pending regulatory approval.
“We are working with some standard and proprietary formulations that would be sold under the Roundup brand and that would be superior,” he said. “Once we have more news from EPA, then we will be more detailed.”
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