Bayer on Wednesday said it would be forced to stop its U.S. production of widely-used farming weedkiller glyphosate unless regulatory or legal changes are made to stave off litigation that has been weighing on the German company.
Why it matters: Glyphosate-based herbicides like Roundup are key crop protection products for Canadian farmers, but they’ve been the object of lawsuits on both sides of the border.
“Unless something changes, we are going to have to stop producing glyphosate … we have to find a solution,” CEO Bill Anderson said in a media call after the release of detailed quarterly results.
The company has previously replaced glyphosate in U.S. consumer products with different weed-killing substances and it earlier this year threatened to withdraw Roundup from the U.S. agriculture markets if lawmakers or courts cannot provide more legal relief.
Glyphosate has been approved for safe use by Canadian and U.S. health authorities.
— Reporting by Ludwig Burger and Patricia Weiss
