I agree with what Evi says about Glyphosate. One common danger that Evi does not mention is that grain, forage, oilseeds, potatoes, and other crops are often killed off with glyphosate just two weeks before harvest to get an even ripening, poisoning the food just before it is harvested for eating. It is called Desiccation. I suffer from Chemical poisoning, with many horrible symptoms caused by a lifetime of antenatal, passive, and work-related exposure from growing food and fibre for other people, farming. From self help and support groups, I know many other people who are horribly ill or now dead from Pesticide Poisoning. In the past, I have contacted D&G council asking them not to spray school playgrounds, footpaths in town and the verges of the motorways with weed killer but they were not interested in stopping and did not understand the dangers and would not listen to the canaries singing before they fall silent. I am grateful to the Forestry Commission( F&LS) who did stop spraying glyphosate on the forest tracks which surround our farm when I asked them to. But the forestry industry, commercial and recreational environmental, refuses to stop spraying weed killer on “competitive vegetation” in new tree plantations which have caused me years of debilitating symptoms and threaten the health of my family and neighbours not just from spray drift at time of application, but from weeks of ”gas off” from contaminated ground. This will become worse with the increase of gravel roads around windfarms. The planned 22 square mile windfarm power station at Moffat will have approximately 1,200 acres of gravel roads and BESS sites which will have weeds sprayed off to prevent fire. I have been stuck in traffic jams on the M74 and in Carlisle City centre whilst contractors have been spraying verges and pavements with glyphosate, it has a particular taste and smell, and I cannot escape and have forgotten my full-face gas mask, so suffer months of symptoms from exposure. Only a full-face mask is adequate as the gas off from pesticides, which lasts for weeks after application, enters the body not just by inhalation but also threw one’s eyes. At a very good farm Health & Safety Executive meeting I was told that pesticide will get through industrial strength PPI, PVC gloves and clothing and enter the skin within six minutes of contact. The weed killers for sale every spring on pallets of sealed plastic bottles in garden centres and supermarkets can make me ill for weeks. It is everywhere, because pesticides are so brilliant at controlling what some people consider weeds, crop funguses, livestock, and crop parasites. I have tried alternative blow fly and internal parasite control on my sheep with limited effect. Old remedies often came with an acceptable percentage of flock death from creosote and arsenic poisoning in sheep dips and doses. So, I do use conventional medications, as a welfare protection for my animals, which are often permissible under Organic status, and I suffer the consequences. So, I am a hypocrite, who I am I to demand others don’t use pesticides, even when I and my family are aware of the horrific effects. Thirty years ago, we realised that pesticides were not just making me ill and threatening my family, but also killing our farm, so we went organic and farmed what we now known is regeneratively. Slowly, slowly, health has improved so I can walk again and our farm is now 94.5% Nature Rich, according to a recent ScotGov WFP Farm Biodiversity Audit and our breeding sheep often sell well at Longtown Horned Hill Breeding sheep sale. It must truly have been a Green Revolution when these deadly chemicals, a product of warfare designed to kill people, were introduced into farming, forestry, horticulture, building technology, fire inhibitors, jet engines and household electrical appliances to kill off insects before being exported. When was the last time you sore a fly in a supermarket. The perceived advantages of pesticides are enormous. But at what an appalling cost, before long, without change, it will not just be the spring that is silent. Kind regards. Matthew. Craigieburn Farm. Moffat.]