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Why we will never spray roundup, and why you should care

written by

Courtney Megargell

posted on

May 6, 2026

roundup.jpg

We're going to be straight with you, the way we always are.

There's something happening right now, in courtrooms, in statehouses, in corporate boardrooms, that affects every single person who eats food. That means you. That means your kids. That means your grandparents. And it's something the companies profiting from it are spending tens of millions of dollars to make sure you never fully understand.

It's about Roundup. And glyphosate. And what decades of spraying this stuff on America's farmland has done,  and is doing, to families, to soil, and to the food on your table.

We've watched this up close as farmers and advocates. And we're done staying quiet about it.

What Is Roundup, Really?

Roundup is a weed killer. Monsanto invented it in the 1970s, told farmers it was safe, told consumers it was safe, and then engineered an entire generation of crop seeds, "Roundup Ready" seeds: specifically designed so farmers would have to keep buying and spraying it season after season.

Smart business. But terrible for everything else.

The active ingredient is glyphosate. It is now the most widely used pesticide in the history of the world. It is sprayed on corn, soy, wheat, oats, almonds, grapes, lentils, and dozens of other crops. It soaks into the soil. It runs off into waterways. It drifts through the air.

And it ends up inside us.

That's not fear-mongering. That's what the science shows. Studies have detected glyphosate in the blood, urine, and even breast milk of 60–80% of the general population, including children. In France, researchers found it in 99% of people tested. It's been found in breakfast cereals. In beer. In drinking water.

We didn't sign up for this. None of us did.

The Cancer Connection Nobody Wanted to Talk About

In 2015, the World Health Organization's cancer research arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, classified glyphosate as a "probable human carcinogen."

Probable. As in: the evidence is strong enough that we believe this causes cancer in people.

The cancer most closely linked to glyphosate exposure is non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a blood cancer. Research from the University of Washington found that glyphosate exposure can raise cancer risk by as much as 41%. And newer studies are finding connections to neurological disease, metabolic disorders, and reproductive harm.

Here in farm country, we don't need a research paper to tell us something is wrong. We've watched neighbors get sick. We've seen the diagnoses pile up. Iowa, one of the most heavily glyphosate-sprayed states in the country, where the chemical blankets more than half the land, is one of only three states in the nation with rising cancer rates.

Rising. While the rest of the country is making progress. Let that sink in.

192,000 Lawsuits. Billions Paid. Still on the Shelves.

Here's where things get maddening.

More than 192,000 people have sued Bayer (which bought Monsanto in 2018) over Roundup-related cancers. Juries across this country, regular people, listening to the evidence, have handed down verdict after verdict against them:

  • $2.25 billion awarded to a Pennsylvania man who used Roundup for 20 years and developed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
  • $2 billion+ awarded to a Georgia man in April 2025, same story, same cancer.
  • $6 billion in combined jury verdicts in 2024 and 2025 alone.
  • Over $11 billion paid out in settlements since the litigation began.

Bayer has now set aside nearly 10 billion just for glyphosate lawsuits. They expect to lose money on this for years.

And yet, Roundup is still on the shelf at your local garden center. Still being sprayed on millions of acres of American farmland. Still ending up in the food your family eats.

Why? Because when corporations have enough money, they can absorb the losses, outlast the lawsuits, and keep selling the product while they work the political system to change the rules.

The Dirty PR Playbook...Meet the "Modern Ag Alliance"

This is the part that really gets our blood up.

Bayer isn't just fighting these battles in court. They're fighting them in statehouses, in regulatory agencies, and in the court of public opinion, using your own neighbors as cover.

One of their key tools is a group called the Modern Ag Alliance. It presents itself as a coalition of farm groups, you know, regular farmers, people like us, people who care about agriculture and rural communities.

It is not that.

Nearly all of the Alliance's $13 million budget went to a single PR firm called Penta Group, the same firm that works directly for Bayer. This is a corporate lobbying operation dressed up in overalls.

And the goals of that operation? Straight out of the Big Tobacco playbook:

Attack the science. Fund industry-friendly studies. Create enough "controversy" that regulators feel paralyzed.

Discredit independent scientists. Researchers who publish findings linking glyphosate to cancer have been targeted, smeared, and had their funding challenged. Internal Monsanto documents — revealed in court — showed the company ghostwriting scientific papers and placing them under independent scientists' names.

Deploy front groups. Make corporate interests look like grassroots movements. Put a farmer's face on a lobbyist's agenda.

Pass laws that protect corporations, not people. In 2025, Bayer backed what critics called a "Cancer Gag Act" in Iowa, legislation that would have blocked cancer victims from suing over undisclosed health risks. People fought back and defeated it. But Bayer isn't stopping there.

Right now, they have a case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court that could eliminate cancer victims' ability to sue in state courts entirely. If they win, tens of thousands of sick people lose their legal recourse — permanently.

We've seen this playbook before. With leaded gasoline. With asbestos. With tobacco. The corporations always say the same things: the science isn't settled, activists are exaggerating, our product is safe. And people keep getting sick while the debate drags on for decades.

What Happens to the Land

We farm this land. We live on this land. We are raising the next generation of our family on this land. So when we talk about what glyphosate does to soil, it's personal.

Healthy soil is alive. It is teeming with bacteria, fungi, earthworms, and microorganisms that make it fertile and productive. Glyphosate disrupts those microbial communities. It degrades the living foundation that good farming depends on.

It kills off biodiversity, not just weeds, but the insects, pollinators, and soil organisms that make a whole farm ecosystem function. Research has found that heavily sprayed fields have 21% fewer soil species than untreated fields. Earthworm populations collapse. Bees are harmed. Without pollinators, crops fail.

And here's the brutal irony: all that spraying has created glyphosate-resistant "superweeds", plants that have evolved to survive Roundup. So now farmers who went down that road are trapped. They need more chemicals, stronger chemicals, just to keep up with weeds that Roundup itself helped create.

That's the cycle Monsanto built. That's the trap.

On our farms, we chose a different path. We always have.

Why We Farm the Way We Do

We pasture raise our animals. And we do all of it without glyphosate. Without synthetic herbicides. Without any of the chemical inputs that have come to define industrial agriculture.

Not because it's easy. It's not. Farming without herbicides means more labor, more management, more careful attention to the land. It means working with nature rather than trying to chemically override it.

But we do it because we believe that the food we grow should not hurt the people who eat it. We do it because we believe that the land we farm should be healthier when we leave it than when we found it. And we do it because we have seen up close, what the industrial chemical model does to farming communities, to soil health, and to human health.

When you buy from our farm, you are voting with your dollars for a different kind of agriculture. You are supporting a farm that refuses to participate in the chemical treadmill. You are choosing food that was grown with care, in soil that is alive, by a family that answers to you, not to a corporation's quarterly earnings report.

What You Can Do Right Now

Buy organically grown/certified organic and natural or regeneratively farmed. Every purchase you make from farms like ours is a direct investment in chemical-free agriculture. You are funding the alternative.

Know where your food comes from. Ask questions. Read labels. Support farmers who are transparent about their practices, and be skeptical of those who aren't.

Support investigative journalism. Organizations like U.S. Right to Know are doing the deep-dive work of obtaining internal corporate documents, tracing industry funding, and exposing the front groups and ghostwritten science that protect glyphosate from accountability. That work only happens with public support.

Stay engaged in the policy fight. The Cancer Gag Act was defeated in Iowa because people showed up and spoke out. The Supreme Court case is still being fought. The Pesticide Injury Accountability Act needs support. These battles are happening right now, and your voice matters.

Talk about it. Share this. Tell your neighbors. Tell your family. The industry's greatest weapon is public ignorance. The antidote is information, passed person to person, the way good farming knowledge always has been.

From Our Family to Yours

We didn't start Miller's Bio Farm to get rich. We started it because we believe in clean food, healthy land, and honest farming. We believe that what you put in your body matters, and that you deserve to know exactly what that is.

The battle over glyphosate is, at its heart, a battle over that simple idea: your right to know what is in your food, and who is responsible when it harms you.

We're fighting for that right every single day, in the way we farm, in the choices we make, and in the conversations we're willing to have, even when they're uncomfortable.

Thank you for being part of this farm community. Thank you for caring enough to read this far.

Now let's keep fighting.

Want to learn more? Reach out directly. We love talking about this stuff.



Sources & Further Reading

We believe in showing our work. Every claim in this post is backed by published science, court records, or investigative reporting. Here's where you can dig in yourself:

Cancer & Health Research

Glyphosate in Food & Water

Lawsuits & Legal Record

Corporate Influence & Front Groups

Environmental & Soil Health

Legislative Actions

  • Pesticide Injury Accountability Act (S. 2324) — Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ)
  • No Immunity for Glyphosate Act (H.R. 7601) — Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME)
  • Monsanto v. Durnell — U.S. Supreme Court (pending)

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