That mist in your valley deserves protection

Almost 50 years ago I ­extracted myself from a life and livelihood in our nearest ­metropolis to follow a dream, a soul mandate, to live in Skagit Valley. A decade earlier, when I was 16 years old, I’d seen it for the first time and its beauty kept calling: those flat vistas, miles of mist and farmland.

As the greening of this place happens once again and we ­celebrate this season, let me, please, rain a bit on your parade by mentioning something your sense of beauty, indeed none of your senses, will be good at detecting: Glyphosate.

While Monsanto was busy developing Roundup in the 1970s, (after gifting Vietnam and our veterans with Agent ­Orange), and a little later the GMO (­genetically modified ­organisms) crops that could resist its toxicity, they somehow forgot to modify the flora and fauna in our GI tract, commonly referred to now as the human microbiome.

The World Health ­Organization listed ­glyphosate, the weed-killing agent in ­Roundup, as a probable ­carcinogen in 2015. This after 9.4 million pounds of the stuff had been spread around the world. And then the use of Roundup exploded. By now it is estimated that 5 billion pounds of glyphosate has been used worldwide. It is in our soil, our rainwater and it is in you. A ­well-known research doctor can’t find anyone he’s examined who isn’t urinating the chemical.

Since 2015, we’ve found out so much more: the very ­mitochondria of our human cells, it turns out, are not genetically human. Those bits of life that run our metabolism are more likely viruses and also ­vulnerable to the ravages of glyphosate. Science now understands our bodies to be micro-ecosystems, not ­monocultures. And the ­consequences of mass ­application of pesticides are implicated more and more in the research of ­astute scientists in the severe spikes in chronic disease in America: diabetes, infertility, neurodegenerative diseases to name a few.

Back to our valley: That ­beautiful yellow ochre, the raw sienna of some farm fields? ­Glyphosate. Not just a weed killer, but now also a desiccant industrial farming can use on grain.

The good news? Ten percent of farming in Skagit Valley has gone organic (though organic farms are still being rained on!) So the next time you’re at the ­local farm stand and find ­yourself both admiring those organic strawberries and flinching at their price, remember this and thank those farmers! Buy those berries. The wee organisms downstream from your mouth and ­wallet will rejoice, and you’ll be ­encouraging more farmers to set down the glyphosate.

Maggie Wilder lives in La Conner.