Glyphosate withdrawal scenarios returned to US farm publishing this week as Farm Progress published "What happens without glyphosate for weed control?" — a question whose weight has grown as Bayer's Roundup litigation continues and regulators in several jurisdictions tighten rules on the herbicide.

The piece, appearing in one of America's largest farm-publishing networks, treats the post-glyphosate scenario as a working planning question rather than a remote hypothetical.

Why does the question matter now?

Glyphosate is the world's most-used herbicide by volume. It is the active ingredient in Roundup, which Bayer owns following its 2018 acquisition of Monsanto.

Since 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified it as "probably carcinogenic to humans." Since then, the molecule has faced restrictions or bans in countries including Germany, Austria, Mexico and Vietnam.

The European Union extended approval in 2023 for ten years, with conditions. The US Environmental Protection Agency has kept glyphosate registered, but more than 100,000 claims have been filed against Bayer since 2018 over Roundup exposure.

What role does glyphosate play on US farms?

US growers apply it across the bulk of their soybean, corn, cotton and canola acres, almost all of which carry glyphosate-tolerant traits. Three core uses dominate:

• Burndown before planting
• In-crop weed control on tolerant varieties
• Pre-harvest desiccation in wheat and other small grains

The herbicide's effectiveness at low cost has shaped two decades of conservation-tillage practice, cutting fuel use and soil disturbance on millions of acres.

What changes without it?

The Farm Progress piece frames the question in practical terms. The alternatives each carry tradeoffs that compound across a rotation:

• Glufosinate (sold as Liberty and others) covers some of the same acres in Bayer's LibertyLink and BASF's trait systems, but growers report narrower weed-spectrum control and shorter activity windows.
• Dicamba and 2,4-D, both auxin herbicides, raise off-target drift concerns and have triggered their own label restrictions.
• Paraquat remains restricted to certified US applicators and faces its own EPA review.
• Mechanical and cultural options — cover crops, rotary hoeing, narrow-row spacing — carry labour and fuel costs that scale poorly on large-acre operations.

No single replacement matches glyphosate on cost, spectrum and flexibility. Stacked-trait seed, combining tolerance to glyphosate, glufosinate and dicamba, is now the standard seed-pipeline response.

What should farmers watch next?

Three dates and processes will set the next chapter:

• The EPA's glyphosate reregistration review, with a milestone due in the 2026 cycle
• State-level restrictions, which have moved faster than federal action in several US states
• Trait-pipeline announcements from Bayer, BASF and Corteva on herbicide-tolerant stacks that reduce single-mode reliance

Bayer has set aside more than $10 billion to settle Roundup claims, and its appeal of a 2023 California jury verdict is pending. For growers planning 2026 rotations, the Farm Progress question is now part of the input-cost spreadsheet, not the back of the notebook.