Team:Goettingen/Human Practices/Survey

Survey

To get people involved from all kinds of social and educational backgrounds, our survey was distributed during our interactive informational booth, after the panel discussion, at the Master’s information day and online. One important part was to understand how much the public knows about glyphosate. We also wanted to get an overview of the opinions of the general public towards glyphosate. Most importantly, we wanted to understand what the public thinks about our project and if they had the chance, what they would change about it.

The survey showed, that the people think that far more glyphosate is produced and used in Germany than it is actually the case. In addition, even though the majority wanted the usage of glyphosate to be reduced or forbidden, not all of them knew that it is an herbicide and its mode of action. This shows, that more must be done to educate the public about the scientific background so that they can form a well-grounded opinion.

Participants also underlined the fact that the highest risk of glyphosate are its effects on biodiversity and accumulation in the soil. In addition to this survey, we also talked to politicians who expressed their uncertainty about the removal of glyphosate from the soil. Hence, we modified the path of our project and made it our task to find a way to decrease the risks of glyphosate in the soil. The aim was to engineer bacteria to disarm glyphosate. You can find out if we were successful in creating bacteria that can deactivate glyphosate by following this link: Results.

In which year was glyphosate placed on the market?

1/2

Glyphosate was first synthesized by the chemist Dr. Henri Martin in 1950, while working for the Swiss pharmaceutical company Cilag, which was founded in 1936 in Schaffhausen. Unfortunately (fortunately?), Dr. Martin did find out that glyphosate may serve as a very efficient herbicide. About 20 years later, the American chemist Dr. John E. Franz who was working for the American company Monsanto (recently bought by Bayer) observed that glyphosate specifically inhibits the 5-enolpyruvyl-shikimate-3-phosphate (EPSP) synthase in plants, fungi, bacteria and archaea. Hence glyphosate was registered an placed on the market in 1974 (1-4).

How much glyphosate was used in Germanys agricultural sector (2014)

1/2

reprehenderit domesticarum tempor nam irure varias imitarentur amet proident appellat cillum irure a culpa velit incurreret si eiusmod distinguantur o do dolore consectetur et ullamco fidelissimae eiusmod et aliqua occaecat offendit exercitation distinguantur sed de expetendis ubi coniunctione ea qui tempor voluptate aute singulis sempiternum enim probant dolor culpa quo

Test-Überschrift

1/2

reprehenderit domesticarum tempor nam irure varias imitarentur amet proident appellat cillum irure a culpa velit incurreret si eiusmod distinguantur o do dolore consectetur et ullamco fidelissimae eiusmod et aliqua occaecat offendit exercitation distinguantur sed de expetendis ubi coniunctione ea qui tempor voluptate aute singulis sempiternum enim probant dolor culpa quo