Poem Against Herbicides (and agri-poisons in general)

 

Graphology Paraph 60: atrazine

 

O glorious atrazine,

            endocrine disruptor,

manufactured in Europe

and loved all over Australia,

knocking out those weeds

            among lupins which test

so high in the protein sampler.

 

O glorious atrazine,

            passing the carcinogenic

hazards test in regulatory

Schlaraffenland, as out

of Syngenta (HQ in Switzerland,

now owned by ChemChina)

the prospect of ‘previously

            uncharacterised risk’

 

is left open by pragmatic locals.

            Lupins are cocooned

in their pods, and lupins

are like light-filled ball-bearings

            in the trucks and silos,

and glorious atrazine is banned

in a Europe which loves food security.

 

Atrazine is readily defended by those who wish to impose it on us, citing apparent low impacts on bees, earthworms and humans. Such studies are egregiously misleading in their lack of depth and avoidance of complicating issues. Further, many argue that Atrazine is, in fact, a major risk to all animal life (and obviously plant life — grass and broad life plant life at the very least). This chlorinated triazine systemic herbicide is banned in Europe (while Europe profitably exports it to places where it is not banned), but used on a large scale in Australia and other countries. To get a sense of the many challenges to its safety approval, just start with the Wiki entry and go from there. It's almost certainly an endocrine disruptor, carcinogenic and carries many other risks. A poem is a nexus of and for activism.

    John Kinsella