Feels like modern society makes it nearly impossible to not be exposed to harmful substances...so I hope you're successful.
> We specifically prohibit the use of Glyphosate spraying at any stage of the growing of oats by our farmers.
https://www.flahavans.com/inside-flahavans/our-oats/gmo-glyp...
It now occurs to me that the mould could have grown post-harvest, and maybe reliance on herbicides to desiccate crops could encourage a sloppy attitude toward drying. Maybe organic crops actually have lower risk of mycotoxin contamination because the farmers are forced to take more care with moisture levels. I carefully taste a small portion of each new batch, but I don't think taste is a reliable means of detecting mould contamination. It's also possible that mould grew because of improper storage after the oats were packaged, which is made worse by the modern trend of cardboard/paper packaging.
I'm still not confident with any brand, but I like oats too much to stop eating them.
Either way, it's like the article said - it's impossible for us consumers to figure any of this stuff out. We have to rely on public agencies, which are under constant attack from multinational corporations throwing billions of dollars at the issue, because following regulations costs money. And that's in developed countries, if you're buying stuff from places with barely functional food quality inspection then good luck I guess.
From Wikipedia:
> The reported half-life of glyphosate in soil varies from two to 197 days with a typical field half-life of 47 days being suggested.[56] Soil and climate conditions affect glyphosate's persistence in soil. The median half-life of glyphosate in water varies from a few days to 91 days.[56] At a site in Texas, half-life was as little as three days. A site in Iowa had a half-life of 141.9 days.[94] The glyphosate metabolite AMPA has been found in Swedish forest soils up to two years after a glyphosate application.
It has a lower half-life in water, and a lower half-life when it's warmer. I store my oats both dry and cold.
As for cancer, I don't know - but it certainly is giving everyone parkinsons.
That's a personal opinion. Actual scientific research is divided, and therefore anything but "certainly".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_desiccation#Systemic_desi...
Basically by killing all of the weeds with something that won't kill the crop you are about to plant, means you don't have to plough. It is a classic trade off, do you want the (hard to quantify and heavily disputed) risk of glyphosate, or higher carbon emissions
No till farming is much more difficult to do organically.
Or grow less crop just as food for animals to be eaten again, it is so horribly inefficient.
Humans are not strong enough to pull ploughs. You could grow food and feed it to draught animals, but as you point out, that is horribly inefficient.
Mythical Electric Tractor or not, you still have carbon being released from the ground by ploughing to control weeds. You can avoid ploughing to control weeds with glyphosate.
When a better solution for weed control comes along we can say goodbye to glyphosate too, I believe it is about as far off as Desktop Linux, as in 'next year'.
Just remember, glyphosate costs farmers money. They wouldn't use it if there was a better way