Editor’s note: Big Tent Ideas always aims to provide balancing perspectives on the hottest issues of the day. Below is a column from Farm Action Co-Founder Angela Huffman, where she argues against legal immunity for companies that produce pesticides and highlights health risks that have been linked to glyphosate. You can find a counterpoint here, from lawyer Steve Milloy, who argues that glyphosate is an essential herbicide in global agriculture and challenges studies suggesting it to be cancer causing.

Bayer-Monsanto wants Congress to believe pesticide immunity is good for farmers. It is not.

Farmers need fair markets, real choices, honest science and the right to hold powerful corporations accountable when their products cause harm. But Bayer, a German multinational that owns Monsanto, and its allies are pushing Congress for a legal shield that would let pesticide companies point to federal approval, even when they failed to warn people about known risks. (RELATED: STEVE MILLOY: Roundup The Junk Science To Save Glyphosate)

Farmers did not create this system. They were told to trust the label and the regulatory process, then build their farm plans around products the industry said were safe.

But when a company leaves out important warnings, or when the science behind its safety claims is shaped by the company itself, people deserve their day in court. That includes farmers, farmworkers, rural families, groundskeepers and anyone else exposed to these........

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