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January 2017 WINES&VINES 49 VIEWPOINT food producers were surprised by the grass- roots consumer movements for GMO-free and gluten-free products, wineries could find themselves unprepared for a potential future wine category—glyphosate free. If that scenario played out, being "sustainable" would not be enough for growers who still use using glyphosate. Consumers want to know what they're eating and drinking and are testing food, marijuana and wine for pesticides: The arc of consumer interest is expanding from questions about additives to concerns about agrichemicals. Retailers are routinely testing. Industry reports on the food-testing industry predict 7% annual growth during the next five years. Herbicide testing is the biggest category, followed by fungicide testing. After widespread news about the discov- ery of glyphosate in beer, breast milk and bread, the FDA announced this year that it would start regularly testing foods for glyphosate, which bioaccumulates in hu- mans. The EPA is currently reviewing the carcinogenic potential of glyphosate and expected to announce its findings in 2017. Activist group Moms Across America began testing wine for glyphosate, finding in at least one test 1 part per billion (ppb) for an organically grown wine and 28 ppb for a conventionally grown wine. Though that dose may not sound like a lot, the latest peer reviewed studies (including one from Mi- chael Antoniou of King's College in London) found harmful impacts in rats beginning at extremely low doses (less than 1 ppb). The wine industry may find it hard to offer a compelling counter narrative. California keeps precise, publicly available, pesticide re- cords. The data shows that wine grape growers used 707,975 pounds of glyphosate in vine- yards in 2014. If these statistics are more widely trum- peted, will the public still believe the wine industry is "natural?" What will happen when more citizen testing groups find glyphosate in hundreds of wines and broadcasts their find- ings on social media? In Europe, the political tide is turning against pesticides, including neonicoti- noids and glyphosate, which are widely used in the wine industry: The fight in Eu- rope got started with neonicotinoids, the bee- killing insecticides that are currently banned in the EU, until bee populations recover from wide- spread die-offs. The news that California wine grape growers use Imidacloprid widely—56,861 pounds of it were applied to 226,068 acres in 2014—has not hit newsstands yet—but it could. The second major battle currently raging in the EU concerns glyphosate. After the United Nations' International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified the pesticide as a probable carcinogen, grassroots sentiment against Roundup soared to the extent that major European nations could not muster enough votes to renew glyphosate's long-term license in the EU. (Glyphosate has only an 18- month extension instead of the 15-year re- newal that maker Monsanto had sought.) In France, one national television exposé on pesticides (on the show CASH Investiga- tions) shocked viewers nationwide, present- ing test results of one Bordeaux child's strand Wine grape growers used 707,975 pounds of glyphosate in vineyards in 2014. If these statistics are trumpeted, will the public still believe the wine industry is 'natural?'