STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: In a barley field in Boggabilla in northern New South Wales Peter Mailer is starting work. He and his daughter Georgie are preparing for the next crop by spraying with the weedkilling chemical glyphosate. Peter’s been using it for decades.

PETER MAILLER, FARMER: I remember that first drum of that stuff that my father bought was a 50 litre drum and it cost a 1000 dollars. And I remember we used to go out and spray individual hard to kill weeds in paddocks. You know, it was liquid gold, and it was a revolution in the way we farmed.

Just grab that other one there, put it onto this one here.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Glyphosate was originally patented by Monsanto, and branded as Roundup. It’s the now most widely used herbicide on the planet

PETER MAILLER, FARMER: Outside of the organic industry, I would go close to 100% of conventional farmers use Roundup to some extent. It's essential. We, we don't have an alternative to glyphosate in the system at the moment. So if we can't use that product, ah, we're back to ploughing the ground. You know, and that's this massive, problems in our system if we start cultivating instead of using a chemical solution.

Keep that speed about 20, we’ll try and hold that pressure down at about 2-and-a-half, 3 bars. See what happens.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Of all the chemicals farmers use Peter thinks this is the safest

PETER MAILLER, FARMER: If you take the necessary precautions as you would with any chemical compound, the product is actually very safe. And I'm very comfortable in that. I use it, I'm happy for my kids to come and work with me and my daughter to work with it and my wife to work with it if that's what case may be.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: One thousand kilometers south, farmers Ron and Tralee Snape have a very different view. For nearly 40 years they ran cattle and raised their three children on this farm in Tilba

RON SNAPE, FARMER: You survive so many droughts and you survive so many hassles and the environment, it’s just, such a beautiful place – it can be horrific but then the next day it’s absolutely beautiful.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: To manage the weeds on their 325 acre property, Ron depended on Roundup

RON SNAPE, FARMER: Tralee only had the exposure from washing my clothes, um, and sleeping with me. She used to complain that I always smelled of Roundup after we used it. Um, when we were using it out on the farm, we could actually use it for anything up to a week straight, using it with, uh, noxious weeds control. Uh, controlling along, uh, fence lines, um, there, and just, just general farm use. Um, we used it quite extensively.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Eight years ago Tralee was diagnosed with Non Hodgkins Lymphoma. They can’t prove it, but they blame Roundup for her cancer.

RON SNAPE, FARMER: We were sent off to, um, the specialist oncologist, and, um, he just said to us, he said, um, "You've got lymphoma." He said, "This is farmer's lymphoma," he said, "It's common to farmers." He said, "too many farmers are over represented in the population of lymphoma sufferers." Well that just made me feel so damn guilty. I've done something dramatic to my wife that's probably shortened her life. It's just absolutely, it's just absolutely appalling.

TRALEE SNAPE: And I find that to be upsetting to me because, how was Ron to know?

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Tralee’s now in remission but they’ve decided to sell the farm. The Snapes just wish they’d had more information about Roundup.

RON SNAPE, FARMER: Farmers are junkies to this particular chemical. We've been made junkies by Monsanto. It's just so quick, it's so easy, and it's so effective. I should've known that in saying that the bloody bastards have actually made this product. They should've made us all informed. At least put on that packet that there is a possibility. Make me aware, make me - so that I can make an informed decision that I'm gonna use that or I'm not going to use it. But for Christ's sake, just don’t bloody hide it.

NEWS REPORT: A California jury awarded nearly 300 million dollars to a former school groundskeeper who sued Monsanto claiming its weedkillers including Roundup gave him non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: In August a landmark court case blew wide open the question of whether Monsanto’s Roundup products are safe.

NEWS REPORT: Mr Johnson maintained his composure today in court as that verdict was read.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: As a school groundskeeper near San Francisco Dewayne “Lee” Johnson sprayed Roundup products for hours a day, dozens of times a year.

DEWAYNE ‘LEE’ JOHNSON, PLAINTIFF: For y’all that don’t know I’m an integrated pest manager slash groundsman. I gets dirty every day, some days I have clean days, sometimes I have dirty days today is one of those wet dirty days.

BRENT WISNER, Lawyer, Baum Hedlund Aristei Goldman: He was using sort of a pressure hose sprayer. So, he was spraying 150 gallons every morning. And so his exposure was pretty extreme and prior to his exposure, his skin was perfect. He was healthy. He had no other chemical exposures. But within two years after starting this sort of massive spraying, he developed this incredibly, ah, aggressive cancer that you know, ultimately is going to take his life.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: These photos show the painful lesions which started breaking out all over his body. His doctors diagnosed it as rare form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

JUDGE: Madam foreperson, does the jury have a verdict? Right can you please hand the verdict to the bailiff. Alright I will now read the verdict in the matter of Dewayne Johnson, plaintiff versus Monsanto Company, defendant.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: The jury found Roundup was a substantial factor in causing Mr Johnson’s cancer, and that Monsanto failed to warn of the risk.

JUDGE: Question no. 17, What amount of punitive damages, if any, do you award to Mr Johnson? The answer was $250,000,000. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this now concludes your service as jurors in this case

DEWAYNE ‘LEE’ JOHNSON, PLAINTIFF: I’m glad to be here to be able to help but the cause is way bigger than me so hopefully this thing will start to get the attention that it needs to get right so folks can make a good choice.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Monsanto is challenging the verdict

SCOTT PARTRIDGE, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, BAYER U.S.: I feel sorry for Mr. Johnson, I have tremendous sympathy for what he and his family are going through. When I look at the jury verdict, the decision, it's wrong. And it doesn't change the science. It doesn't change those 40 years of safe use, the 800 tests, the agricultural health study. It doesn’t change the science. Obviously the science didn’t resonate with that jury. We wanna understand why because we need to do a better job explaining the science so people understand that glyphosate-based products are safe.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: From across the world, farmers have come to America’s agricultural event of the year – the Farm Progress Show in Iowa. The big news here is that Monsanto has just been bought by the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer, for 63 billion dollars. The company has called a press conference to talk about it, but it can’t escape questions about the court case.

BRETT BEGEMANN, COO BAYER CROP SCIENCE: I really say nothing has changed we had the outcome and the verdict in California. There is really nothing new, I mean ah, we, I would look at that as one case, it doesn't change 800 scientific studies, it doesn’t change 40 years of use. It doesn’t change the incredible value that product’s brought agriculture consumers worldwide and we are thoroughly supportive of the product and will continue to work though the legal process that’s available to us. It’s a horrible and unfortunate situation with the plaintiff Mr Johnson we have great sympathy for him and his family but Roundup does not cause cancer.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Bayer is getting rid of the controversial Monsanto name but insists it will keep – and protect - the company’s products which earn billions every year.

Farmers here are dismissive of the verdict

FARMER 1: It’s to be expected coming out of California where they have a world of tree huggers and people that do not understand. Isn't it wild that a judge and a jury out there would render a catastrophic award and how is the world a better place?





FARMER 2: I’m very worried, yes we need this product, and we do not need over 200 million dollar lawsuits against Monsanto – or it’s Bayer now - but I mean somebody has to pay that and it is going to come down to their customers yes I’m very concerned.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: They call this region America’s breadbasket because of the extraordinary amount of grain grown in its rich soil. Corn is the country’s most widely grown crop- last year’s harvest netted nearly 50 billion US dollars.

DAVE WALTON, FARMER: Our family moved to Iowa in 1835, they built a sod house and broke ground about two miles from here, and we’ve been farming in Iowa ever since. From the time that the Waltons first came to Iowa we’ve always grown corn, they’ve grown small grains such as wheat, oats, some barley, and we’ve always had livestock.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Farmer Dave Walton uses Monsanto’s Roundup Ready seeds to grow his corn. They’ve been genetically modified to withstand being sprayed with glyphosate – it kills the weeds, but not the crop. Today 90 percent of America’s corn crops are genetically modified using Monsanto’s technology to tolerate glyphosate.

DAVE WALTON, FARMER: It's a herbicide tolerance system and it allows us to apply Roundup to the crop. Roundup will control any weeds that are present in the crop but won't affect the crop itself. We don't intentionally put it on ourselves, but if it does get on us it's not so much a concern, we wash it off we go about our business. But we wear gloves and the proper safety equipment to try and minimise that. As far as applying to the crops I have no concerns whatsoever.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Dave Walton can’t imagine farming without glyphosate

DAVE WALTON, FARMER: It's not a pleasant thought really. But it would mean to us that we would have to go back to either more tillage to control weeds prior to planting. Possibly in-crop row cultivation. Or we would have to switch to herbicides that aren't as safe for the environment and not as safe for the applicator, like me.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Across the state line St Louis, Missouri, is home to Monsanto’s headquarters – now owned by Bayer. From this sprawling complex, Monsanto has run a worldwide campaign to deny claims that Roundup – and it’s key ingredient glyphosate – are dangerous. After the court verdict, the company’s Vice President Scott Partridge released this statement, claiming, “…more than 800 scientific studies and reviews support the fact that glyphosate does not cause cancer.”

Do the 800 studies all relate to cancer, or do they relate to other potential illnesses?

SCOTT PARTRIDGE, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, BAYER U.S.: All types of risks and hazards and diseases, a wide, wide variety. Which we're required to do. When we obtain registrations from governments around the world, they don't simply ask you, does it cause cancer or not? You know they want to know all aspects of health and safety related to the product.

CAREY GILLAM, AUTHOR: When Monsanto says there are 800 studies showing that it's safe, we have no idea how many of those studies might be authentic, independent, scientific studies. We know that the scientific literature has been corrupted.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: For decades questions have been raised around the safety of Roundup and its key ingredient, glyphosate. Now Monsanto’s strategies to protect its flagship product have been exposed in a trove of internal documents. They reveal a longstanding, aggressive campaign of deception and dirty tricks. The documents are known as The Monsanto Papers.

CAREY GILLAM, Author, Whitewash; The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science: These are discovery documents that Monsanto was forced to turn over to the plaintiffs in the litigation. And so far, Monsanto itself says that it's turned over about 10 million pages of documents and this has really been eye-opening because we've seen so much evidence of how the company has worked to hide the risks of its products.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: For nearly 20 years journalist and author Carey Gillam has been investigating Monsanto.

CAREY GILLAM, Author, Whitewash; The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science: We know that Monsanto has ghost written scientific literature. We don't know how much, we don't know how extensive it is. We do know that there are papers that they have ghost written that are out there right now sitting in journals, looking to be authentic that Monsanto secretly had a hand in manipulating.

MONSANTO CORPORATE AD: From the dawn of agriculture, around the world, it was never really a fair fight. In field after field, season after season, perennial weeds waged their war on valuable crops – and won.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: When a Monsanto scientist discovered the weed killing properties of glyphosate in the 1970s it sparked an agricultural revolution

MONSANTO CORPORATE AD: But then came a bright moment of discovery, a quarter century ago, and at long last, weeds had met their match in great science, energetic people and an uncompromising commitment to the future of the world – that’s the simple beauty of Roundup. A remarkable story. Well worth celebrating.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Farmers and home gardeners everywhere soon came to rely on what the company called “the world’s most trusted herbicide.”

MONSANTO CORPORATE AD: On this rubber plantation in Malaysia, Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide controls heavy infestations of noxious grass, which saps the strength of the young rubber trees. Sprayed by hand the results of Roundup – Monsanto’s newest development in herbicides – are obvious.

CAREY GILLAM, Author, Whitewash; The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science: Roundup was always marketed as incredibly safe, as so much safer than any other herbicide on the market. Some of the early salespeople would say, "Oh it's safe enough to drink, safer than table salt." That was a main push, a main appeal for this herbicide.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: But doubts about the science behind the safety of Roundup surfaced soon after it was launched. In the 1970s Monsanto used a company called Industrial Bio-tech Laboratories to test Roundup to get it registered with the US regulator – the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA. The lab was caught up in a fraud scandal

CAREY GILLAM, Author, Whitewash; The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science: It was found that this laboratory was actually just doctoring a lot of the numbers, just sort of cooking the books so to speak on the safety studies. And uh, our regulators in the US went in and did an investigation and found out how fraudulent these studies actually were.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: The EPA declared the lab results for Roundup invalid – along with hundreds of other products – because of the flawed science behind the tests.

SCOTT PARTRIDGE, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, BAYER U.S.: They weren't fraudulent results. I think they were methods that were being used that weren't in line with all of the other studies.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: In the mid 1980s a new study prompted scientists from the EPA to classify glyphosate as possibly carcinogenic to humans. Monsanto refused to accept the finding.

CAREY GILLAM, Author, Whitewash; The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science: This went on and on until eventually in the early 1990s, the EPA decided to just go along with Monsanto and overrule its own toxicologist. But it was very controversial and in the final decision in which EPA determined they would classify glyphosate as not likely to be carcinogenic, some of their own scientists refused to sign off on that.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: In 1991 another company used by Monsanto – Craven Laboratories – was caught falsifying test results for pesticides – including Roundup. 15 people were fined or imprisoned.

What did Monsanto do to rectify what were found to be problematic testings?

SCOTT PARTRIDGE, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, BAYER U.S.: We made sure that sound science was used. We're a science company, we're a science-based company. We believe in sound science, and we're not gonna use data that is improper or manipulated at all.

CAREY GILLAM, Author, Whitewash; The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science: Monsanto has always claimed that it was a victim of fraud and that it had to spend many millions of dollars to redo these studies but it's been very difficult to ascertain what studies really were redone and what information the regulators have relied on.

ROUNDUP COMMERCIAL: It’s no problem. Kill weeds and grasses, roots and all with a shot of Roundup. For driveways, patios, fences. Make weeding easy with Roundup. Nothing kills weeds better. Roundup extended control does two jobs at once.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Later in the 1990’s Monsanto’s Roundup advertisements caught the attention of New York’s then Attorney General, Dennis Vacco.

DENNIS VACCO, N.Y. Attorney General, 1995-98: The environmental concern was the broad advertising claims that Monsanto was advancing in those days that somehow their Roundup product was entirely safe, biodegradable, safe for pets and children, and less dangerous than table salt. We knew otherwise. Frankly, they were prohibited under federal law from making claims like that.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: He found the ads were false and misleading. Monsanto agreed to stop running them in the state of New York, but not the rest of the country

DENNIS VACCO, N.Y. Attorney General, 1995-98: Ultimately, it was the fact that their advertising was so adverse to the regulations that they were required to follow under federal law. That really is what formed the basis of our claims that they were falsely advertising, because they knew by virtue of their filings and registrations with the EPA. They knew what the properties of Roundup were. They knew the dangers of Roundup, but yet, they were trying to sell to consumers in New York and in other states a different story.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: The Monsanto Papers reveal company insiders were raising concerns about the potential risk of Roundup for decades. As early 2003 as Monsanto’s lead toxicologist wrote an email stating ‘…you cannot say that Roundup is not a carcinogen…we have not done the necessary testing on the formulation to make that statement.”

BRENT WISNER, Lawyer, Baum Hedlund Aristei Goldman: When Monsanto's chief toxicologist says, "We can't say Roundup does not cause cancer, because we haven't done the testing on it," there's no multiple interpretations of that. That is their own toxicologist saying yeah, we actually haven't tested the formulated product, so we can't say it doesn't cause cancer. Because they don't know.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Monsanto’s crisis management went into overdrive in 2014

The company learned the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer - or IARC - was going to assess glyphosate. In an email Monsanto’s lead toxicologist wrote “… what we have long been concerned about has happened. Glyphosate is on for an IARC review ...” Monsanto launched a PR campaign to denounce and discredit the review – including a plan to “orchestrate outcry.”

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Internal documents that have come out through discovery in court have shown that Monsanto in advance prepared a PR campaign to counter what they were expecting would be a negative decision from IARC on glyphosate. Why, if you're so confident in the product, why did the company need to do that?

SCOTT PARTRIDGE, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, BAYER U.S.: Why did the company need to prepare to inform the public of the truth? I don't know if I really need to answer that, Stephanie. That's exactly what it is. There was gonna be a mischaracterization of a remarkable tool that needs to stay in farmers' hands. It was gonna be besmirched in a fashion that was inappropriate, and we were preparing to make sure the public understands the safety of glyphosate. I think there are extremely valid reasons to do that. Yeah, I do.

PROFESSOR LIN FRISTCHI, IARC PANELLIST: In a way that seems to imply that we did this on purpose. That we were out to get glyphosate or Monsanto. And that's not the case. We were there to follow IARC's procedures, to do, to do a fair assessment of what the scientific evidence was. And that's what we did. And so it's not, it's not right to say that we besmirched something. We looked at the evidence, and we came up with a conclusion that we thought fitted the evidence best.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Australian epidemiologist Lin Fritschi was one of the independent experts who sat on the IARC panel.

PROFESSOR LIN FRISTCHI, IARC PANELLIST: People can trust IARC. IARC is, is an institution that has been doing this for a long time. There are transparent procedures as to what, um, the groups need to do. The groups are the best people in the world on this area. They have no conflicts of interest. And they look at the literature that's available publicly, that's peer reviewed, that's high quality, and come up with a decision.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: After reviewing hundreds of scientific studies the IARC panel classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen. Monsanto was furious.

PROFESSOR LIN FRISTCHI, IARC PANELLIST: The industry were, were very unhappy with the, with the finding that our panel made. And there were a lot of, there was a lot of criticism and some of that criticism was quite personal, and some of it was about IARC and the processes that IARC go through. Some of it was, um, criticism at IARC itself, at, at the whole, um, institution. So it was quite, um, surprising to me, and quite overwhelming really, the level of criticism that, that was raised. There's a lot of denial that there's, that there was anything wrong with glyphosate at all.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: To undermine the IARC decision Monsanto arranged for its staff to ghost-write a scientific paper, and a magazine article in support of glyphosate. In one email a Monsanto executive wrote - “We would be keeping the cost down by us doing the writing and they would just edit & sign their names so to speak”

SCOTT PARTRIDGE, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, BAYER U.S.: There was no ghost-writing.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: But why would you use this word?

SCOTT PARTRIDGE, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, BAYER U.S.: It was an inappropriate word. It was shorthanding for what he did. He provided access for archival material. Dr. Heydens later did minor editing to the work, and that was reflected in the acknowledgements section of the paper. It was a poor choice of language.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: In the wake of the IARC decision governments around the world were forced to review whether glyphosate is safe. Here in Washington DC that task fell to the Environmental Protection Agency. Monsanto set out to derail that process, in league with the industry funded lobby group, Croplife. Based in the US capital, Croplife America is funded by agrochemical companies – including Monsanto and now Bayer

CHRIS NOVAK, CEO CROPLIFE AMERICA: CropLife is a trade association based here in Washington D.C. that represents the nations crop protection companies. We work with the US government, with the congress to advocate on behalf of our industry.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER:Croplife and Monsanto wanted to stop the EPA convening a panel of independent scientists to examine glyphosate.

To outwardly just say that CropLife has concerns about a scientific advisory panel being convened before anyone's been named, is that excessive interference in the process by CropLife?

CHRIS NOVAK, CEO CROPLIFE AMERICA: I think that is zealous advocacy on behalf of our membership.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: The EPA had invited veteran epidemiologist Dr Peter Infante to sit on the panel. For 24 years he worked for the US government assessing toxic substances.

PETER INFANTE, EPIDEMIOLOGIST: I agree with the International Agency for Research on Cancer's review that concluded that there was some evidence that glyphosate was associated with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in people exposed to glyphosate.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Croplife lobbied to get him kicked off the panel and wrote to the EPA accusing Dr Infante of being biased.

PETER INFANTE, EPIDEMIOLOGIST: I mean I was shocked because I was told that there was this letter from CropLife, I responded, it was not an issue. And then in November, about a week or so after the presidential election, I was informed that I was being removed from the panel.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: How much of an influence do you think CropLife's letter had on your removal?

PETER INFANTE, EPIDEMIOLOGIST: I think that's the reason I was removed, certainly.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: The Monsanto Papers reveal the company also pushed to kill off an earlier assessment of glyphosate by the US health department.

CAREY GILLAM, Author, Whitewash; The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science: They wanted to take a look at the toxicity of glyphosate. Monsanto did not want that to happen. You can see in the documents that they reach out to the EPA and ask for their help in making this review from the separate agency go away. They reached out to very high level officials in EPA and they got exactly what they asked for, this review went away.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: The EPA’s inspector general is now investigating the agency for possible collusion with Monsanto.

SCOTT PARTRIDGE, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, BAYER U.S.: Certainly, our scientists know people at the EPA. They have to in order to have that dialogue to comply with their requests, to comply with their demands. There's no collusion whatsoever.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: In Los Angeles, lawyer Brent Wisner’s client list has grown rapidly since the landmark court case. Across the US, more than 9-thousand people are suing, claiming Roundup caused their cancer.

BRENT WISNER, Lawyer, Baum Hedlund Aristei Goldman: If you go down the history of the sort of really bad chemicals, pesticides in U.S. society or even world society, every single one of them has its origins in Monsanto. I mean for the last 150 years. Whether it be DDT, PCB's, Agent Orange, dioxin. I mean, Monsanto has been behind all of those. Monsanto has effectively made a business out of poisoning people, and getting away with it.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: One of Brent Wisner’s clients is retired farmer John Barton. He’s got non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and believes it was caused by spraying Roundup on his cotton farm in California.

JOHN BARTON, FARMER: I would spray that 500 gallon tank, we would put five gallons of diluted Roundup in that. Normally we'd spray that by noon. We would eat lunch, take a 30 minute lunch, and then put another five gallons and spray another 500 gallons. We would do that weeks at a time. So that's like the homeowner, you know the little gallon they get now, that's like spraying 1,000 of those a day. That's the type of exposure I had. There was a lot of times after I got done during the day, my Levis would be soaking wet, my boots would be wet, my socks would be wet.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: He believes Monsanto has known for decades Roundup is dangerous.

JOHN BARTON, FARMER: I would like to see them admit that they had hidden this for a long time and that they realised it was not safe and that they should have warnings that let people make that, you know, decision for themselves whether they want to use that product or not.

BRENT WISNER, Lawyer, Baum Hedlund Aristei Goldman: For the last 20 or 30 years, Monsanto has engaged in a systematic and deliberate campaign to attack any science that says their product is not safe and to attack any scientist that has the courage to say something. They have a corporate culture that has zero interest in safety. It has only an interest in maintaining the ability of them to sell this product.

SCOTT PARTRIDGE, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, BAYER U.S.: It is the safest herbicide that's ever been developed. It has just an amazing, amazing record of not just productivity and use, but also the extent to which it has been examined and scrutinised and studied over 40 years.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Here in Australia the US court battles over Monsanto’s weedkiller could have enormous implications for farmers like Peter Mailler in Boggabilla.

PETER MAILLER, FARMER: I feel for the gentlemen that's had cancer. I've had cancer myself, nothing to do with glyphosate, but the point being here that, that's to actually label, or lay the blame that one particular compound in the whole environment is quite a stretch in my view.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: In Canberra farmers are getting together to talk about what it means for the industry.

FIONA SIMSON, President, National Farmer’s Federation: So you know that glyphosate has been in the news this week. It’s been something we’ve been exploring in the NFF and in some of our committees have been meeting. It seems to be as a result of the IARC decision and the subsequent California court decision, jury decision. As we all know Brazil did institute a ban but that has now been lifted.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: The chief concern at this horticulture council meeting is losing access to glyphosate.

COMMITTEE MEMBER: We can’t have knee jerk reactions to responses, we have to back the regulator, we have to back the science, and whilst there is a huge amount of work being done to find ways to do things without chemicals, the reality is until we get to that point we still need have to have access to chemistry.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: The industry’s peak body says it would be difficult for farmers to live without it.

FIONA SIMSON, President, National Farmer’s Federation: It's so critical, such a critical part of our cropping system at the moment that particularly, any of the, alternatives that we would have at the moment, would not only be, uh much more expensive, but they would be considered more, higher up the scale in terms of- of any hazards that it might actually have.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Despite the US court case and the IARC finding the regulator – the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, the APVMA, hasn’t formally reviewed glyphosate in more than two decades.

DR CHRIS PARKER, CEO, Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority: We looked at the IARC report and had an extensive scientific evaluation of the IARC report, and we concluded that there was no reason for us to be changing our regulatory position on glyphosate and that glyphosate remains safe to use in the Australian environment.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Questions have been raised about the APVMA’s independence, as most of its funding comes from the industry it regulates.

DR CHRIS PARKER, CEO, Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority: That's the system that's in place to ensure that industry pays for the privilege of participating in the Australian market. They pay so we can regulate their chemicals.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: How can the public expect that you'll seriously police these products, when you directly benefit from the sale of these products? You seem to have a financial interest in keeping these products on the shelves.

DR CHRIS PARKER, CEO, Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority: No, we don't have a financial interest in it. Our interest is ensuring that the products in the marketplace work and are safe. And I think our track record over the years, and our track record since I've been in charge of the organisation, suggests that we take that particular responsibility extremely seriously.

PROFESSOR LIN FRISTCHI, IARC PANELLIST: If an industry is paying for a service, they're presuming that they will get a service. And it's, it's possible that the service then or the, the government agency sees themselves as a service to the industry, instead of seeing themselves as a protection for the Australian people.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Cancer Council Australia wants the government to support an independent review of glyphosate.

SANCHIA ARANDA, CEO, CANCER COUNCIL AUSTRALIA: So given the timeframe since the last formal review we would certainly think it would be appropriate for Australia to do its own review of this literature and to be able to inform the Australian public appropriately about what the conclusions are of that. We would though need to make sure that that review was fully independent

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: In Canberra, the industry’s interests are pushed by the Australian arm of the lobby group CropLife.

MATTHEW COSSEY, CEO, CROPLIFE AUSTRALIA: It's the national peak industry body. We're funded by member companies. The companies that are the manufacturers, the developers, the researchers, and the registrants for the crop protection products on the market.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: Political disclosure records show in the past three years CropLife has contributed more than 140-thousand dollars to political parties. Nearly 83-thousand dollars to the National Party of Australia and more than 55-thousand dollars to the Australian Labor Party.

MATTHEW COSSEY, CEO, CROPLIFE AUSTRALIA: Well we don't make, uh, political donations, we do, um, participate in some events with political parties. So we, we won't make just donations to political parties, we're an apolitical organisation, but we do participate and um, and support any conferences or events where agriculture will be talked about.

SANCHIA ARANDA, CEO, CANCER COUNCIL AUSTRALIA: We would suggest that no political party should be taking donations from any industry, particularly industries that may be the subject of regulatory environments and that that is real cause for concern in the Australian context.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: CropLife says it doesn’t make political donations it just makes contributions to inform politicians, is there a difference?

SANCHIA ARANDA, CEO, CANCER COUNCIL AUSTRALIA: No there is not a difference they are paying to have influence and we are seeing this across a whole range of industries and we fundamentally believe that the policy table should not be the subject of industry interference.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: In 2014 CropLife claimed credit when federal parliament removed the requirement for chemicals - like glyphosate - to be regularly reapproved. In its annual report Croplife boasted: “In what was a momentous achievement, CropLife’s vigorous and targeted advocacy campaign resulted in passage of this bill.”

MATTHEW COSSEY, CEO, CROPLIFE AUSTRALIA: I think a important, um, role for the entire community, in any industry, in any community group, uh, to ensure that when parliamentarians are making decisions, they're making decisions on fact, uh, and that they get a wealth of information about, uh, what they're making a decision on.

STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: More than 500 glyphosate products are used in Australia today.

There are no moves to restrict its use or enforce tougher warnings, but real questions are being raised about the chemical, the company behind it and how it’s regulated, leaving users to ask - who do you trust?

PETER MAILLER, FARMER: If there's a problem with a product, I wanna know because I use it. I'm looking at the science, I'm looking at the evidence, I'm looking at the regulator who I happen to trust, and say, "I'm still very comfortable that this is a product we should be using.” Because on balance it's delivering a whole bunch of benefits to the farming system and to the environment we operate in.

CAREY GILLAM, Author, Whitewash; The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science: You’re seeing France talk about banning it, you're seeing Germany talk banning it. Now you're seeing questions raised about the safety of this product all over the world and I think we're only going to see more questions as we go forward.

RON SNAPE, FARMER: I think government’s probably has got to get up and have a real enquiry into this particular product, let us show the world that we are leaders when it comes to actually growing crops and being responsible. Trust Monsanto, no bloody way.