Bread sold in the UK is being contaminated with a weed killer recently categorised as “probably” carcinogenic by the World Health Organisation (WHO), campaigners have warned. In 2013, one third of bread tested by the government’s expert committee on pesticide residues in food (PRiF) contained a measurable amount of glyphosate, the main component of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. In 2014, the experts still found traces of the weed killer in as much as 15% of UK bread. Wholemeal bread, which contains more of the wheat grain, may be most affected. The Soil Association has now called for an immediate ban on glyphosate ahead of this year’s harvest, urging farmers and the milling industry not spray the weedkiller on wheat crops pre-harvest. Policy director Peter Melchett said: “We cannot ignore the World Health Organisation’s findings that glyphosate is a probable cause of cancer - the risks are too great. According to the campaigners, the use of the weedkiller has risen by 400% in the last 20 years in UK farming. Glyphosate is one of the three pesticides regularly found in routine testing of British bread. “Although the quantities found are well below the official safety level, this limit was agreed before the latest scientific findings about the dangers of glyphosate”, Peter Melchett said. In March, the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer concluded in a report that glyphosate “probably” causes cancer in humans. Last week, Professor Christopher Portier, one of the co-authors of the report, reiterated the IARC’s conclusions, and said: “Glyphosate is definitely genotoxic. There is no doubt in my mind.”(ab)