Key takeaways:
- Glyphosate and its metabolite AMPA have been detected in everyday South African staples, including baby cereal, maize meal, flour and bread.
- Some products exceeded default residue limits, while others still showed trace levels despite frequent daily consumption.
- The findings have prompted calls for a national ban and renewed scrutiny of how pesticide residues are monitored in the food supply.
Glyphosate has been found in the South African supply chain, in products people actually recognise and buy every week.
Independent, SANAS-certified testing commissioned by the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) picked up residues of the herbicide – and its metabolite AMPA – in maize meal, wheat flour, bread and infant cereal. Two of the products breached South Africa’s default residue limit. Others didn’t but still contained detectable levels.
The brands involved are big names in households across the country: Impala Maize Meal; Snowflake Wheat Flour; Sasko White Bread; Nestlé’s Cerelac Regular Wheat (baby cereal). What’s unsettling isn’t just that residues are there – it’s how often these foods are eaten. Bread, pap (maize), porridge are every day, sometimes more than once. For infants, cereal is a daily routine and essential for healthy development.
Bread consumption among South Africans runs to roughly 50-60kg per person each year, according to data from the South African Grain Information Service (SAGIS) and industry estimates. Maize (mielie meal) is even more central for many households, it’s the meal. Add baby cereal into that mix and you’re looking at continuous, low-level exposure across age groups, starting early.
“Finding glyphosate in baby cereal was very disturbing,” said Zakiyya Ismail, research coordinator at ACB. “Babies are the most vulnerable. It shouldn’t be there. We know that glyphosate is an endocrine disruptor, so if young babies are being fed this every day, that is highly problematic. It can affect their physical health and development.”
Residues where they shouldn’t be
Glyphosate is widely used in South African agriculture, particularly on GM maize (most of the country’s maize crop is genetically modified, often for herbicide tolerance). But it isn’t approved for use on wheat. Yet residues turned up in wheat flour and in baby cereals made from it.
That points to something slipping through the cracks. Whether that’s cross-contamination of pre-harvest spraying elsewhere, imported grain, environmental carryover or weak enforcement isn’t clear. What is clear is that the system isn’t as tight as it looks on paper.
“Glyphosate is not approved for use on wheat here in South Africa, yet we found it in wheat flour and in baby cereals made from wheat. Why?” asked Ismail.
ACB has taken that question straight to government, submitting a formal request to deregister and ban glyphosate-based herbicides entirely. The submission leans heavily on new lab data, recent scientific studies and a growing body of legal cases overseas.
Compliance versus confidence
Producers aren’t disputing ACB’s results but insist they fall within regulatory standards. In South Africa, where specific limits don’t exist for every crop and chemical combination, a default maximum residue limit (MRLs) of 0.01 mg/kg applies. Two of the tested products, however, exceeded that level.
Key findings:
* Glyphosate was detected in Impala maize meal, Snowflake wheat flour and Cerelac baby cereal
* Sasko white bread contained trace levels below the limit of quantification
* AMPA was found in Impala maize meal and Sasko white bread
(AMPA is the main breakdown product of glyphosate. It forms as the herbicide degrades in soil, crops or the body, and tends to persist longer. It has its own toxic profile, with emerging links to metabolic and developmental effects, and is used as a marker of glyphosate exposure. No specific limits exist, so it falls under the default 0.01 mg/kg threshold.)
Where limits were exceeded:
* Impala maize meal: AMPA at 0.0135 mg/kg (limit 0.01)
* Snowflake wheat flour: Glyphosate at 0.0134 mg/kg (limit 0.01)
Credit: Daily exposure: glyphosate in maize, wheat, bread and baby food. February 2025. African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB)
But staying within the rules doesn’t always settle the argument. MRLs were never designed to capture long-term, real-world exposure – especially when residues turn up across multiple foods eaten every day. Nor do they reflect how products like infant cereal are actually consumed: regularly and over time. ACB’s report argues that’s where the current system falls short.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifies glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen. Other regulators, including the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), take a different view, concluding that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a cancer risk when used as directed. That divide has been there for years and it’s not going away.
What has ramped up over time is the legal backdrop. Since 2015, more than 192,000 lawsuits have been filed in the US linking glyphosate – the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide – to non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Bayer, which acquired Monsanto in a 2018 deal valued at around $63 billion, making it one of the biggest acquisitions in the agrochemical sector, has paid out over $10 billion in settlements. In February 2026, it agreed to a further $7.25 billion deal to address ongoing and future claims.
At the same time, a widely cited 2000 paper used for years to support glyphosate’s safety has been retracted over concerns about ghost-writing and undisclosed industry involvement.
However, there’s a raft of newer research adding pressure. A 2025 global glyphosate study, published in Environmental Health, reported tumour increases at exposure levels regulators still consider acceptable.
Back in South Africa, all of this lands in a country where food insecurity affects an estimated 15-16 million people. Bread and maize meal aren’t optional purchases – they’re the mainstay of daily life. Glyphosate sits awkwardly in that picture. It’s heavily relied on in agriculture, particularly in maize production. Yet it’s not approved across all crops, including wheat. Even so, residues are still making their way into finished foods.
ACB argues that reliance is starting to show cracks, pointing to evidence that glyphosate use can reduce levels of key micronutrients such as zinc and magnesium in crops – not ideal in a population already under nutritional pressure.
“We should keep glyphosate off our plates to be safe,” said Ismail.
South Africa’s Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development has yet to respond publicly to calls for a ban. However, with rising concerns and louder voices, there’s an evident push to take the issue out of technical reports and into everyday conversation. When residues show up in staple foods – and in baby cereal – it stops being abstract very quickly.
Studies:
Viljoen CD, Koortzen BJ, Sreenivasan Tantuan S. Determining the presence of glyphosate and glyphosate-tolerant events in maize and soybean food products in South Africa. Food Addit Contam Part B Surveill. 2021 Jun;14(2):91-97. doi: 10.1080/19393210.2021.1872713. Epub 2021 Feb 5. PMID: 33541241.
Williams GM, Kroes R, Munro IC. Safety evaluation and risk assessment of the herbicide Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, for humans. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol. 2000 Apr;31(2 Pt 1):117-65. doi: 10.1006/rtph.1999.1371.
Williams GM, Kroes R, Munro IC. Retraction notice to “Safety evaluation and risk assessment of the herbicide roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, for humans” [Regul. Toxicol. Pharm. 31 (2000) 117-165]. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol. 2025 Dec 4:106006. doi: 10.1016/j.yrtph.2025.106006. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 41428335.
Panzacchi, S., Tibaldi, E., De Angelis, L. et al. Carcinogenic effects of long-term exposure from prenatal life to glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides in Sprague–Dawley rats. Environ Health 24, 36 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-025-01187-2
