EPA Extends Glyphosate Health Review Comment Period by 60 Days
28 September 2026, Washington, D.C.: The US Environmental Protection Agency has extended by 60 days the public comment period on a literature search that will feed into its ongoing human health risk assessment of glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide. The agency announced the extension in a Federal Register notice published September 28, 2026, moving the deadline from September 24 to November 23, 2026.
EPA said it granted the extension “to allow for further meaningful input from stakeholders,” according to the notice, which falls under docket EPA-HQ-OPP-2009-0361, the long-running registration review file for glyphosate.
The underlying document at issue is an open literature search that EPA first made available for comment on August 25, 2026. That search lays out the systematic review strategy, search terms, databases and screening criteria EPA used to compile the scientific record for glyphosate’s human health hazard assessment, along with a spreadsheet listing the specific studies identified. EPA is asking commenters to point to any additional peer reviewed, publicly accessible studies that its search may have missed, and to supply full citations, including author, publication date, journal and article title, for anything they submit.
The move is the latest step in a registration review that has run for close to two decades. EPA opened the glyphosate docket in July 2009, issued a proposed interim decision in May 2019, and extended the comment period on that proposal the following month. The literature search now under review is meant to update the human health portion of that assessment with research published since.
The extension follows a memorandum of understanding EPA signed with the US Department of Health and Human Services in September, creating a joint technical working group to review glyphosate science together. That agreement pushed EPA’s internal target for completing an updated human health risk assessment from late 2026 to early 2027, with working materials to be posted to the same public docket on a rolling basis. Today’s extension effectively confirms that slower pace, since EPA cannot close the comment window on the literature search until stakeholders have had the additional time it just granted.
India and China have grown into major supply hubs for generic technical grade glyphosate over the past two decades, feeding both their own domestic herbicide markets and export channels to Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa. A US regulatory outcome that tightens or loosens human health restrictions does not by itself change import rules in those markets, but EPA’s conclusions carry outsized weight because several other national regulators, including some in Asia and Latin America, benchmark their own glyphosate reassessments against the EPA record rather than duplicating the full scientific review from scratch.
Glyphosate remains the highest volume herbicide sold worldwide, used as a burndown and in-season weed control tool across corn, soybeans, cotton and a wide range of other crops, as well as on non-crop land. Bayer, which inherited the product’s US liability and branding through its acquisition of Monsanto, holds the primary US registration, while the active ingredient itself has been off patent for more than two decades and is now manufactured at scale by generic producers, particularly in China. Any material shift in EPA’s human health findings, in either direction, would ripple through registration, labeling and pricing decisions well beyond the United States, since regulators in other jurisdictions frequently reference EPA’s assessments in their own reviews.
Also Read: New US Tariffs on Chinese Drones Raise Costs for Spray-Drone Farmers
Global Agriculture is an independent international media platform covering agri-business, policy, technology, and sustainability. For editorial collaborations, thought leadership, and strategic communications, write to pr@global-agriculture.com
