The Dealer was interested to hear that the campaign group Uplift had raised funds to erect a mobile billboard in Macroom, the home town of Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed.

The sign read: “Minister Michael Creed, what are you going to do about glyphosate in Guinness?”

The campaigners claimed they had detected glyphosate in several Guinness samples in Ireland, the UK, Germany, and France.

Intrigued, The Dealer did some detecting of my own, helped along by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland.

Acceptable intake

Based on the highest level of glyphosate that Uplift found in Guinness (32.11 ng/ml), an average person would have to consume over 1,900 pints of Guinness every day over the space of a lifetime to exceed the European Union-set acceptable daily intake.

The FSAI added that no cereal samples taken in recent years have exceeded the maximum residue level.

Diageo told me that glyphosate is not sprayed on the barley supplied to St James’s Gate and that glyphosate was not detected in its routine testing of Guinness in independent accredited labs.