The fight over the facts: Inside the EU’s glyphosate debate

As the approval process for Europe’s most widely-used pesticide drags on, politicians are split on the basic facts around the chemical. While some call glyphosate low-risk and essential, others are calling for an outright ban, citing health and environmental risks.

By Jack Wilson and Oskar Hammer Sylvestersen 

The debate around glyphosate is raging in Brussels. On October 13, EU member states failed to approve a proposed 10-year renewal for use of the controversial herbicide. An October 24 vote in the parliament’s environment committee narrowly failed to support an outright ban of the substance. Now, the European Commission has referred its proposal to an appeals committee, while parliamentarians in the anti-glyphosate camp scramble to achieve some level of consensus to restrict the pesticide’s use.

This is by no means the first time EU politicians have debated glyphosate. The pesticide is the most widely used in Europe, considered highly effective against a wide range of unwanted weeds. While left-leaning party groups — the Socialists and Democrats, Greens and Left — favour a ban, liberal group Renew, alongside the other right-wing parties defend the herbicide as necessary for farming and relatively low-risk.

In many ways, the debate comes down to different interpretations of scientific facts. With both sides often citing the same research, politicians debate whether glyphosate can be considered safe on the balance of scientific research or unsafe due to remaining uncertainties. Proponents of glyphosate point to the product as the most widely used pesticide in Europe and say the economic and food security impacts of a ban would be devastating. Opponents allege glyphosate may cause neurological harm, lead to cancer and negatively affect pollinators, including bees.

Feelings and facts

Erik Poulsen, a Danish Renew politician sitting on the environment committee, said MEPs should side with The European Commission and support the 10-year extension. The Commission has “gone through all the data — 180,000 pages of data, 2,400 scientific studies and had 90 experts looking into it,” he said. “It’s very, very well researched.”

Anti-glyphosate politicians are ignoring that research, Poulsen alleged, calling them concerned “more with feelings than with facts.”

Dutch MEP Mohammed Chahim of the Socialists and Democrats disagreed. “There is enough scientific evidence that points to a relation between pesticide use and neurological diseases, but also for example, cancers,” said the politician, who sits on the same committee. “Defining [the concerns] as ‘feelings’ is an insult to scientists in the EU and all over the world.”

Green party group agriculture advisor Andrzej Nowakowski said glyphosate proponents often dismiss legitimate concerns as feelings. “It’s a little bit annoying,” he said. With research unable to rule out risks, Nowakowski said his party simply isn’t willing to take the risk of allowing a potentially dangerous pesticide.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) study of glyphosate concluded the herbicide can’t be classified as dangerous to human health or the environment. Poulsen said MEPs opposing glyphosate distrust EFSA. “When EFSA says this is safe and they say no, we don’t trust that it’s safe, then of course, it’s a kind of distrust in the institutions in the EU.”

But Chahim said there are gaps in EFSA’s study, which didn’t look at glyphosate’s effect on neurological diseases. “We’ve had many incidents in the past with these types of chemicals where we first though they were safe and that turned out not to be the case,” he said.

EFSA declined a request for interview.

Balancing the risks

Chahim said glyphosate may cause certain neurological diseases, including Parkinson’s, which he said is common among farmers. Indeed, a 2022 study in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences reported neurotoxic effects stemming from glyphosate. The amounts needed to cause such effects are lower than regulatory limits, the paper said.

The risk of health consequences from glyphosate is too high for the EU to tolerate, Chahim said. Should those effects turn out to be true, “every politician that now voted in favour of the extension of the permit will then say, this is a shame, we should never have done this,” he said. “That’s why I say, let’s do our homework very well.”

Though Chahim said he was willing to find middle ground with pro-glyphosate colleagues, “extending a product for ten years unconditionally is not what I see as middle ground.” He said he could imagine glyphosate manufacturers suing the EU should new research convince the bloc to restrict the herbicide. As a minimum, Chahim said the reapproval should be revocable if researchers find evidence of health or environmental issues.

The cost of a ban

A 2020 article published in U.S. journal Weed Science estimated massive financial consequences in the event of a glyphosate ban. The study predicted that German winter wheat farmers, for example, would see reduced profits of between six and 17 per cent.

Banning glyphosate would cost Danish farmers about 1.9 billion DKK (€254 million), Poulsen said, referring to a 2021 study by Seges Innovation. “So of course, it’s not just a little thing.”

Chahim said a glyphosate ban would come with support for farmers. EU funds can be used to support farmers transitioning to alternative methods, he said, “or at least compensate them for the loss.” “I also believe that farmers in the EU do not get the price they should get for the products they produce,” Chahim added.

Nowakowski said he’d like to see farmers across Europe transition to an “agro-ecological system.” The current system of monoculture, in which farmers cultivate just one crop in a given area, creates a greater need for glyphosate, he said. European farming practices require a total paradigm shift, he argued, toward sustainable methods that reduce the need for pesticides.

Those looking to ban glyphosate should also consider food security, Poulsen said. “For the first time in the history of the EU, we have, after the war in Ukraine, the feeling that we could have a food shortage in Europe.” Banning glyphosate could harm an already precarious food system, he argued. “So without glyphosate we’ll have some problems.”

But Chahim denied the EU was teetering toward food insecurity. “There’s no scientific evidence to make that statement,” he said. “This is an image that’s not reflected by reality.” Nowakowski agreed, saying a food shortage in the EU is not a real risk.

Where parliament fits in

Though a hot-button issue for MEPs, the European Parliament has no formal role in approving or banning pesticides. The European Commission and Council of Ministers are charged with that decision. Still, MEPs in favour of a ban say the Commission would have to listen should elected parliamentarians call for one.

Having failed to find enough support on a ban, Chahim said he and colleagues are now looking for a compromise. He’s hoping Parliament will agree not to extend the permit until a certain level of confidence in glyphosate’s safety is met.

Should parliamentarians reach a compromise, Chahim said he was confident the Commission would respect the vote. “We don’t misuse our time, I can guarantee you that.”

Poulsen, for his part, said MEPs should defer to the Commission. “I feel that the Commission has a well balanced proposal to renew the authorization of glyphosate.”

The path ahead

With member states failing to approve the Commission’s proposed extension, an appeals committee made up of higher ranking member state representatives will now consider the proposal, beginning sometime in November. Should that effort fail, the Commission would have to come up with a new proposal.

In the European Parliament, the unsuccessful committee vote was a clear setback for the anti-glyphosate camp. Now focused on compromise, those politicians say they remain optimistic about an eventual victory.

Speaking minutes after the failed committee vote to ban glyphosate, Austrian Green MEP Sarah Wiener said she still see a path to an eventual glyphosate ban. “I’m quite sure that glyphosate will one day be over.”

“What’s clear is that we can’t be doing things as we’ve been doing them up until now.”