Posts In Category Uncategorized
Explainer: How does the EU renew pesticides
on November 1, 2023 by Oskar Hammer Sylvestersen in Uncategorized, Comments (0)
The fight over the facts: Inside the EU’s glyphosate debate
on by Oskar Hammer Sylvestersen in Uncategorized, Comments (0)
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.”
EU Parliament environmental committee narrowly votes down resolution to ban glyphosate.
on by Oskar Hammer Sylvestersen in Uncategorized, Comments (0)
A proposed resolution calling for the complete ban of the widely used pesticide glyphosate was Tuesday, the 24th of October, voted down in the European Parliament’s environmental committee. 40 members of the committee voted against the proposal, 38 for and six abstained.
Bas Eickhout, Green/EFA (Left), at The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. Photo © Eric VIDAL, European Union 2023
By Oskar Hammer Sylvestersen and Jack Wilson
The resolution to ban glyphosate was proposed by the Greens, Socialists and Democrats and the Left and followed a recent vote in the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed, where member states failed to agree on the European Commission’s proposed 10-year renewal for the use of glyphosate.
While the resolution in the parliament committee had no binding legal ramification, it would have sent a strong message to member states and the Commission.
Bas Eickhout MEP, Greens/EFA and Vice Chair of the Environmental Committee had the following to say in a press release after the vote:
“The ENVI committee today failed to take the only responsible decision and call for a complete ban of the use of glyphosate. Big agri’s [agricultural] lobby has won at the expense of farmers’ health and the health of our ecosystems. Allowing glyphosate to be reauthorised would be like giving big agri [agricultural] a blank check to earn billions by selling a pesticide for which there are still big gaps in knowledge about the long term effects on our health, and at the same time poses large risks for European biodiversity.”
On the opposite end of the argument is Erik Poulsen, MEP and negotiator on glyphosate for the Renew Europe (Liberal) party group, who had this to say about the vote:
“It was expected, but important, that the resolution was voted down. Glyphosate is one of the world’s most important plant protection products that secures good and safe food production. It’s also probably one of the most researched chemicals in the world … and the EU’s own environmental institutions have clearly rejected that is dangerous for the environment, human health or our groundwater.”
While the two sides are still in disagreement about the use of glyphosate, the committee did agree on a proposal to reduce the overall use and risk of pesticides in general by 50% by 2030. The proposal represents a minor compromise on the pesticide debate in the EU.