UN Experts
Denounce 'MYTH' Pesticides Are Necessary To Feed The World
Report warns of catastrophic consequences and blames
manufacturers for ‘systematic denial of harms’ and
‘unethical marketing tactics’
The global pesticides market is worth $50bn and
companies lobby heavily to resist reforms and regulations.
Photograph: Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images
Tuesday 7 March 2017 06.17 EST First published
on Tuesday 7 March 2017 01.00 EST
The idea that pesticides are essential to feed a
fast-growing global population is a myth, according to UN food and
pollution experts.
A new
report, being presented to the UN human rights council on
Wednesday, is severely critical of the global corporations that
manufacture pesticides, accusing them of the “systematic denial
of harms”, “aggressive, unethical marketing tactics”
and heavy lobbying of governments which has “obstructed reforms
and paralysed global pesticide restrictions”.
The report says pesticides have “catastrophic
impacts on the environment, human health and society as a whole”,
including an estimated 200,000 deaths a year from acute poisoning.
Its authors said: “It is time to create a global process to
transition toward safer and healthier food and agricultural
production.”
The world’s population is set to grow from 7
billion today to 9 billion in 2050. The pesticide industry argues
that its products – a market worth about $50bn (£41bn) a
year and growing – are vital in protecting crops and ensuring
sufficient food supplies.
“It is a myth,” said Hilal Elver, the
UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food. “Using more
pesticides is nothing to do with getting rid of hunger. According to
the UN Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO), we are able to feed 9 billion people today.
Production is definitely increasing, but the problem is poverty,
inequality and distribution.”
Elver said many of the pesticides are used on
commodity crops, such as palm oil and soy, not the food needed by the
world’s hungry people: “The corporations are not dealing
with world hunger, they are dealing with more agricultural activity
on large scales.”
The new report, which is co-authored by Baskut
Tuncak, the UN’s special rapporteur on toxics, said: “While
scientific research confirms the adverse effects of pesticides,
proving a definitive link between exposure and human diseases or
conditions or harm to the ecosystem presents a considerable
challenge. This challenge has been exacerbated by a systematic
denial, fuelled by the pesticide and agro-industry, of the magnitude
of the damage inflicted by these chemicals, and aggressive, unethical
marketing tactics.”
Elver, who visited the Philippines, Paraguay, Morocco
and Poland as part of producing the report, said: “The power of
the corporations over governments and over the scientific community
is extremely important. If you want to deal with pesticides, you have
to deal with the companies – that is why [we use] these harsh
words. They will say, of course, it is not true, but also out there
is the testimony of the people.”
She said some developed countries did have “very
strong” regulations for pesticides, such as the EU, which she
said based their rules on the “precautionary principle”.
The EU
banned the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, which harm bees, on
flowering crops in 2013, a move strongly opposed by the industry. But
she noted that others, such as the US, did not use the precautionary
principle.
Elver also said that while consumers in developed
countries are usually better protected from pesticides, farms workers
often are not. In the US, she, said, 90% of farm workers were
undocumented and their consequent lack of legal protections and
health insurance put them at risk from pesticide use.
“The claim that it is a myth that farmers need
pesticides to meet the challenge of feeding 7 billion people simply
doesn’t stand up to scrutiny,” said a spokesman for the
Crop Protection
Association, which represents pesticide manufacturers in the UK.
“The UN FAO is clear on this – without crop protection
tools, farmers could lose as much as 80% of their harvests to
damaging insects, weeds and plant disease.”
“The plant science industry strongly agrees
with the UN special rapporteurs that the right to food must extend to
every global citizen, and that all citizens have a right to food that
has been produced in a way that is safe for human health and for the
environment,” said the spokesman. “Pesticides play a key
role in ensuring we have access to a healthy, safe, affordable and
reliable food supply.”
The report found that just 35% of developing
countries had a regulatory regime for pesticides and even then
enforcement was problematic. It also found examples of pesticides
banned from use in one country still being produced there for
export.
It recommended a move towards a global treaty to
govern the use of pesticides and a move to sustainable practices
including natural methods of suppressing pests and crop rotation, as
well as incentivising organically produced food.
The report said: “Chronic exposure to
pesticides has been linked to cancer, Alzheimer’s and
Parkinson’s diseases, hormone disruption, developmental
disorders and sterility.” It also highlighted the risk to
children from pesticide contamination of food, citing 23 deaths in
India in 2013 and 39 in China in 2014. Furthermore, the report said,
recent Chinese government studies indicated that pesticide
contamination meant farming could not continue on about 20% of arable
land.
“The industry frequently uses the term
‘intentional misuse’ to shift the blame on to the user
for the avoidable impacts of hazardous pesticides,” the report
said. “Yet clearly, the responsibility for protecting users and
others throughout the pesticide life cycle and throughout the retail
chain lies with the pesticide manufacturer.”
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