Just this week I was at the Pesticide Action Network conference in Dublin.
The EU is about to pass legislation that will role back protections that have been put in place over the last number of years to limit the use of pesticides in our food and on our land. This new law is called “The food and Safety Omnibus law”
There is an urban myth that the head of Monsanto (the manufacturer of Glyphosate) once said:
“There should be no food grown that we don’t own”
I am sure he did not say this in public, but you can be sure that Monsanto most definitely had their eye on owning our food supply back in the heady days of GMO crops and Roundup’s unstoppable march across the world back in the late 90s and early 2000s.
The EU commission has met on numerous occasions with industry lobbying groups, including Bayer, CropLife Europe (a large agribusiness funded pro-pesticide group) and the largest farming group across Europe “Copa Cogeca” who have called for “unlimited” approval of pesticides.
The new proposal represents a step backwards in the protections for our health and our land.
One MEP, a right-wing Italian MEP who is an advocate for the new laws has met 9 times since March of this year with organisations including fertiliser groups (As reported by the Financial Times).
3 main changes if this law is passed:
- Under the existing rules pesticides must be reviewed every 15 years. The commission has proposed amongst many other industry requests, removing this safeguard. Cast your mind back to 2023 when glyphosate came up for renewal, its licence was renewed for a further 10 years, our own government here in Ireland voted very much in favour of its renewal. Under the new proposal Glyphosate would not have had this review and would have unlimited use into the future.
2. Another industry request “exempting pesticides from bans where they are deemed necessary to maintain crop yields” and this too has been adopted. currently harmful pesticides are only granted exemptions where crops would be directly threatened by a pest, a higher hurdle to cross.
3. Another industry request “extend the grace period from 18 months to 3 years after a pesticide is banned” has also been adopted.
If you would like to voice your concern and opposition to this bill, there is a petition you can sign here.
Of course, supporting organic farming is another step you can take to help ensure our land and our health is protected, and we need your support each week to keep going in a world dominated by cheap industrial food.
Thank you as always for your support
Kenneth