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  • 10/2024
  • Dr. Peter Clausing, Susan Haffmans
Focus Area

Replacing Highly Hazardous Pesticides with Agroecological Farming

The worldwide use of often highly toxic pesticides causes considerable environmental and health costs, especially in the countries of the global South. Alternatives should be implemented as a matter of urgency.

Spraying pesticides on potatoes without adequate personal protection in San Andreas in the central highlands of Ecuador. © Thomas Lohnes/Welthungerhilfe

The death of insects, birds and other wildlife, pesticide-related health damage, the universal distribution of pesticides and much more came to public attention in 1962 with the publication of Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring. Today, we know considerably more about the damage caused by pesticides. Numerous active substances have been banned in the European Union (EU), many of them worldwide, but often only decades after the damages caused by them became known. At the same time, pesticide-free, agroecological cultivation methods have been developed and applied, albeit inadequately promoted.

It was not until 40 years after Silent Spring was published that the “Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants” entered into force on May 17, 2004, banning chemicals globally for the first time. This international agreement currently lists 32 substances or groups of substances for which – with two clearly defined exceptions – there is a global ban on production, and 19 of which are pesticide active substances (active substances are the biologically active molecules in commercial products). In the EU, many active substances have now lost their approval for environmental and health reasons. The EU pesticide database currently contains 1481 active substances, of which only 425 are approved.

While the total amount of pesticides used in the EU has remained constant for years, it has doubled globally from 1992 (when records began) to more than 3.5 million tons in 2022 (see table).

Pesticide use (FAO*, million tons)

Region

1992

2002

2012

2022

Increase

(1992 – 2022)

Europe

468

450

515

473

1,01-fold

North America

431

448

481

566

1,31-fold

S/SE-Asia**

308

355

568

648

2,10-fold

Africa

60

81

154

209

3,48-fold

South America

126

372

814

1.238

9,82-fold

Global

1.802

2.205

3.206

3.691

2,03-fold

* www.fao.org/faostat/en/ (abgerufen am 01.10.2024)

**South- and Southeast Asia

Sales of pesticides have increased dramatically in South America

Sales markets for pesticide manufacturers have meanwhile shifted significantly. While in the early 1990s around half of pesticides were sprayed in Europe and North America, this figure had fallen to just 28% by 2022. The shift is primarily due to the extreme increase in pesticide sales in South America. This market shift is associated with considerable problems considering how pesticides are stored, applied and disposed of in many countries in the Global South – including many highly hazardous pesticides.

The 5 Biggest Pesticide Producers

Bayer CropScience (Leverkusen, Germany)

Syngenta AG (Basel, Switzerland)

BASF (Ludwigshafen, Germany)

Corteva, Inc. (Delaware, USA)

FMC Corporation (Pennsylvania, USA)

Quelle, accessed: September 23, 2024

It can have serious consequences if pesticides that have been banned in Europe and to some extent in North America for health or environmental reasons, are increasingly used in other parts of the world. Many people there are unaware of the dangers of the active ingredients, and there are hardly any protective measures or only minimum environmental standards in place.

Serious health consequences for the global South

This is often associated with serious consequences for the population of the Global South. It is estimated that around 385 million unintentional acute pesticide poisonings[1] occur every year, around 95% of which happen in low- and middle-income countries. In addition, one to two million suicide attempts with pesticides lead to around 168,000 deaths annually.

The high number of acute poisonings is also an indirect indication that parts of the rural population are permanently exposed to high levels of pesticides. Because before acute symptoms of poisoning occur, the exposure of the people living and working there is probably already very high due to the unmonitored pesticide contamination of water, air and food.

The allowed maximum residue levels (MRLs) in food defined by the Codex Alimentarius, a collection of international food standards of the United Nations, intend to limit the risk of chronic diseases and developmental disorders. If these levels are surpassed and people are also exposed to pesticides at work, the risk of illness increases significantly. There is now increasing evidence that the MRLs are frequently exceeded in the countries of the Global South.

Pesticides, including some that are highly toxic such as Dichlorovos or Monochrotophos, are sold in Zambia in small sizes for the equivalent of less than 1 Euro. © Louis Schwarze

It has also been known for years that people who are exposed to low doses of the herbicide paraquat and the fungicide maneb over a long period of time can develop Parkinson's disease. Both active ingredients have long been banned in the EU, but are still used extensively in the Global South. Many people in Asia, Africa and South America are not even diagnosed with this incurable disease due to inadequate medical care. The same applies to other pesticides that cause cancer, kidney damage or developmental disorders.

Pesticides pollute nature and the environment

In addition to the threat to humans, pesticides also pollute nature and the environment to an extent that can hardly or no longer be compensated for. This applies to soil, water and air worldwide. Pesticides have even been detected in the Arctic pack ice. The effects on food webs – numerous interconnected food chains – are nevertheless not taken into account in the approval testing of pesticide products.

It has been scientifically proven that the widespread use of synthetic chemical pesticides is a major driver of biodiversity loss, with significant consequences for food systems. The loss of biodiversity threatens ecosystems, soil fertility and water quality, and therefore our food security in the long term. More than any other professional group, farmers are dependent on ecosystem functions such as pollination, soil formation and filtering services.

The most frequently used insecticides in the world today, systemic neonicotinoids, for example, are absorbed by the roots of cultivated and wild plants and contaminate all parts of the plant, as well as nectar and pollen. For bees, these substances are acutely toxic. Their sense of direction is lost and their communication, navigation and fertility are impaired. Their immune system is also weakened, making them more susceptible to disease.

Waters are also affected: In creeks contaminated with pesticides, the proportion of sensitive species such as dragonflies and caddisflies decreases significantly. In some regions of the world, environmental pollution, including water pollution with pesticides, is so high that people can no longer feed themselves or the contaminated food they eat makes them ill. In 2019, the UN Human Rights Committee accused the Paraguayan state of serious pesticide poisoning due to the massive use of agrochemicals in soy plantations. The pesticides severely contaminated water resources and aquifers and prevented the use of watercourses – for example for fishing. This led to damage to fruit trees and the loss of fruit as food, as well as the death of various farm animals and severe crop losses.

Ranking of Pesticide Use in Agriculture, 2022, in Tons

Brazil

800.652

USA

467.677

Indonesia

294.670

Argentina

262.507

PR China*

224.717

Viet Nam

161.908

Canada

97.692

Russian Federation 

97.018

Colombia

78.231

France

67.875

* listed by FAO as „China mainland“ 

Source: FAO (https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data)

Reducing the use of synthetic chemical pesticides or farming without them is not about abandoning plant protection altogether, but about making it more preventative, more resilient and more future-oriented. Switching to non-chemical, organic or agroecological methods means keeping nature and the environment healthy and productive and making farms less dependent on external production inputs and global pesticide companies.

Pesticide-free agriculture is possible

For decades, the pesticide industry has repeatedly claimed that the use of pesticides is necessary to feed the world's population. This claim is false for several reasons.

Firstly, it is a fact that herbicides, which according to FAO statistics account for over half of the pesticides used[2], are largely used as a business tool to reduce labour costs and not to secure yields. This “cost reduction” must be seriously questioned if the health costs caused by pesticides are taken into account.

Secondly, the UN Special Rapporteurs on the Right to Food repeatedly point out that the problem of hunger in the world is not insufficient food production, but the lack of access to food due to poverty and wars.

Thirdly, it is also false to claim that not using pesticides is associated with considerable yield losses. For example, trials conducted by the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania over a period of 40 years have shown that yield differences between conventional and controlled organic cultivation have completely disappeared.

In 2050, it is expected that there will be almost 10 billion people on the planet. A number of factors suggest that the world's population can be adequately and appropriately fed without pesticides. These include the untapped yield potential of agroecological cultivation methods and their greater resilience to extreme weather conditions. Integrated pest management – the concept of using synthetic chemical pesticides only when all preventive, cultivation and ecological measures have been exhausted – can bridge the gap to pesticide-free cultivation methods. However, this would require more stringent implementation of integrated pest management. At the same time, the transitional reduction in yield when switching to pesticide-free cultivation methods could be offset by greater land availability, by producing less meat and less food ending up in the tank instead of on the plate.

The amount of grain presently used as animal feed would be sufficient to completely cover the calorie requirements of the current world population. It would therefore be a question of reducing the excessive, nutritionally unnecessary consumption of animal protein in certain regions of the world, and not eliminating it altogether. We also need measures to combat food waste, as up to a third of the food produced today is destroyed.

Conclusion

Farmers and agricultural workers around the world – the people who provide our food – face enormous challenges: They are particularly threatened by poverty, hunger and pesticide poisoning. They face a powerful industry that dominates pesticide and seed markets and increasingly dictates what and how crops are grown worldwide. Against this, efforts are being made to make agriculture more climate- and biodiversity-friendly and at the same time more productive.

Yet as long as the considerable health and environmental costs of pesticide use are externalized, i.e. not paid by the producers, competition is distorted to the detriment of agroecological cultivation methods. This is facilitated by trade regulations that allow harmful double standards in the pesticide trade and by enormous lobby investments that influence the approval process. An effective correction of the legal and programmatic framework is urgently needed – globally, regionally and nationally. There are good approaches, such as the gradual replacement of highly hazardous pesticides with agroecological measures. They just need to be applied boldly.

All views expressed in the Welternährung are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view or policies of the editorial board or of Welthungerhilfe.

Dr. Peter Clausing Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Germany, Hamburg
Susan Haffmans Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Germany, Hamburg

[1] UNEP (2022). Synthesis Report on the Environmental and Health Impacts of Pesticides and Fertilizers and Ways to Minimize Them. Geneva. https://wedocs.unep.org/xmlui/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/38409/pesticides.pdf

[2] On average in the years 2020-2022: Pesticide total: 3,568 Mio-t, Herbicides 1,876 Mio-t (= 52,6%)

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