Press Conference: Baking Soda more dangerous than Glyphosate & Co.?

What

On Monday 16 October at 9:00 CEST (Brussels time) we’re organising a press conference.

Why

As you know, the EU Commission aims to halve the use and risk of pesticides in the EU by 2030 through legislation. However, the method proposed for measuring progress threatens to render these plans meaningless. The end result could be a fictitious reduction in pesticide use that exists only on paper, while the field application of particularly dangerous pesticides may actually increase, replacing harmless pesticides with more toxic ones. The press conference will therefore focus on the indicator chosen by the EU Commission to measure pesticides use, and what alternatives there are.

Are you interested to join us?

You can join us on Zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83162329706?pwd=WkRFOTFuRVFFYitEdkRzcFNoYTArZz09 (Meeting ID: 831 6232 9706, Passcode: 284856)

Learn more from:

• Dr Helmut Burtscher-Schaden, biochemist and spokesperson of the ECI Save Bees and Farmers
• Eric Gall, Deputy Director of IFOAM – Organics Europe.

Breakout rooms will be available for France, Germany & EU-level.

Background information

Intense negotiations on pesticides reduction are happening now in European institutions. Next Monday 16 October Member States will discuss which indicator should be used to measure pesticides use, and a crucial vote will take place on 24 October in the European Parliament on the “sustainable use of pesticides regulation” (SUR).

An explanatory video, which will be publicly premiered during the press conference, highlights the serious flaws in the measurement method proposed by the Commission. This method assigns for example an eight-fold higher risk to sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), classified as a “low-risk pesticide,” compared to difenoconazole, labeled as a “Candidate for Substitution” – and even a 50-fold higher risk compared to the bee-killing neurotoxin deltamethrin.

Adopting the measurement tool in its current form would systematically mislead European Citizens, who expect effective protective measures for health and the environment and do not deserve to be deceived and misinformed by politicians. A proposal for correcting this flawed measurement tool is presented by the initiators of the successful European Citizens’ Initiative “Save Bees and Farmers” and the European organic movement, IFOAM Organics Europe.