Stop harm

Make Europe agroecological

“How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death even to their own kind? Yet this is precisely what we have done. We have done it, moreover, for reasons that collapse the moment we examine them.”

Rachel Carson

Those words were written in 1962. Yet, sixty-three years later, we are still very much bringing harm to ourselves, and it is time to stop doing it.

Funding chemical industries: a strange use of public money

For decades, the European Union has implemented one of the largest cooperation policies between sovereign nations: the Common Agriculture Policy. But while we can be proud of our ability to work together, we have failed to build an agrifood system respectful of humans and nature. Subventions of the first pillar of the CAP, granted proportionally to the surface cultivated, directly lead to a raise in the use of pesticides [1]. How could it be different, when our agriculture relies so much on chemical synthetic inputs? Pesticides expenditures represent 12,9% of farms sales [2] and 10% of the intermediate consumption of farms [3], money that lands on a market dominated by only four multinational companies [4].

Sales of pesticides in Europe amounted to 12 billion in 2020, out of a global market estimated at 53 billion. While Europe exports 5.8 billion worth of pesticides, it is also the largest importer of pesticides, representing around 25% of the value of the global market (including intra-European trade).

The use of synthetic pesticides is often justified by the need to ensure food security. But such a massive use of chemicals has dramatic consequences on pollinators populations [5] and therefore threatens our ability to farm in the future, as more than 80% of our fruits and vegetables depend on pollination. All that while research have shown that the frequency of pesticides treatments could be cut by 42% with no loss in productivity or profitability for farms [6]. Do we want to pollinate trees by hand in the near future, or use drones to do it for us instead, just for the sake of spreading chemicals bought with the help of taxpayers’ money?

The CAP has to incentivise and support farmers to get out of this dead end. The new EU vision for agriculture and food ought to be in line with the commitments of the Green Deal, for the present and future of our agrifood system. We need to stop subsidising harm to ourselves and, instead, use this public money to move toward environmental and economic sustainability for farmers, consumers, and the future generations through an agrifood model based on organic farming and agroecology.

Sustainable public procurement to protect rural communities

The intensive use of synthetic pesticides hurts farmers first and foremost. Farmers are more likely to develop diseases such as blood cancer, prostate cancer, Parkinson, respiratory diseases and cognitive troubles than the general population [7]. But inhabitants of surrounding areas are particularly exposed as well, and especially children and pregnant women [8]. Pesticides leave residues that contaminate water, with massive consequences. Residues of PFAs, known as “eternal pollutants”, have been found all over Europe [9]. Catchment points of drinking water can get so polluted that they have to be closed, as it happened to almost 40% of them in France in the last 30 years [10]. Finally, synthetic chemical inputs harm nature, as pesticides are one of the major factors in population drops of insects, birds, and aquatic invertebrates [11], and chemical fertilisers lead to eutrophication of rivers and seashores.

Rural communities can get back control over their local agrifood system by implementing a production system that does not need synthetic pesticides, and that is based on organic farming and agroecology. The first step towards this is to implement sustainable public procurement.

Rural communities are affected in several ways. Diseases, lack of trust in basic commodities such as tap water, consequences on fishing activities, and disappearance of the songs of birds impact the human experience of living in the countryside. Tensions rise between farmers and other inhabitants, impairing the peaceful course of life in the community. And a large amount of taxpayers’ money is used to treat the consequences of this massive use of chemical inputs: treating the diseases, cleaning the water, covering for the loss in tourism. Public money funds the harm, and later funds the damage control.

Member-only materials & contact details

IFOAM Organics Europe members have access to the open files of the infographics and of the social media visuals, which they can translate, as well as to campaign guidelines.

All member-only materials are available on Member Extranet > Other hot topics > #StopHarm Campaign.

For any question or feedback, please contact Francesca Lilliu at francesca.lilliu@organicseurope.bio.

Sources

Funding chemical industries: a strange use of public money

The numbers on the direct support to pesticides industries, as well as the figures about the pesticide market, are from the report of Le Basic, “Pesticides, a model that costs us dearly”.

The amount of the budget of the first pillar of the CAP is the one of 2021, and comes from the website of the European Parliament. Besides, this study from INRAE researchers, “Intensive and extensive impacts of EU subsidies on pesticide expenditures at the farm level”, demonstrated a correlation between an increase in the subsidies of the first pillar of the CAP, and an increase in the use of pesticides.

The fertilisers trade balance comes from Eurostat data consolidated by the European Commission in a policy brief dated from June 2019 (these figures are likely to have worsened, given the raise in fertilisers cost observed in the last years – for an analysis of the fertilisers’ top companies profit increase on the period, you can consult this article).

An important number of studies observe insects decline in the last decades and identify pesticides as one, if the not the main, factor of this decline. Several studies can be mentioned: Hallmann et al. (2017) More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas [12], the INRAE-Ifremer metanalysis [11], and this comprehensive review on the global scale, Francisco Sánchez-Bayo,Kris A.G. Wyckhuys, 2019, Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers. Another study published in 2023 concluded that “agricultural intensification, in particular pesticides and fertiliser use, is the main pressure for most bird population declines, especially for invertebrate feeders” [13]. While those studies concern various areas and provide different figures, they all converge on the fact that the decline of biodiversity due to pesticides is massive and dangerous.

The proportion of fruits and vegetables that rely on insects for pollination is issued from the synthesis work of Pollinis, and the figures on the protection of insects by organic farming comes from Stein-Bachinger at al., 2020, To what extent does organic farming promote species richness and abundance in temperate climates? A review.

The mentioned French study on pesticides reduction is here, and the average yield difference between organic and non-organic farming is a figure that can be found in all the papers we consulted on the matter. Narrowing the gap is a long term-trend that is the object of many research projects, including the DOK trial of FIBL, and the OrganicYieldsUp Project in which IFOAM Organics Europe is involved.

Finally, the compared benefits of organic and conventional graphic representation are issued from this analysis of the performance of organic farming, and we strongly recommend to read the book presenting the Ten Years for Agroecology scenario, or the report in English about it.

Sustainable public procurement to protect rural communities

The financial figures are all issued from the report of Le Basic, “Pesticides, a model that costs us dearly”.

The effects on health – occupational diseases, neighbors exposure, and developmental disorders – are discussed in a large number of papers, that have been summarised in Inserm’s meta-analysis of 2013 and 2021.

Inrae-Ifremer’s meta-analysis account for the impact of pesticides and related farming practices on insects and aquatic organisms, while their impact on birds is documented – among other papers – in this study.

The pollution of surface and ground waters by pesticides and fertilisers is regularly pointed out by scientific studies and NGOs, the most recent one being the report of the European Environment Agency. The pollution by “Forever chemicals” PFAs and their metabolite TFA, as well as the synthetic pesticides origin of many of these pollutants has been widely documented by PAN Europe in 2024. The impact of fertlisers on eutrophication – algae growth on the document – is overwhelmingly documented. Added to some practices, such as revising upwards the thresholds for acceptable pollution in tap water, or that critical reports on water quality are only made public through leaks, these facts can undermine the trust of the population in their drinking water.

Social media visuals of the campaign

The list of chemicals authorised on wheat crops is issued from the uses of E-phy database, and is therefore fully accurate for France only. However, most of this list can be assumed to be the same throughout the European Union.

Footnotes

[1] Magali Aubert, Geoffroy Enjolras. Intensive and extensive impacts of EU subsidies on pesticide expenditures at the farm level. Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy, 2022, 11 (2), pp.218- 234. 10.1080/21606544.2021.1955749 . hal-03331693 https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-03331693

[2] Aubert and Enjorlas, Ibid.

[3] EU agricultural market briefs, Fertilizers in the EU – Prices, trade and use, n°15, June 2019

[4] BASIC, Analyse de la création de valeur et des coûts cachés des pesticides de synthèse, 2021
https://lebasic.com/productions/etude/pesticides-un-modele-qui-nous-est-cher/

[5] “Pesticide Atlas 2022, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung & others”
https://eu.boell.org/sites/default/files/2023-04/pesticideatlas2022_ii_web_20230331.pdf
and https://www.inrae.fr/actualites/impacts-produits-phytopharmaceutiques-biodiversite-services-ecosystemiques-resultats-lexpertise-scientifique-collective-inrae-ifremer

[6] https://www.nature.com/articles/nplants20178

[7] Inserm Collective Expert Report, The effects of pesticides on health: New data, 2021
https://www.inserm.fr/expertise-collective/pesticides-et-sante-nouvelles-donnees-2021/

[8] Inserm, Ibid

[9] Report TFA: The Forever Chemical in the Water We Drink, PAN Europe, 10 July 2024
https://www.pan-europe.info/press-releases/2024/07/eu-wide-drinking-water-testing-finds-forever-chemical-tfa-94-samples-only

[10] Report by IGEDD, IGAS, CGAAER, Prévenir et maîtriser les risques liés à la présence de pesticides et de leurs métabolites dans l’eau destinée à la consommation humaine, June 2024
https://www.igas.gouv.fr/prevenir-et-maitriser-les-risques-lies-la-presence-de-pesticides-et-de-leurs-metabolites-dans-leau-destinee-la-consommation-humaine

[11] INRAE-Ifremer, Impacts des produits phytopharmaceutiques sur la biodiversité et les services écosystémiques : résultats de l’expertise scientifique collective INRAE-Ifremer, 2022
https://www.inrae.fr/actualites/impacts-produits-phytopharmaceutiques-biodiversite-services-ecosystemiques-resultats-lexpertise-scientifique-collective-inrae-ifremer

[12] Hallmann CA, Sorg M, Jongejans E, Siepel H, Hofland N, Schwan H, et al. (2017) More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas. PLoS ONE 12(10): e0185809. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185809
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185809

[13] Rigal et al. (2023) Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120 (21) e2216573120
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2216573120

They make it possible

The StopHarm campaign is supported by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection, in the framework of the EURENI initiative.

 
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