Our partner IFOAM Organics Europe launched a campaign to raise awareness of the social, economic and environmental impacts of pesticides. They aim to inform and support farmers to adopt agronomic and biocontrol solutions. This would allow the progressive phasing out of synthetic pesticides. It will reduce costs for farmers and benefit their health and that of their families and neighbours. It would preserve biodiversity, healthy soils and clean water. These are all essential factors for long-term food security. It would also save society huge costs for health and water purification. For all these reasons the transition of our food system to sustainability has to remain high on the EU political agenda.
The #StopHarm campaign calls for a transition towards organic farming and agroecology. It aims to stop the harm done by the use of pesticides in agrifood systems.
The key messages of the campaign are the following:
- Pesticide and fertiliser use in Europe is a financial burden to taxpayers
- Pesticide use threatens pollinators crucial to food production
- Pesticide use threatens bird populations and aquatic wildlife
- Pesticides are not necessary to have good yields
- Pesticides cause serious diseases in farmers
- Pesticides cause serious diseases in neighbouring populations & children
- Pesticide pollution of water systems is rampant and long-lasting
- We need to stop subsidising harm
- Organic farming & agroecology are the solution for Europe’s agricultural future
Stakeholders and policymakers need to be aware of the high costs of pesticides. The burden is not just purely financial. Pesticides are a harmful and unnecessary use of taxpayers’ money. They have harmful effects on human health and the environment.
IFOAM Organics Europe is the European umbrella organisation for organic food and farming. For 20 years, they have represented organic in European policymaking and advocated for a transformation of food and farming. Their work is based on the principles of organic agriculture – health, ecology, fairness and care. With almost 200 members in 34 European countries, the work of IFOAM spans the entire organic food chain.
Funding chemical industries: a strange use of public money
Europe’s Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) is one of the largest cooperation policies between sovereign nations. It has been in place for decades. But it failed to build an agrifood system that is future-proof and respectful of humans and nature. Subsidies are granted proportionally to the surface cultivated. This directly leads to a raise in the use of pesticides. [1] Most of our current agriculture relies on chemical synthetic inputs. Pesticide expenditures represent 12,9% of farm 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 euros in 2020, out of an estimated global market of 53 billion. 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.
The use of synthetic pesticides is often justified by the need to ensure food security. However, many good agronomic practices are available to avoid the use of synthetic pesticides. The massive use of chemicals comes with huge disadvantages. It pollutes our water, damages soil fertility and has dramatic consequences on pollinator populations. [5] This is a threat to our future ability to farm, as more than 80% of our fruits and vegetables depend on pollination. Research has shown that the frequency of pesticide treatments could be cut by 42% with no loss in productivity or profitability for farms. [6]
The CAP money could be used much better and more efficiently. It could incentivise and support farmers to get out of this dead end. We can stop subsidising harm to ourselves and, instead, use this public money to move toward environmental and economic sustainability for farmers, consumers, and future generations through an agrifood model based on organic farming and agroecology.
Farmers and rural communities are the first victims of pesticides
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's, respiratory diseases and cognitive troubles than the general population. [7] But inhabitants of surrounding areas are particularly exposed as well, especially children and pregnant women. [8] Pesticides leave residues that contaminate water, with massive consequences. Residues of PFAS pesticides 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]. 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 the eutrophication of rivers and seashores.
Rural communities are affected in several ways. Diseases, lack of trust in basic commodities such as tap water, biodiversity loss and the 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. A large amount of taxpayers’ money is used to treat the consequences of this massive use of chemical inputs: treating diseases, cleaning the water, and covering for the loss in tourism. Public money funds the harm, and later funds the damage control.
Rural communities can get back control over their local agrifood system with a production system that does not need synthetic pesticides, and that is based on organic farming and agroecology.
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Notes:
[1] Magali Aubert, Geoffroy Enjolras. Intensive and extensive impacts of EU subsidies on pesticide expenditures at the farm level. 2022
[2] Aubert and Enjorlas, Ibid.
[3] EU agricultural market briefs, Fertilizers in the EU – Prices, trade and use, 2019
[4] BASIC, Analyse de la création de valeur et des coûts cachés des pesticides de synthèse, 2021
[5] Pesticide Atlas 2022, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung & others and Impacts des produits phytopharmaceutiques sur la biodiversité et les services écosystémiques : résultats de l’expertise scientifique collective INRAE-Ifremer
[6] Nature Plants, Reducing pesticide use while preserving crop productivity and profitability on arable farms
[7] Inserm Collective Expert Report, The effects of pesticides on health: New data, 2021
[8] Inserm, Ibid
[9] PAN Europe, Report TFA: The Forever Chemical in the Water We Drink, 2024
[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, 2024
[11] INRAE-Ifremer, Impacts des produits phytopharmaceutiques sur la biodiversité et les services écosystémiques : résultats de l’expertise scientifique collective INRAE-Ifremer, 2022
[12] Hallmann CA, Sorg M, Jongejans E, Siepel H, Hofland N, Schwan H, et al., More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas, 2017
[13] Rigal et al., Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe, 2023
