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Apparent Solution for Glyphosate in Europe

I’ve posted about this before.  We all hate RoundUp and it’s active ingredient glyphosate.  At the same time, it’s important not to let Monsanto and Bayer take this product off the market, for the purpose of replacing it with more expensive and possibly more dangerous patented products.

I’m not directly involved in the discussions or negotiations, and I haven’t seen any texts or summaries of proposed legislation.  All I know is what I read on the Internet.

What I read is being discussed is a proposal made by France, and backed by Italy.  This would apparently extend the glyphosate license for 5-7 years, with some important restrictions.  First of all the retail sale to home gardeners would be stopped, and use by non-professionals would be forbidden.  Secondly, use by farmers would only be allowed if no organic alternatives exist.

Again, based only on what I read on the Internet, these seem like positive developments, and I would support them.

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Proposed EU Regulation on Organic Production

I’ve mention this before.  If passed, this measure will regulate organic agriculture in Europe starting in the year 2020.  This measure is the result of a 2+ year trialog process between the EU Commission, Council and Parliament, and several people and organizations I know have been involved in it.  It’s been heavily influenced by the food industry, and lots of compromises have been made on all sides.  Probably everyone is a little unhappy with it, and it’s not perfect.  It is however set to significantly change the way organic food is produced for the European market.

The first vote on this measure is expected in the council on 20 November 2017.

The most contentious element concerns the use of organic seeds, or more broadly Plant Reproductive Material (PRM), in organic production.   That is, the food industry wants the use of organic seeds to be mandatory, because they are the ones who control most of the production and distribution of organic seeds.  This has really no added benefit to consumers, because they are still industrially bred and produced seeds, and it’s unlikely any incidental agricultural chemicals present in seeds could impact the quality of the final product.  In a broad sense, the food industry seems to have won on this point, and organic seeds will be required more frequently in organic production.

On the other hand, the rules concerning biodiversity have been relaxed.  There is now a new class of PRM called ‘heterogeneous material’, which is more suited to use in organic production and more likely to result in higher quality products and more diversity being available to the consumer.  Technically speaking, pretty much any organic seed will be legal to use, which is a big change from the present situation.

The main losers in the new regulation will be small farmers in the developing world, who now have to comply with EU organic rules, and will find it difficult to source reasonably priced organic PRM suited for their local climates.  This also means European consumers will also lose out, because fewer high quality products will be legal to import under the label of ‘organic’.

Some important points of the new regulation:

  • Organic farmers will be allowed to exchange, use and sell their own ‘organic heterogeneous material’ without prior registration.  The current rigorous system of prior registration will be replaced with a highly simplified system of notification.
  • Farmers will now have access to ‘organic varieties suitable for organic production’, initially on the basis of a 7 year marketing test, later to be incorporated permanently into EU legislation.  This will allow organic farmers access to better quality seeds than are currently available.
  • An EU-wide database will be created, containing all available organic seeds.  This will be available to all EU users free of charge.
  • Many products not covered by the current organic framework, or presently sold as organic, will be in the future.  For example rabbits, deer, traditional herbal preparations, beeswax, cork, wool, salt, etc.
  • Reinforcement of the soil-bound principle for plants.  In the future, plants not grown on soil would not be considered organic.  There will be a minor 10-year exemption for some pre-existing Nordic producers.
  • Limited ‘group certification’ of organic producers would be allowed.  For very low income farmers, it will now be possible to apply and maintain organic certification with a group of other farmers.
  • Measurement of contamination is to be addressed, and smarter enforcement of violations.
  • European standards are to be imposed on all imported goods.  Currently about 50% of organic goods are imported, covered by about 60 different organic standards.

Responsibility of Consumers

While this regulation may be a little more credible, and under some circumstances ‘make legal’ some biodiversity that’s not currently available, no benefits are guaranteed for the consumer.

Now more than ever, it’s important to uphold the principle of buying locally, from farmers and sellers you trust.  This is far more important than buying certified organic.  It’s important to share your experiences and conclusions on social media, and to promote sensible products over low quality mass marketed ones.

More than ever, it’s important for consumers to be aware of what seeds are used in the production of our food.  This new regulation provides a small crack, through which the sale of non-industrial seeds are to be legalized.  It’s important consumers find ways of buying food grown from these seeds, and clawing back control of the food system from multinationals.

This new regulation will introduce many changes, and no doubt some surprises are in store for all of us.

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Don’t Be A Sucker

This is the latest video to be making the rounds of the Internet, and as usual I’m a little behind everyone else.  Many people are comparing it to what’s happening in Charlottesville, what Trump is saying and so on.

For me this video says a lot about The Netherlands now.  All you have to do is substitute what’s said about negros with non-ethnic Dutch, and the Catholic church with mosques.  Like everywhere else, the number of bad people here is very small, but they are very effective at creating division between different groups, and making themselves heard.

The food industry in particular here is very effective in promoting their genetically pure and uniform products, using tactics like these and genetically pure, white, Dutch figureheads.

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European Farming in 2020

Last month the EU Council issued a press release announcing agreement on a new EU organic farming EU organic farming regulation.  This is actually a big deal, and I know a number of people who have been involved in the negotiations.  It still has to be formally passed as a legislative package, but since the important parties have all agreed, this is likely just a formality.  It will come into effect 1 July 2020, meaning it won’t fully be in force until the 2021 planting season, and consumers won’t fully see the changes until later that year after the harvest.

Not Perfect, and Lots of Compromises

This is not a perfect piece of legislation, and there’s still a long way to go towards reforming agriculture in Europe.  Putting so much emphasis on organic food is flawed.  Organic is a legally defined term, and is subject to different interpretations.

What we need in Europe is normal food, based on biodiversity, agroecology and grown and sold by small and local producers.  This regulation goes some way towards these goals, but is not enough.  This regulation gives too much control to large agricultural interests.  In particular it doesn’t do enough to control pesticide use overall, doesn’t do enough to reduce and sequester greenhouse gas emissions and doesn’t really promote agroecology.

What it does do is make agroecology theoretically possible, as well as provide a few loopholes to the strict EU seed laws.  It might mean fewer dangerous pesticides are used on food consumed in Europe.  It will mean consumers have access to more biodiversity in their food, and there are potentially big gains to be had in the quality of food available.

These small gains have been fought fiercely by the food industry, who have pretty much guaranteed market dominance for themselves.  The food industry is prepared in almost all ways to wait until a small farmer has a clever idea, then steal it and destroy the business model of the small farmer in the process.

Agroecology

This is a somewhat unfortunate term.  It’s a bit like organic, in that it’s being co-opted by industrial agriculture.  Like the term organic, it refers to what used to be normal agriculture.  Different people have given it different names along the way, like permaculture or ecological.  For some reason we’ve needed to invent yet another name for it, so different people can claim ownership over the idea and define it according to their own purposes.  I use the term reluctantly, because it is what a lot of people are saying at the moment.

This is a term that describes a system of ‘normal’ agriculture, without chemical or unnatural inputs, generally operating in a closed system without any inputs.  It’s principle is building soil over time — over centuries.  It has very little to do with the 3 years without chemicals need to produce certified organic food.  The consequence of building up soil is the sequestering of greenhouse gasses.  The system is very fragile, and any contamination with chemicals at all generally causes very long term damage.  It depends on large tracts of adjoining land, also based on agroecology, in order to maintain biodiversity and habitats for beneficial organisms.

This new organic regulation envisages patches of certified organic land, side by side conventional farms, where the classification of the land changes back and forth over time, and has little to do with agroecology or maintaining ecosystems and building soils.

The relationship between conventional and organic producers is somewhat like public smoking.  The use of pesticides damages the public health and environment.  A short term solution is isolating conventional farmers in their own regions, but in the long term no one will be happy with that solution, so eventually it will be necessary to phase out the use of pesticides.  The pesticide industry is however very powerful and deceptive, and difficult to deal with.

Pesticide Industry

What this organic regulation really does is significantly strengthen the position of the pesticide industry.  The pesticide manufacturers are already facing competition from old unpatented products like glyphosate.  Using very deceptive public campaigns, designed to look like some sort of activists’ issue, they are using organizations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth to promote their products — even to the extent of staging fake European Citizens’ Initiatives.

Not only is this likely to continue, but as the older products are removed from the market, new ones will take their place.  Since the definition of organic is subject to formal and strict interpretation, they are very likely to find ways of including their products in the food chain.  For example, they may develop new products based on GMOs, used in food packaging or that can be used on perimeters of organic land without actually contaminating the food grown on them, but possibly causing a great deal of damage to the ecosystem.

There are likely to be a lot more grey lines in the use of pesticides in organic agriculture, and still a lot more battles to be fought.  It’s going to be more important than ever to buy food from local producers that you know personally, trust and don’t have enough money to spend it on pesticides.

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Glyphosate ECI — Democracy Stolen

The organizers of the Glyphosate European Citizens’ Initiative issued a press release today claiming victory. Here’s a snapshot of the campaign page for future reference.

Activist Organizations as Proxies

This is a battle of Monsanto and Bayer against small farmers, plain and simple.  The patents on glyphosate have long since expired, and the sale of the product doesn’t result in high corporate profits any more.  Bayer is in the process of acquiring Monsanto, and wants to sell farmers new solutions for controlling weeds, that are more expensive and patented.  This is a similar situation as the banning of old TVs and light bulbs.

Glyphosate is an emotional issue.  Many activists have been against it for a long time now, and in general against all use of pesticides.  Glyphosate is particularly emotional for many of us, because we have come into contact with it through other gardeners, farmers and it’s even been used by local governments in urban areas.  It’s a horrendous health and environmental issue, but for better or worse, it’s also a critical tool for many farmers.

There’s been very little direct news from Bayer of Monsanto on this issue.  We hear things like ‘analysts say this ECI will cost Bayer millions of euros in Europe alone’ — but no confirmation from Bayer on this.  Neither Bayer nor Monsanto seem the least bit opposed to this campaign.  They are just sitting back and watching everything unfold.

Instead of involving themselves directly on the issue, these big companies are using a combination of fake activist organizations, together with other paid or tricked organizations, to promote their message and pretend this is some sort of activist issue.

There is no democratic control of this campaign, no way for participants to voice their opinions and influence the outcome.  I believe many of the people and organizations that gave their name and reputations in support of this measure, are aghast at how this has become a vicious attack on Europe’s farmers, small and large, but have no real way to voice that opinion.

Unrealistic Amounts of Money

There was a time, as recently as 5-10 years ago, when some of these health and environmental organizations were credible.  In particular, here in The Netherlands, for many people giving significant amounts of money to charitable organizations was an important part of their life.  Some of these organizations became obscenely wealthy as a result.  These days are gone, and people today realize if you give money to an environmental organization, your money is dwarfed by large corporate or philanthropist contributions, and as an individual donor you have no possibility of influencing them.  In the end, your contribution often doesn’t support the kinds of causes you think it should.

On the other hand, corporations and the wealthiest individuals have become particularly adept at using these organizations for their own purposes.

To put things in perspective, one of the most important seed initiatives right now, the Open Source Seed Initiative, after several years of fund raising, mentioned recently on their web page they had raised on the order of tens of thousands of dollars.  This isn’t really enough to hire a single person for an entire year.  The glyphosate ECI on the other hand is clearly involving millions of euros, and tens, hundreds or even thousands of people, many of whom are very skilled and highly paid lobbyists.

No Evidence of Real Signatures Being Collected

Signatures on a petition are understandably low on the radar in terms of considering forgeries.   At the same time, they are very susceptible to being manipulated with large amounts of money.  You can for example pay a student minimum wage to collect signatures from their friends, but you can also pay thousands of students to do the same thing.  You can also collect signatures at workplaces, under the watchful eye of their employers.

If you spend a lot of money this way, it can be visible, and people can ask questions about where the money is coming from.  If you copy signatures from an earlier ECI, probably no one would notice.  The same thing is true if you happened to have a list of people’s personal data, for example dates of birth and address, and forged the signatures as a sort of identity theft.  Who would notice this, and who would investigate?

What I can say with respect to this blog is that it is visible in Google, shared on Facebook and very visible to anyone researching this ECI.  Of the million plus people who signed it, only a few hundred were interested enough to research it on the Internet, and have ended up on this blog.

There’s no convincing publicly available evidence that any real persons have signed this initiative of their own free will.

Fake News, Fake Blogs and an Orchestrated Campaign

The Internet is swimming in fake and inconsequential news articles and blog posts on glyphosate right now.  Very few of them are real news outlets, and certainly very few big name papers or news sites.

They all repeat the same stories over and over, just slightly rewritten from site to site.  There’s no real debate, and very few offering different opinions or the perspective of farmers.

There have been very few announcements of events or promotional activities.  No real compelling news has emerged during this campaign.  The signatures have just appeared out of nowhere, without any reason or explanation.  In addition, the signatures appeared just in time, as the organizers planned, right at the end of June.

Fake Science with Changing Rules

The debate over science is almost laughable.  First all science has to be published articles, but most patent holders can block studies on their own products.  At the same time, loads of unpublished studies and unsupported facts emerge from anonymous sources, and they are supposed to be considered by the Commission.

The EU is supposed to only use ‘real’ science, but all of the science available is funded by industry.

The ECI itself even includes language that could possibly force all future science to be paid for and approved by the pesticide manufactures themselves.

It’s all just a catch-22 and all the arguments and debates are looping back on themselves.

Farming Crisis

There is and has been for a long time now, a farming crisis in Europe.  In the Netherlands, a tiny country of 17 million people, 10,000 farms are for sale now.  Many farmers report their children are not interested in becoming farmers themselves, or taking over the family business.  Not enough young people have the interest or financial means to start farming.  There is land grabbing which is driving the price of the most desirable land sharply up, while farming communities are reeling from the collapse of the family farming economy and the unprecedented numbers of farms on the market.

Banning glyphosate is all that’s needed to drive many more farmers into bankruptcy.

This is a very serious situation.

No Compromise

The organizations behind the glyphosate ECI are relentless in where they stand.  No compromises.  Glyphosate must be banned.  No sympathy for farmers.

The Real Solution

The real solution is extending the glyphosate license for 15 years, like the farmers are asking for, then highly regulate glyphosate.  It should only be available to farmers, and it should not be used in public spaces or near people’s homes.  Appropriate safety measures should be taken to avoid accidental contamination and contact with farm workers.

Genuine effort should be taken to encourage farmers to stop using glyphosate or any other pesticide, through education and incentives, rather than an absolute ban.

Consumers should have more information about what their food has been treated with, and have more opportunity to buy it from trustworthy sources.

Failing Europe

If the Commission accepts this ECI, and the arguements given for banning glyphosate, they are ignoring all their critics of an undemocratic Europe that ignores the wishes of the people.