Walking Dead: How CropLife Fails Farmers
Are Trade Associations Enabling Deindustrialization?
During the summer, the European Union banned metribuzin, a herbicide needed for growing potatoes. Farmers say there are no viable alternatives but given the strict constraints of the EU Sustainable Use Directive, the substance failed to be reauthorized. This was in August. Last week, the French potato trade association protested this decision. There was no word about this from CropLife Europe, the European trade association representing the ag-tech sector. … Crickets.
Over the years, I have quite grown close to potato farmers and their challenges. I was even dubbed “Mr Potato Head” after several speeches at large potato value chain events. I have toured their operations and know full well how their risk management is only just beginning when the spud is freed from the soil. Given the (historical) importance of potatoes in global development, nutrition and health, I am offended by the disregard the retailers and manufacturers hold toward potato farmers.
What made the main trade association tasked with protecting crops, farmers and the food chain just roll over and play dead, leaving thousands of potato farmers in the lurch? An important substance is denied to farmers, in a situation where European potato yields are already dramatically falling (by 37%), and no one at CropLife bothered to speak up.
Are they only tasked with managing the decline of EU agriculture?
Are they incapable of acting to defend crop protection substances under the present regulatory regime?
Are they restricted by the interests of their larger members and their Sherpas?
Are they too busy trying to engage diplomatically and earn trust by trying to appear overtly respectful?
Probably all of these points are true. And if so, then it is time to fundamentally restructure the trade association system … or just pack up, cease operations and prepare for the coming post-capitalist age of deindustrialization.
Why was Metribuzin Banned?
Under the EU Sustainable Use of Pesticides Directive, the regulation guiding most pesticide authorizations, a substance has to be proven to not be a potential endocrine disruptor. In reality, it is quite difficult to prove that anything is not a potential endocrine disruptor. A toxicologist once told me that under the present constraints of this regulation, around 60 to 75% of all active plant protection substances will not be able to be reauthorized when they come up for renewal.
Metribuzin failed to pass this endocrine hurdle in their renewal dossier so it was banned. Nothing to see here people, please move on.
The Sustainable Use Directive is hazard-based, which means that the level of exposure or the means to prevent exposure to a pesticide is not taken into consideration (as it would in a common sense risk-based approach). Even the smallest remote potential endocrine disrupting properties would lead to an active ingredient failing to be approved. This is ridiculous if you consider how many known (not suspected, but known) endocrine disruptors are ingested when consuming coffee, humus or soy products, and how many times a day people intentionally take endocrine disruptors via contraceptives or hormone replacement therapies. But the risk of exposure to a potential (synthetic) endocrine disrupting chemical is enough to ban useful chemicals that farmers need.
The Sustainable Use Directive is no longer fit for purpose, if anything, solely on its hazard-based approach (that ignores actual exposure levels) and its focus on potential endocrine disrupting chemicals. It is a reflection of a past chemophobic era, more than 15 years ago, where endocrine disruption dominated the fear cycle. This scare-mongering campaign has become banal after decades of studies have failed to draw links between potential low-level exposures and actual risks. Endocrine disrupting chemicals have been referred to as a cause still in search of a disease.
But still, the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Directive, in its badly flawed state, is being implemented and useful substances are not being reauthorized. Farmers are left with no alternatives and too much uncertainty to keep potatoes in their rotations. Like so many other crops, soon European consumers will have to import potatoes (with residues of substances their own farmers are not allowed to use).
The Derogation Dance
The banning of metribuzin in August did not make news. French farmers seemingly only found out about it this month and their potato growers union reacted strongly. But for CropLife there was nothing, they felt, they could do. They are stuck trying to manage an industry through a bad regulation which will make farming an even more unprofitable venture in Europe.
As there are no alternatives to metribuzin, the best the trade association can do is apply for derogations (temporary exclusions from regulatory restrictions) in the countries where potatoes are grown. NGOs though are campaigning harder to stop or reduce the number of derogations allowed (they have an organic food industry to protect and as everyone knows, … organic potato farmers “don’t use pesticides”). Potato farmers need to invest in heavy machinery, drying equipment, storage facilities … they need certainty that they can maintain long-term yields to cover their expenses.
The pesticide manufacturers are not protesting too loudly. Banning older pesticides creates the opportunity of developing new substances to fill the gap (while continuing to sell existing stock under derogations without regulatory compliance costs). In the EU, it takes around 10 to 15 years to register new substances and the European regulatory landscape, with the Farm2Fork targets, are not looking favorable.
What we have is an environment where Brussels is aware they have a bad regulation, they feel stuck implementing stupid restrictions and no one is able to do anything to stop this. CropLife Europe is one of the many “Walking Dead” trade associations that can do nothing other than try to manage the decline of their industry. Farmers will suffer. Consumers will suffer. Meanwhile, the small activist NGOs will celebrate another step in the imposition of their naturopathic ideology.
Lost Opportunity
Why didn’t CropLife use the occasion of another ban on another important substance due to the implementation of a bad, irrational directive as an opportunity to demand a regulatory review of the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Directive?
Why didn’t CropLife lead the call in Brussels, with potato farmers, food manufacturers, the starch value chain, alcohol producers… to stop this madness and allow European industry to be competitive?
Has CropLife given up? Do they only see their role now as a quasi-diplomatic force, raising their glasses to celebrate the new Commissioners knowing full well the intent is to further castrate their industry?
Have the CropLife members forsaken the European market – too restricted, too small, too chemophobic? Are they not even bothering to pressure their trade association to act?
This is a common situation today where industry’s failure to act, to respond, to lead …has resulted in a decline in their role in public dialogue. The constant activist attacks on industry have made them timid and tepid, prepared to deindustrialize in deference to some post-capitalist, degrowth utopia. All European industry has been tobacconized, either through the aggressive, overt campaign coming out of the WHO or the constant drip of bad EU regulations restricting their ability to function.
For whatever reason, industry trade associations have failed their members. Industry leaders have failed their consumers. CropLife has failed their farmers.
Maybe it is not just the bad regulations that need to be restructured.