17 January 2021

350 groups ask: If FAO wants healthy food for everybody, why is it eager to partner with the pesticide industry?

There's nothing unclear or uncertain about what the Food and Agriculture Organization wants to achieve. As posted on its website, the FAO says that its goal is not just to achieve food security for all, but also ensure that the food that can be accessed by anyone at any time is of high-quality and can help people become active and healthy.

However, critics are claiming that the FAO isn’t doing all that it can to achieve that goal.

In fact, they are concerned that the UN institution may have done something self-contradicting: declare its intention to forge a partnership with a trade association-cum-lobby group, whose key members are accused of manufacturing pesticides that allegedly make the food system toxic and harm health — not just of people, but also of bees and other pollinators of close to three quarters of the plants that produce 90% of the world's food.

‘’We are writing to express our deep concern over your stated plans to strengthen official ties with CropLife International. We strongly urge you to reconsider this alliance,” said 350 civil society and indigenous people's organizations from 63 countries in their Nov. 19, 2020 letter* to FAO Director-General QU Dongyu.

In an October 2, 2020 statement, the FAO announced that its chief and Giulia Di Tommaso, president and chief executive officer of CropLife International, had signed a letter of intent for the two entities to explore new partnerships.

The same statement noted that Mr. QU Dongyu, in his speech before CropLife's board of directors had ‘’stressed the importance of having the private sector onboard in the adoption of concrete steps towards agri-food systems transformation and highlighted the potential of digital technologies in this regard.’’

Groups opposing the impending tie-up, including at least 10 members of the Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition (GNRTFN),** are stressing something else: the FAO-CropLife alliance should not push through because it is “deeply inappropriate.”

In their letter to the FAO, the groups pointed out why the UN agency can't be in bed with CropLife: corporate members of CropLife “produce and promote dangerous pesticides,” while FAO's priority is to minimize the “harms of chemical pesticide use worldwide“ and ban the use of those that are highly hazardous.

The groups said a partnership with CropLife would tie the FAO “with producers of harmful, unsustainable chemical technologies” and result in the latter's relinquishment of its role as a global leader supporting agricultural production that “promotes…the right to adequate food in the context of national food security, sustainability and resilience. “

“Reliance on hazardous pesticides is a short-term fix that undermines the rights to adequate food and health of present and future generations, as stated in the 2017 report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food,“ the groups added.

They enumerated some of the pesticide products of CropLife members that are being linked to deaths and diseases especially among farmers, farm workers, and rural families across the globe, but are still being aggressively marketed mostly in countries where laws on pesticide use and food safety are lax or absent.

• The herbicide paraquat, one of the most acutely toxic pesticides in the world that has been linked to Parkinson’s Disease and many other health harms. Banned in Europe since 2007, it is still exported and in widespread use.

Read more about paraquat here, here, and here.

• The insecticide chlorpyrifos harms brain development, resulting in developmental delays and lower IQs. It has been banned in several U.S. states, Europe, and four other countries, but production and use continue.

Read more about chlorpyrifos here, and here.

• Imidacloprid and other neonicotinoid systemic insecticides have devastated pollinator populations. One recent study found that overall, U.S. farmland is 48 times more toxic to insects than it was 20 years ago.

Read more about imidacloprid and other neonicotinoid systemic insecticides here, and here.

• Fipronil has been implicated in mass bee deaths in many countries, including France, Brazil and South Africa.

Read more about fipronil here.

*Read the entire Nov. 19, 2020 letter that the 350 civil society and indigenous people's organizations sent to FAO Director-General QU Dongyu by clicking this link.

**Among the GNRTFN members that signed the letter were the following: