Pesticides

The first stage of the process of pesticide approval is by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Commission. They decide whether the ‘active ingredient’ passes a long list of tests, costing the companies around £100 million. An ‘active ingredient’ is a chemical like glyphosate, good at killing plants. Then – through our own approval process – the ‘formulation’ of the active ingredient must be approved, in this case, a formulation known as ‘Roundup’. This is the trade name you see on packets in the garden centre: in very small writing you will see the word ‘glyphosate’. 

Glyphosate is under the spotlight. It is the most widely-used weed-killer in the world, sprayed on at least 100m acres worldwide. The NFU in their 2017 manifesto ‘Brexit and Beyond: 5 Ingredients for Success’23 say:’ The UK Government should commit to a science-led approach with fit-forpurpose legislation to approve safe and effective tools such as glyphosate and neonicotinoids.’ How we handle the dialectic between ‘science-led’ and ‘fit-for-purpose’ will tell us a lot about how we manage our crops in the future. 

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC, part of WHO), a prestigious body, decided that glyphosate was ‘probably’ a carcinogen, not merely ‘possibly’ carcinogenic. The agency published a monograph (112) based on their scientists’ advice which said that glyphosate should be reclassified in the WHO rankings from a 2B chemical (possibly cancer-forming) to 2A (probably cancer-forming) chemical. Monsanto asked for a retraction, saying it was based on junk science. EFSA – the same committee that had pointed to the gaps in neonic evidence – was asked to look at glyphosate. They concluded that ‘Glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans and the evidence does not support classification with regard to its carcinogenic potential.’ Accusations of bias flew everywhere. 

NGOs campaigned to have glyphosate banned. The fact that it was connected to Monsanto’s favourite GM Roundup Ready crops added to the fervour. The EU authorities were accused of being in the hands of the corporates. The more you looked, the more cover-ups and accusations appeared – but little actual evidence. However, it is noticeable that nobody campaigns to ban hairdressing, burning wood in the home, glass manufacturing, red meat, shift work or high temperature frying – all also classed as 2A activities by the IARC. 

The two organisations, IARC and EFSA, employ different approaches to research. The IARC uses pretty transparent studies of glyphosate containing herbicides (formulation), while EFSA uses peer-reviewed studies based on industry-sponsored research into the active ingredient. IARC allows assessors to include their own research papers, EFSA does not. The weakness of both – as IARC pointed out – was that while glyphosate is the most frequently used herbicide in Europe, there is little information available on occupational or community exposure to it. In other words, nobody is monitoring workers and others in contact with the chemical. Monitoring trumps modelling any day. 

There were challenges to the re-licensing of glyphosate, which was due for renewal in the EU. In the event the licence was extended for only 18 months, instead of 15 years, starting from June 2016. A further report from EFSA is expected. Further licensing will soon be in the UK’s own lap. 

There is concern in the US that the safety levels there are based on old data and should be re-assessed.28 That may well be the case – in the US, where levels are much higher than in the EU. In the EU, the ADI (Acceptable Daily Intake, see below) is currently set at 0.3mg/kg bw/day, whereas in the USA it is 1.75mg/kg bw/day. That is quite a difference, and shows how ‘protective’ the EU is. 

We have spent years fighting for improved spray methods. The Health and Safety Executive in Unite argued that we did now want a ‘cover up’, where workers had to wear protective clothing, but regulations to prevent exposures happening. But control conditions are not the same elsewhere, where they are often not a patch on those in the UK. Again, we export our environmental and health impacts abroad. The alternatives to glyphosate are hoeing, covering crops, or using another weed-killer like paraquat. No thanks to the latter. While writing this book, I heard from farmworkers in Asia that paraquat is still being sold as a liquid: it looks like coke and one mouthful kills, accounting for too many deaths across the globe.

 I would argue that glyphosate should be restricted from pre-harvest treatment (see below) and that its license should be regularly reviewed – say, every three years. There should be a monitoring scheme set up to find out the extent to which workers and others in contact with the chemical are actually exposed to it, to enable any new information to be factored in, but also to allow a period of time in which manufacturers could be required to do additional research, on environmental impacts, for example. 

For me the issue isn’t so much about the toxicity of glyphosate, but more about the environmental impacts. Look at what it says it does on the tin: it kills weeds – i.e. plants. Monsanto are not going to argue with that. We do not know what the consequences of killing all those plants are, all those trillions of little carbon-capture storage units