Cover of pesticide report, man spreading toxic fumes

Agribusiness lobby against EU Farm to Fork strategy amplified by Ukraine war

The pesticide industry lobby group CropLife Europe (CLE) and their allies have staged an immense and well-resourced lobby campaign against the flagship-policy of the EU: the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity strategy (both pillars of the EU Green Deal). On behalf of agrochemical multinationals, CropLife organised a fierce attack on the EU's ambition to protect ecosystems and public health by reducing pesticide risk and use by 50% by 2030 (1).

Brussels-based lobby watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) uncovers the toxic lobby strategies in a comprehensive report 'A loud lobby for a silent spring: the pesticide industry's toxic lobbying tactics against Farm to Fork'(2).

The well-timed report is based on internal documents (obtained via Freedom of Information requests) from the European Commission, as well as a leaked, internal Croplife Europe social media strategy document, providing concrete evidence of the true objectives of this lobby group and its members, billion-euro pesticide corporations such as Bayer, BASF, Syngenta, and Corteva.

On 23 March the European Commission is expected to publish a revision of the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Directive (SUD), the first legislative proposal to put a Farm to Fork-target into EU law (3). The current SUD already intended to vastly limit pesticide use, however EU Member States completely failed to implement it. Meanwhile evidence of the link between the use of pesticides and a decline in biodiversity and human health impacts has only piled up (4). In response to the looming pesticide reduction target, the industry is waging a fierce lobby campaign.

The leaked CropLife-strategy confirms that while the pesticide industry makes hollow statements about its support for the EU Green Deal, in reality Croplife Europe's overall mission is to "Protect and extend members' freedom to operate", and therefore has as a key objective: "no mandatory, uniform targets across EU countries".

CEO identifies three main clusters of lobby tactics:

  • Buying convenient 'studies' to scaremonger politicians. There is a wealth of scientific evidence that shows the deep impact of widespread pesticide use and so the industry needs its own scientific studies to counter. Whereas EC co-president Frans Timmermans declared that for the Farm to Fork ambitions "science is on our side", one of the tactics of the pesticide lobby is to buy convenient but partial 'impact studies' from universities, showing the "disastrous economic impact on the agricultural sector of the Farm to Fork". Then set up a series of corporate-sponsored media events, to amplify the message and build "surround sound" for them.
  • Play it geopolitical to put international pressure on the EU. A US-government-led alliance attacking the EU Farm to Fork Strategy and promoting industrial agriculture as 'sustainable', includes BayerCorteva, Syngenta and its lobby group Croplife International. This shows that, contrary to their spin in Europe, these corporations clearly do not support the EU Green Deal. They also mobilized governments of third countries to pressure the EU on pesticide standards (eg pesticide residues in food imports) and limit the ambtitions of the EU's so called 'green diplomacy' efforts.
  • Show that you are part of the solution. Whilst only 4 groups (Syngenta-ChemChina, Bayer-Monsanto, BASF, and Corteva) make up 66% of world sales (5), this highly concentrated sector needs to protect their business and at the same time convince EU-legislators they agree with the Green Deal's ambitions. Some of the tactics used to reconcile these two are voluntary commitments, or to propose false solutions such as new digital technologies and deregulated new GM-techniques, which fits with their new business model.

Nina Holland, researcher and campaigner at Corporate Europe Observatory said:

"The pesticide industry is clearly in survival mode, using deceptive tactics, like scaremongering European politicians with industry-sponsored research or creating international pressure by participating in a US-government-led alliance of countries and industries attacking the EU Green Deal."

"It is very cynical that EU-politicians (6) are increasingly joining the attack on the EU Farm to Fork targets by using the Ukraine war and looming food crisis as an argument. The war shows precisely the urgency to make food production less dependent on fossil fuels, pesticides and fertilizers. If they are truly concerned about food security, they would be trying hard to address the unsustainable levels of meat-production and massive imports of animal feed, for instance. It is high time that European institutions and politicians change gear and stop defending corporate interests and do what they are supposed to: protect the general interest."

ENDS

Notes to the editors:

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