Pesticides & GMOs

Corporate Europe Observatory takes a deep dive into the German agrochemical giant Bayer. Whether it’s over glyphosate, GMOs, or global warming, we follow the company’s trail of lobbying to reveal how it attempts to capture public policy to pursue its private interests. Follow Bayer’s toxic trail as it maintains monopolistic control of the seed and pesticides markets, fights off regulatory challenges, tries to limit legal liability, and exercises political influence.

Ahead of the EU elections, PAN Europe, Friends of the Earth Europe, and Corporate Europe Observatory present a set of voting score cards by EU political group on the pesticide reduction proposal. These score cards allows the public to see in a glance which groups defended for instance the health of farmers, their right to independent advice on pesticides, citizens' right to clean water - and those who didn't.

The European Commission pledged to address one of the most unethical trading practices in the EU: the export of banned chemicals to third countries. Our new report outlines the main arguments put forward by the chemical and pesticides industry lobby to keep this deadly trade flowing and block the proposal to ban the export of forbidden chemicals.

On Wednesday (7 February) MEPs will vote in the Strasbourg plenary on a proposal that would scrap any safety checks for GMOs (NGTs), as well as labelling and traceability requirements. Many of these MEPs, I suspect, will scratch their heads a few times about the implications of this deregulation proposal.

The severity of climate change and biodiversity decline are evident to many and 1.1 million people supported a European Citizens' Initiative calling for a very ambitious pesticide reduction and support for farmers to achieve this.

Pesticide industry lobbies and their allies have waged a relentless attack on the Farm to Fork promise to cut pesticide use and harm in half by 2030. This key law for biodiversity and health risks to be severely compromised.

Next week, the extention of the use of the herbicide glyphosate for 10 more years in the European Union will be voted. Will they get away with it?

A leaked version of DG SANTE’s proposal to deregulate products of ‘new genomic techniques’ (NGTs, or new GMOs) confirms the early warnings by environmental, sustainable farming groups, consumer-groups and scientists.

300+ NGOs call on Vice-President Timmermans to intervene and prevent the far-reaching deregulation of new genomic techniques at the expense of nature and the climate, and of farmers’ and consumers’ rights.

EU and member state decision-makers need to agree robust new rules to get the chemicals industry in line and paying its way in full.

In order to tackle the grave threat of the biodiversity crisis, the EU will table a proposal for targets for the reduction of pesticide use. This has put the pesticide industry into survival mode. A new leaked document from pesticides lobby group CropLife Europe shows that while it talks a big talk about backing the Green Deal, in reality it is employing a wide variety of lobbying tactics to undermine ambitious, binding targets.

The EU Green Deal includes bold promises to vastly reduce the use of toxic pesticides. But big pesticide corporations like Bayer, BASF, Syngenta and Corteva are lobbying hard to counter these initiatives. They also want to continue producing and exporting pesticides that are banned in Europe to other countries. This video tells the story of toxic pesticides, international trade and these EU Green Deal promises.