Farmers celebrate the 10-year extension for the most controversial herbicide

2023-11-18 07:30:13

The European Commission approved this same week to extend the use of glyphosate for another ten years in the European Union, a herbicide widely used in the agricultural sector. Brussels has been forced to take this decision without full consensus, since the appeals committee – one of the tools to which the Commission asks for second opinions on certain issues – has not reached a qualified majority on the issue . The use of glyphosate in the EU it was authorized until December 15, 2023, which is why the executive had to issue a resolution. In a statement published this Thursday, the institution assured that it has enough evidence to ensure that the herbicide is not carcinogenic despite the criticisms received. However, the extent of its use will include certain restrictions.

Among the conditions the ban on using glyphosate as a crop desiccant appears there – to thus avoid greater control over the time of harvest-, the establishment of maximum limits of impurities or greater control by the member states when carrying out risk analyzes on their use. In this way, the Commission aims to subject the herbicide, which still has a large number of detractors, to greater control.

However, one of the main affected by the decision, the farmers, celebrate the 10-year extension for the herbicide. A few weeks ago, the Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture (ALAS) already conveyed to the Spanish government the need for the renewal of glyphosate. They assure that “is an indispensable tool for the sustainability of agriculture». The organization explains that their crops grow in an environment where they have to compete with weeds for water, soil nutrients and sunlight, which can lead to great losses. “We need to control these weeds to be able to cultivate successfully. That’s why we’ve been using glyphosate safely for nearly 50 years“, they say.

Magí Ribera, a farmer, explained in statements to TV3 that the use of glyphosate “allows us to move from traditional agriculture to direct sowing, which consists of not plowing the land, and this means that we have less erosion from the sun and we release less CO₂ due to the smaller machines we can use». In addition, Josep Carles Vicente, head of the Farmers’ Union Organization, remarked that the ban on this herbicide could have caused farmers “difficulties and production losses”.

Weaknesses and mistakes

“The scientific debate and practice on the impacts of glyphosate have shown clear weaknesses and errors. There have been very pernicious practices, such as studies published with funding from agrochemical companies and a lot of ambiguity in general»points out Lucía Argüelles, researcher at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), at the Urban Transformation and Global Change Laboratory (TURBA) at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3).

In his opinion, the doubt of the main EU member states is, beyond whether glyphosate is harmful or not, how to make the “transition to a different agriculture without great economic losses and without a massive upheaval on the part of farmers”

Recently, this expert has participated in multidisciplinary research with the aim of renewing the social science research agenda in pesticides. This scientific article, published in the prestigious journal Agriculture and Human Values, proposes new research directions based on the regulatory, techno-scientific, social and ecological changes of recent decades. For example, due to the widespread use of pesticides, there is a growing resistance of weeds to the most commonly used herbicides, including glyphosate. «This means that more and more glyphosate has to be used, or that herbicides that are considered more toxic, such as paraquat or dicamba, are used again», warns the expert.

Another issue that is pointed out as relevant is the effects of regulatory changes, which are also applicable to the case of glyphosate. “What happens when a pesticide is banned? There can be a rebound effect and increase the use of other pesticides, and there can be slow adaptation, where farmers gradually adopt other methods or practices. There can be economic, political and ecological consequences”, says Argüelles. At the current time, with many pesticides being recently banned and others being debated, the article emphasizes that it is important to understand these changes in order to design transition programs.

The article also advocates interdisciplinarity in studies on the impacts of pesticides. “Collaborations between the social and biophysical sciences can illuminate recent transformations in the field and their uneven socioecological effects. Revitalized critical research that encompasses the multifaceted nature of pesticides can identify the social and ecological constraints that drive pesticide use and foster alternatives to chemical-sustained industrialized agriculture,” conclude the authors of this work on the direction in what this field of applied science should go.