An investigation has revealed that companies in the United Kingdom, as well as in some European Union countries, are exporting massive amounts of pesticides – banned in their own jurisdictions – to poorer countries.
More than 89,000 tons of such pesticides were exported in 2018, largely to countries where toxic pesticide use poses the greatest risks.
The report notes that, “Two-thirds of the … exports to richer nations were destined for one place: the U.S., which has some of the most permissive pesticide regulations among high-income countries and is itself a major exporter of banned agrochemicals to LMICs…. Swiss-based, Chinese-owned Syngenta was by far the biggest exporter of banned agrochemicals among manufacturers.”
Unearthed notes that, “Loopholes in European law mean chemical companies like Bayer and Syngenta can continue making pesticides for export long after they have been banned from use in the EU to protect the environment or the health of its citizens.” The companies and countries that sell these banned products insist that countries have the right and ability to control what pesticides can be used in their jurisdictions.
Public health and environmental advocates, as well as U.N. officials, insist that sales of pesticides known to be so dangerous as to be banned by wealthier, generally Western countries, constitute a double standard based on placement of a “Lower value on lives and ecosystems in poorer countries.” Spokesperson for the Permanent Campaign Against Pesticides and for Life, Alan Tygel, cut to the chase: “If a pesticide is banned for causing cancer in the EU it will cause the same problems in Brazilian people.”
Tragically, toxic pesticides have come to be a significant method of attempted suicide in poorer countries, such as China and India – and Sri Lanka, until the country acted in the 1990s to ban import of many of the most dangerous pesticides.
More than a decade ago, Beyond Pesticides wrote about the dangers of pesticides to farmworkers in “Developing” countries: “Each year, millions of developing world farmers are poisoned by pesticides, many of which are banned or strictly controlled in the West.”.
Way back in 2002, an investigator for the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Fatma Zora Ouchachi-Vesely, called the U.S. practice of exporting to other countries harmful pesticides that are banned in the U.S. “Immoral.” Government officials told her that international free-trade agreements “Allow for pesticides be exported without regulation to countries that demand them, whether or not they are banned within the United States.”
A related, global issue is the “Chemical time bomb” problem of waste from banned pesticides in various countries, as Beyond Pesticides covered in 2018.
The point underscores Beyond Pesticides argument that stricter regulation and, ideally, bans of toxic pesticides need to happen at the highest governmental levels because industry, like water, will always find a path around obstacles such as state or local prohibitions.