More than 500 farmers took part in a demonstration in Bonn this Monday, giving a foretaste of the forthcoming debate on reducing chemical pesticides. Farmers are protesting in front of the Bonn office of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture against the EU plan to halve the use of pesticides in agriculture by 2030.
Last June, the Vice President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans from the Netherlands, announced that, according to a proposal by the Brussels authorities, the use of pesticides should be reduced by 50 percent by 2030. Instead, farmers should resort to alternatives such as changing crop rotation or using new technologies that allow more targeted use of crop protection products. In addition, the Brussels draft ordinance stipulates that the population in particularly sensitive places must be safe from the harmful effects of pesticides on health in the future – for example in urban parks, schools or sports facilities.
In the EU Commission, Timmermans is responsible for the “Farm to Fork” eco-strategy, which aims to make Europe’s agriculture more sustainable overall. The reduction in pesticides serves the purpose of preventing a further decline in biodiversity. According to Timmermans, without a reduction in pesticides, there is a risk of a food crisis because the current level of use of pesticides will endanger biodiversity in ten to 15 years to such an extent that agriculture in Europe can no longer be maintained.
Ansgar Tubes, who, as spokesman for the agricultural association “Land Versicherung NRW” is one of the organizers of the tractor demonstration in Bonn, sees it the other way around. “If Timmermans’ plans are implemented, then we will slide towards a food crisis,” he told the Tagesspiegel. If the EU regulation to reduce the use of pesticides and fertilizers actually comes in the form planned by the Commission, “then we will no longer be able to produce in the usual quality,” says Tubes. It is also necessary to stick to the current use of pesticides because organic farming only achieves 50 percent of the harvest yields that are usual in conventional farms.
For Timmermans it was a political gamble to present his project, even if the war in Ukraine has meanwhile changed some of the signs in the promotion of organic farming in Brussels. From next year, farmers will no longer have to leave four percent of the land fallow to promote species protection, as was originally planned.
Meanwhile, Timmermans is receiving support from the Bioland association. In view of the 2021 plant report by the Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety, according to which sales of pesticides in Germany increased in 2021, Gerald Wehde from the Bioland Association spoke of a further loss of biodiversity. According to the association, an increase of 33.9 percent in the controversial pesticide glyphosate from 2019 to 2021 is particularly alarming.
In the struggle over the pesticides regulation, a heated debate awaits the EU member states, the Commission and the European Parliament. The novelty of the draft regulation is that binding reduction targets for the use of pesticides are set for each member country. However, Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Bulgaria, Austria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia have already spoken out against such binding requirements.
