Toxic Trade: The European Union’s double standard on highly hazardous pesticides

Overview

The EU has banned the use of a number of highly hazardous pesticides, but continues to export those same pesticides to the Global South. Fields and vineyards in countries including South Africa, Uganda, Brazil and Peru are being sprayed with large quantities of European highly hazardous pesticides. These highly hazardous pesticides destroy the health of farm workers and communities, kill essential pollinators, degrade soils, and deplete them from nutrients, contaminate water resources and increase pest resistance, resulting in food insecurity.
This colonial EU double standard must end. Across the world, civil society organizations, trade unions, farmers and communities are speaking out against this toxic trade and call for an EU export ban. At the same time, we need to build the alternatives that allow for a just transition towards agroecological production of food without hazardous chemicals. Pesticides companies have significant and concentrated market power and use that to protect their own interests. To curb this, we need to enable a just agricultural transition towards sustainable, agroecological food production.