{"id":35725,"date":"2024-07-05T00:01:13","date_gmt":"2024-07-05T04:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/?p=35725"},"modified":"2024-07-08T15:43:17","modified_gmt":"2024-07-08T19:43:17","slug":"environmental-and-trade-groups-successfully-call-for-end-to-pesticide-company-alliance-with-un-fao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2024\/07\/environmental-and-trade-groups-successfully-call-for-end-to-pesticide-company-alliance-with-un-fao\/","title":{"rendered":"Environmental and Trade Groups Successfully Call for End to Pesticide Company Alliance with UN-FAO"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Beyond Pesticides, <\/em>July 5, 2024) After years of advocacy against corporate interference in global pesticide policy, the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) has ended its \u201cstrategic partnership\u201d with petrochemical pesticide and fertilizer trade association CropLife International. This decision, which allows the expiration of a 2020 Letter of Intent<\/a> (LoI), was announced in a June press release<\/a> by a coalition of international public interest, environmental, and trade groups. The organizations objected to the partnership from the inception of the agreement and has issued objections, including in 2022 and covered by Daily News<\/a>. The signatories to the release last month believe that this severing of ties with the chemical industry will contribute to building momentum from frontline communities for \u201csustainable, resilient and equitable production systems under the agroecological paradigm.\u201d The groups say, however, \u201cWe remain concerned about the FAO\u2019s continuing informal engagements with CropLife and call for greater transparency and accountability in this regard.”<\/p>\n

Beyond Pesticides has urged that models for change, whether advanced by FAO or other international or national institutions, must embrace clear definitions and standards that are certified and enforceable in order to reverse the existential threats to health, biodiversity, and climate from petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers. In this context, the organization advocates the adoption of certified organic practices that eliminate immediately petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers. FAO\u2019s formal severing of ties with the petrochemical industry signals to farmers, farmworkers, pesticide applicators, and the public that the status quo is unsustainable amidst cascading crises of public health fragility, biodiversity collapse, and climate emergency. Consider writing to USDA and the U.S. Congress<\/a> calling for an organic national land management plan.<\/p>\n

Groups that signed onto this statement represent Indigenous communities and organizations’ fighting against the status quo of reliance on petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers, including the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), FIAN International, Friends of the Earth International, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN), International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Pesticide Action Network (PAN) International, Tobacco and Allied Workers\u2019 Associations (IUF). Public Eye, and Third World Network.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn 15 May 2024, PAN International received written confirmation from FAO Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdol that the LoI between FAO and CropLife International signed on 2 October 2020 came to an end almost exactly three years after its agreement,\u201d the press release says. \u201cWe have been informed that the FAO concluded its LoI with CropLife on 3 October 2023 in line with a review of all LoIs entered into prior to the development of FAO\u2019s Strategy for Private Sector Engagement (2021-25)<\/a> and the related new due diligence framework<\/a>.\u201d Advocates caution that FAO\u2019s relationship with the pesticide industry may not be over, given that FAO officials did not elaborate on future parameters for potential informal relationships with CropLife. FAO\u2019s decision to develop more safeguards against corporate interference aligns with their commitments to the newly adopted Global Framework on Chemicals<\/a> in September 2023 at the Fifth International Conference on Chemicals Management in Bonn, Germany\u2014in coordination with UN Environmental Program and World Health Organization\u2014through the Global Alliance on Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs). Organic farmers and public interest advocates alike believe that this Framework is a welcome step in the right direction, and that there are opportunities to develop stricter targets for 2030 and beyond.<\/p>\n

This important announcement builds on years of advocacy and campaigning through the Stop FAO-CropLife #ToxicAlliance campaign. According to a 2021 letter directed to FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu<\/a>\u2014who originally signed the 2020 LoI with CropLife International President and CEO Giulia Di Tommaso\u2014200,000 individuals from over 107 countries, over 430 civil society and Indigenous Peoples\u2019 organizations (including Beyond Pesticides), nearly 300 academics and scientists, and nearly 50 philanthropic groups, as well as the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, raised concerns in a report addressed to 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council. This coordinated effort was partially successful in that it prevented the LoI from moving forward into a more formal Memorandum of Understanding in 2022, however the agreement remained in place without a set expiration date (until October 2023), which would have continued to undermine the agency\u2019s support for alternatives to generate agroecological systems without toxic pesticides. Throughout FAO\u2019s agreement with industry, PAN International and the coalition partners remained resolute in calling for an end to this partnership. Letters on the subject were sent to Director-General Qu Dongyu on November 2020<\/a>, February 2021<\/a>, June 2022<\/a>, and November 2022.<\/a><\/p>\n

CropLife International (CLI) consists of 11 subsidiary national associations and six member companies (BASF, Bayer, Corteva, FMC, Sumitomo Chemical, and Syngenta). As an international trade association for the petrochemical pesticide and fertilizer industries, CLI has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo argument that pesticides are fundamentally necessary for global and national food security. While claiming to champion the role of agricultural innovation in crop protection to advance sustainable agriculture, instead, the pesticide industry is leveraging \u201cagricultural innovation and digital technology\u201d to expand market opportunities and increase their profits in the Global South. While CLI has not made any direct financial contributions to FAO since 2011, private sector investments are actively being brokered through the FAO\u2019s Hand-In-Hand Initiative; for example, in October 2020, the Director General actively appealed to CropLife for investments in low and middle-income countries in his speech to the CLI Board of Directors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is longstanding evidence of pesticide manufacturers influencing pesticide regulation<\/a> in the United States, European Union<\/a>, Thailand<\/a>, Mexico, and Sri Lanka<\/a>, among other nations. A 2022 briefing by PAN titled, Addressing the Conflict of Interest and Incompatibility of FAO\u2019s Partnership with CropLife International<\/em><\/a>, are various instances of this interference:<\/p>\n