While the EU’s food safety regulator did not identify any “critical areas of concern” for human, animal and environmental health from glyphosate use in agriculture, it noted that the risk assessment could not be completed for a number of key endpoints. EFSA also acknowledged that there is evidence linking the use of the herbicide to neurotoxicity, damage to the microbiome and harm to biodiversity.
Then on what grounds did they decide that it’s “safe enough”? The billions of € that Bayer lobbied to keep their blockbuster chemical on the market?
I’d say it has more to do with inflation and prices. It would be great if people were willing to pay adapt their habits so that we could have safe and sustainable farming, but that just isn’t the case. I mean, how many vegans who only buy seasonal and regional food do yo know?
Banning glyphosate would decrease yields and therefore rise prices. That would make people unhappy and not just Bayer’s shareholders.
We are not allowed to use plastic straws, because climate/biodiversity etc, but the stuff that’s literally killing off billions of insects is no problem… Guess the euros of Bayer are worth more than the planet…
I don’t believe it’s that simple.
First of all: The ban on plastic straws is clearly an attempt to distract from more pressing isses when it comes to protecting the environment. That said, outside of a few people with disability, straws are basically pointless - banning them has no effect on most people’s lives.
Herbicides/pesticides make agriculture more efficient. Banning an effective pesticide would probably lead to either decreased production of agricultural goods (bad for humans, especially poorer people) or an increased need for space (which might be worse for the environment than the pesticide itself).
Ultimately glyphosate wasn’t banned due to its impact on the environment, but due to its suspected carcinogenicity.
At least speaking for Germany we used a.lot more space in nature in the past. The difference is, that in the past it gave room for animals to live, elwhereas today fields are like a desert for wildlife. As long as we had agriculture in a way where it gave place for wildflowers and thereby insects and used hedges, which protected lots of other species, we did not have that much of an ecological problem.
Of course it’s better to use less space and have less of a risk for famines, but without the surrounding ecosystems, which we are destroying, this also does not bear much value.