Agriculture

Insects provide pollination services to flowering plants, control pests and ensure abundant harvests. For a long time their populations have declined dramatically – causing disaster for humans and nature. Pesticides are considered a major reason for the decline.

Pesticides rarely stay in the place where they have been applied. Wind can move dust, particles, and droplets to residential areas close to agricultural land – or carry it to places many kilometres away. Approval processes are largely ignoring this problem.

Studies regularly reveal how pesticides contaminate rivers, lakes, coastal waters and groundwater. The pollutants often originate in agriculture and enter surface water via infiltration, surface runoff and drift.

Insects such as ladybugs or predatory wasps act as natural enemies against pests and as effective plant protectors. They are good for the environment and help cutting costs – but their habitats are under threat from pesticide use.

Experts have been warning for years that biodiversity is at stake. Pesticides have been identified as one of the causes for why the abundance of animals and plant species is deteriorating so quickly and disastrously.

Pesticide use leads to residues in food to which many people are exposed – especially in the Global South. But as an import, contaminated food can also end up on European plates.

Insufficient attention is being paid to pesticides accumulating in the soil, where they exert direct and indirect adverse effects on soil life – sometimes for decades.

385 million people fall ill every year from pesticide poisoning. The United Nations intend to improve the worldwide handling of pesticides to prevent harm, but there is little effective legal regulation.

Before they are put on the market, pesticides go through an approval process in which their impacts on human health and the environment are tested. But their indirect effects on food chains and biodiversity receive little attention, neither do the effects of pesticide mixtures that are hard to predict.

The European Union is one of the world’s biggest markets for pesticides. Policies to reduce their use have not been very successful so far. The lack of standardized data makes monitoring and comparing countries difficult.