Millions of barrels of pesticides travel the global marketplace, and then re-circulate as residue on food and fiber. Tackling this “circle of poison” has galvanized PAN activists around the globe since the network’s early days.
In 2019, the value of global pesticide trade was $36.3 billion, up over 13% since 2015. The top exporting countries are China, the U.S. and Germany, in that order.
Dangerous “double standard”
Researchers at Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Germany recently conducted an investigation to see whether Germany, home to Bayer CropScience, is exporting highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) that have already been banned in the European Union.
Experts examined official export data provided by the German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety, and compared them to the PAN International HHPs List and the European Union (EU) pesticide database to examine the how many HHPs are exported from Germany, and whether Germany exported pesticides whose use is prohibited in the EU.
The final report (in German, with an English executive summary) found that as of 2017 (the most recent data available) Germany exported:
- 59,616 tons of pesticide ingredients (excluding inert gases). This exceeds total domestic use of pesticide ingredients by 1.7%.
- 233 different pesticide active ingredients, of which 62 are HHPs (more than a quarter of all exports).
- Nine pesticides which are not approved for use in the EU, including the pesticides cyanamide, acetochlor, and tepraloxydim, are listed by the EU as carcinogenic and toxic to reproduction.
PAN International is conducting a joint advocacy campaign at the national and international policy levels to challenge the ongoing export of pesticides that have been banned in exporting countries.
Prior Informed Consent
Engaging directly in international policy debates in the 1980s, PAN experts proposed that importing nations should be informed when pesticides were banned in other countries – and be given the right to refuse the import of such chemicals.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization took up the idea, and began implementing a notification procedure for banned chemicals. The process eventually became international law with the signing of the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent (PIC) in 1998. The PIC Treaty has now been adopted by more than 130 countries.
Like the POPs Treaty, the Rotterdam Convention has a scientific process for adding new chemicals to the list.