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Trump EPA 'Hitting New Heights of Absurdity' With Plan to Reapprove Pesticide Dicamba
"This is what happens when pesticide oversight is controlled by industry lobbyists," said one campaigner.
Jul 23, 2025
Despite U.S. President Donald Trump's supposed goal to "Make America Healthy Again," his administration is moving to reregister dicamba, a pesticide twice banned by federal courts, for use on genetically engineered cotton and soybeans.
In response to legal challenges from the Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Food Safety, National Family Farm Coalition, and the Pesticide Action Network, courts ruled against the herbicide's registration in 2020 and again last year.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced its latest push to allow the use of dicamba on Wednesday, detailing proposed mitigation efforts—including temperature restrictions and the use of drift reduction agents—that EPA spokesperson Molly Vaseliou told The Washington Post would "minimize impact to certain species and the environment."
The EPA's proposed registration is now open for public comment until August 22, but supporters and critics are already weighing in. While the pesticide companies welcomed the agency's attempt to allow dicamba products from BASF, Bayer, and Syngenta, the advocacy groups behind the court battles sharply called out the Trump administration.
"EPA has had seven long years of massive drift damage to learn that dicamba cannot be used safely with GE dicamba-resistant crops," said Bill Freese, science director at the Center for Food Safety, in a statement.
"If we allow these proposed decisions to go through, farmers and residents throughout rural America will again see their crops, trees, and home gardens decimated by dicamba drift, and natural areas like wildlife refuges will also suffer," he warned. "EPA must reverse course and withdraw its plans to reapprove this hazardous herbicide."
Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, declared that "Trump's EPA is hitting new heights of absurdity by planning to greenlight a pesticide that's caused the most extensive drift damage in U.S. agricultural history and twice been thrown out by federal courts."
"This is what happens when pesticide oversight is controlled by industry lobbyists," he charged. "Corporate fat cats get their payday and everyone else suffers the consequences."
The centers pointed out that "the decision to seek reapproval comes less than a month after Kyle Kunkler, a former lobbyist for the American Soybean Association, was installed as the deputy assistant administrator for pesticides in the EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. The ASA has been a vocal cheerleader for dicamba since its initial approval for use on soybeans in 2016, despite the fact that soybeans have been the most widely damaged crop."
The Post asked the EPA whether Kunkler's recent appointment influenced the dicamba decision. In response, Vaseliou said that the "EPA follows the federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act when registering pesticides" and any insinuation otherwise was "further 'journalism' malpractice by The Washington Post."
After Kunkler's new job was made public last month, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) also flagged his "years of advocating against restrictions on farm chemicals such as glyphosate and atrazine," and stressed that "these are the very pesticides singled out in Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s 'Make America Healthy Again' report for their potential links to chronic illness in children."
"The appointment of Kyle Kunkler sends a loud, clear message: Industry influence is back in charge at the EPA," said EWG president Ken Cook at the time. "It's a stunning reversal of the campaign promises Trump and RFK Jr. made to their MAHA followers—that they'd stand up to chemical giants and protect children from dangerous pesticides."
"To those who genuinely believed the MAHA movement would lead to meaningful change on toxic exposures: We understand the hope," he said. "But hope doesn't regulate pesticides. People with power do. And this pick all but guarantees the status quo will remain untouched."
Cook—whose group has also sounded the alarm about dicamba—concluded that Kunkler's EPA post "is but the latest example of the Trump administration's sweeping betrayal of environmental protection and public health."
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Federal Dicamba Ruling Called 'Vital Victory for Farmers and the Environment'
"The court today resoundingly reaffirmed what we have always maintained: The EPA's and Monsanto's claims of dicamba's safety were irresponsible and unlawful," said one plaintiff.
Feb 06, 2024
In what one plaintiff called "a sweeping victory for family farmers and dozens of endangered plants and animals," a federal court in Arizona on Tuesday rescinded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2020 approval of the highly volatile herbicide dicamba for use on certain genetically engineered crops.
In a 47-page ruling, U.S. District Judge David C. Bury found that the EPA failed to comply with public notice and comment requirements under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), legislation passed in 1947 to protect agricultural workers, consumers, and the environment.
"This is a vital victory for farmers and the environment," said George Kimbrell, legal director at the Center for Food Safety (CFS), a plaintiff in the case. "Time and time again, the evidence has shown that dicamba cannot be used without causing massive and unprecedented harm to farms as well as endangering plants and pollinators."
"The court today resoundingly reaffirmed what we have always maintained: The EPA's and Monsanto's claims of dicamba's safety were irresponsible and unlawful," Kimbrell added.
Dicamba has damaged millions of acres of U.S. cropland since the EPA, during the Trump administration, dubiously approved its use on genetically engineered cotton and soybeans developed by Monsanto, which was acquired by Bayer in 2018.
The EPA subsequently identified spray drift as the main environmental risk for dicamba due to its potential to contaminate nontargeted crops, declaring that since 2016 "there has been a substantial increase in the overall number of reported nontarget plant incidents."
As CFS explained on Tuesday:
In today's decision, the court canceled dicamba's over-the-top use, holding that EPA violated FIFRA's public input requirement prior to the approval. This violation is "very serious," according to the court, especially because the 9th Circuit previously held EPA failed to consider serious risks of over-the-top dicamba in issuing the prior registration. The court outlined the massive damage to stakeholders that were deprived of their opportunity to comment, such as growers that do not use over-the-top dicamba and suffered significant financial losses and states that repeatedly reported landscape-level damage yet, in the same 2020 decision, lost the ability to impose restrictions greater than those imposed by the federal government without formal legislative and/or rulemaking processes. As a result, the court found "the EPA is unlikely to issue the same registrations" again after taking these stakeholders' concerns into account.
"We are grateful that the court held the EPA and Monsanto accountable for the massive damage from dicamba to farmers, farmworkers, and the environment, and halted its use," Lisa Griffith of the National Family Farm Coalition—another plaintiff in the case—said in a statement Tuesday. "The pesticide system that Monsanto sells should not be sprayed as it cannot be sprayed safely."
Tuesday's decision in Arizona follows a July 2022 ruling by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis that found Monsanto and BASF were liable for damage to a Missouri peach farmer's groves caused by dicamba.
A 2021 EPA report revealed that high-ranking Trump administration officials intentionally excluded scientific evidence of dicamba-related hazards, including the risk of widespread drift damage, before reapproving the dangerous chemical. A separate EPA report described the widespread harm to farmers and the environment caused by dicamba during the 2020 growing season.
"Every summer since the approval of dicamba, our farm has suffered significant damage to a wide range of vegetable crops," said Rob Faux, a farmer and communications manager at the advocacy group Pesticide Action Network, a case plaintiff. "Today's decision provides much-needed and overdue protection for farmers and the environment."
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'Bitter Blow' to Biodiversity and Health as EU Pulls Proposed Pesticide Rule
"Those most vulnerable, including children, farmers, and farming communities, will continue to pay the price for the E.U.'s inaction," said one advocate.
Feb 06, 2024
With agricultural business owners continuing protests across France, Greece, Spain, and other European countries, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen angered public health and biodiversity groups Tuesday as she announced the body would withdraw its proposed law to sharply cut the amount of chemical pesticides used in the European Union—a capitulation, said one journalist, to "landowners."
Brussels-based Arthur Neslen, who has reported for The Guardian and Politico, called von der Leyen's announcement "shocking, cowardly, and dishonest" as she withdrew the Sustainable Use Regulation (SUR).
The proposal was first introduced in 2022 and was aimed at slashing pesticide use in half by 2030 and banning pesticide products in areas including urban green spaces and protected sites under the Natura 2000 program, as well as promoting the use of sustainable alternatives.
With farmers staging protests across the E.U. in recent days, complaining over the high cost of maintaining agricultural businesses in Europe, von der Leyen said the SUR had become "polarizing."
Last week, the commission provoked an outcry from environmental advocates when it announced it would allow farmers to delay implementation of a rule requiring them to set aside some of their land to promote biodiversity.
Now, said critics on Tuesday, the commission's decision regarding SUR would further contribute to biodiversity loss as well as water and soil pollution and potential health impacts for people and wildlife.
Reducing European farmers' "dependency on pesticides is not only short-sighted, but a major disservice to public health," said Anne Stauffer, deputy director of the Health and Environment Alliance. "Those most vulnerable, including children, farmers, and farming communities, will continue to pay the price for the E.U.'s inaction."
Grace O'Sullivan, a member of European Parliament representing Ireland, noted that pesticides will continue to be permitted "in nature reserves, city parks, even playgrounds."
In her speech, von der Leyen said farmers "deserve to be listened to" as they face drought and other effects of the climate crisis, higher costs of living, and other factors that make agriculture more expensive.
"Only if our farmers can live off the land will they invest in the future. And only if we achieve our climate and environmental goals together, will farmers be able to continue to make a living," the commission president said.
Friends of the Earth said the "translation" of von der Leyen's comments was "farmers will keep on being poisoned and nature degraded, while the pesticide industry reaps massive profits."
"We cannot afford to leave the pesticide issue unresolved," the group said. "We need real solutions now to support farmers in transitioning away from toxic chemicals."
The Pesticide Action Network (PAN) said the commission's decision—which still has to be ratified by the College of Commissioners in the coming weeks—was made to benefit large "agribusiness interests" and not people struggling to run small farms.
"The European Commission just took a decision that is harmful to farmers and their families, as the first victims of pesticide use," said Martin Dermine, PAN Europe executive director. "Pesticide pollution is a huge problem that has to be tackled. It pollutes our waters, harms our health, and destroys the biodiversity that we depend on. It destroys fertile soil and endangers food production in the long run. We have to move towards a healthy and sustainable form of agriculture quickly, doing nothing is not an option in the light of the biodiversity crisis we're in."
"Thousands of scientists and millions of citizens have urged E.U. politicians to take urgent action," he added. "Not answering citizens' demands goes against democracy and only favors agribusiness."
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'Shameful': UK Approves 'Emergency' Use of Banned Bee-Killing Pesticide
"The real 'emergency' here is our declining biodiversity," said one campaigner. "It's time farmers got support for alternatives, not a green light for using toxic chemicals."
Jan 24, 2023
Biodiversity defenders have sounded the alarm about the United Kingdom government's Monday decision to provide another so-called "emergency" exception for the use of an outlawed neonicotinoid pesticide lethal to bees.
"Bad news again for bees as the U.K. government allows banned neonicotinoids in our fields against the advice of its own experts," Friends of the Earth campaigner Sandra Bell tweeted. "The real 'emergency' here is our declining biodiversity—it's time farmers got support for alternatives, not a green light for using toxic chemicals."
Despite U.K. guidance affirming that emergency applications should not be granted more than once, the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) announced for the third straight year that it will permit the use of sugar beet seeds coated with thiamethoxam under certain conditions in England.
"If the government is serious about halting biodiversity loss by 2030, they must support farmers to explore long-term, agroecological solutions that don't threaten our endangered bee population."
Against the recommendation of an independent panel of pesticide experts, the agency approved the use of thiamethoxam just four days after the European Union's highest court ruled that providing emergency derogations for prohibited neonicotinoid-treated seeds is inconsistent with the bloc's laws. The U.K. withdrew from the E.U. in 2020.
DEFRA's emergency authorization for thiamethoxam-coated sugar beet seeds also comes one month after the U.K. government advocated for a stronger global pesticide reduction target at the United Nations COP15 biodiversity summit.
Calling the authorization "yet another shameful episode in a long list of failures to protect the U.K. environment," the British chapter of the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) said that "putting bees and other insects at risk shows just how seriously this government takes the biodiversity crisis."
"It's incredibly brazen to allow a banned bee-harming pesticide back into U.K. fields mere weeks after the government talked up the need for global ambition on reducing pesticides at the U.N. biodiversity talks in Montreal," Bell said in a statement issued by the Pesticide Collaboration, a progressive coalition of 83 health and environmental organizations, trade unions, farmer and consumer groups, and academics.
"This is the third consecutive year that the government has gone directly against the advice of its own scientific advisers with potentially devastating consequences for bees and other vital pollinators," said Bell. "The health of us all and the planet depends on their survival. The government must fulfill its duty to protect wildlife and keep pesticides off our crops for good—that means supporting farmers to find nature-friendly ways to control pests."
University of Sussex biology professor Dave Goulson has estimated that a single teaspoon of thiamethoxam—one of three neonicotinoids produced by Bayer, the German biotech corporation that merged with agrochemical giant Monsanto in 2018—is toxic enough to wipe out 1.25 billion bees.
A Greenpeace U.K. petition imploring Thérèse Coffey, a Conservative Party lawmaker serving as secretary of state for environment, food, and rural affairs, to "enforce a total ban on bee-killing pesticides" has garnered nearly one million signatures.
Describing DEFRA's move as "a huge disappointment," the Stand By Bees campaign on Tuesday urged supporters to "continue pushing" and "write to your local MP."
In 2013, the European Commission banned the use of thiamethoxam and two other hazardous neonicotinoids produced by Monsanto—clothianidin and imidacloprid—on bee-attractive crops including maize, rapeseed, and some cereals. This was followed by a prohibition on all outdoor uses in 2018, which the European Court of Justice upheld in 2021, rejecting an appeal by Bayer.
The Pesticide Collaboration warned Monday that DEFRA's latest authorization for thiamethoxam-coated sugar beet seeds "raises wider concerns over whether the government will maintain existing restrictions on neonicotinoids and other harmful pesticides, or whether they may be overturned as part of a forthcoming bonfire of regulations that protect nature, wildlife, and communities."
At issue is the Retained E.U. Law Bill, which threatens to rescind E.U.-era environmental standards and other measures enacted prior to Brexit.
"It is inexcusable to see England falling so far behind the E.U. on regulations in place to prevent such a detrimental impact on biodiversity," Soil Association, a U.K.-based research and advocacy group, tweeted Tuesday. "It's not credible to claim an exemption is 'temporary' or 'emergency' when it is used year after year. How many more years will it happen?"
According to Amy Heley of the Pesticide Collaboration: "In previous years, DEFRA insisted that the sugar industry must make progress in finding alternatives, but we are yet to see any outcomes of this. The Pesticide Collaboration is deeply concerned that this emergency derogation is simply another example of the government failing to follow through on their own pledges to improve the environment and protect human health."
As Joan Edwards, director of policy & public affairs at the Wildlife Trusts, noted Monday: "Just last month, the Secretary of State Thérèse Coffey committed the U.K. to halving the environmental impact of damaging pesticides by 2030. However, today she has incompatibly authorized the use of a banned neonicotinoid, one of the world's most environmentally damaging pesticides."
“Only a few days ago, the E.U.'s highest court ruled that E.U. countries should no longer be allowed temporary exemptions for banned, bee-toxic neonicotinoid pesticides," said Edwards. "Yet this government deems it acceptable to allow the use of a toxic pesticide that is extremely harmful to bees and other insects, at a time when populations of our precious pollinators are already in freefall. This is unacceptable."
The Soil Association, meanwhile, argued that "if the government is serious about halting biodiversity loss by 2030, they must support farmers to explore long-term, agroecological solutions that don't threaten our endangered bee population."
"Neonicotinoids simply have no place in a sustainable farming system," the group added.
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'Good News for Bees' as Top EU Court Closes Pesticide Loophole
"Derogations with neonicotinoid-treated seeds are now definitely banned," said one advocate. "This ruling is relieving and shows the environment counts more than profits from some sugar and pesticide companies!"
Jan 20, 2023
The European Union's highest court ruled Thursday that member states must stop authorizing the use of bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides.
Neonicotinoids are prohibited under E.U. law, but a loophole has enabled governments to grant emergency derogations temporarily permitting the use of seeds coated with these and other banned toxic insecticides.
Thursday's preliminary ruling by the European Court of Justice immediately halted derogations for neonicotinoids, which accounted for nearly half of the 236 exceptions that E.U. countries provided from 2019 to 2022. Bartosz Brzeziński, a food and agriculture reporter at Politico Europe, called the decision a "potentially fatal blow" to the highly hazardous class of pesticides.
Campaigners applauded the ruling, issued in response to a complaint filed by Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe, Nature & Progrès Belgium, and a Belgian beekeeper.
"This verdict is a reminder that administrations and politicians are bound to the law, not to the interests of the pesticide industry, or industrial agricultural lobbies."
"PAN Europe has been fighting this maladministration for many years," Hans Muilerman, a chemical officer for the group, said in a statement. "This landmark ruling of the E.U. court puts an end to 10 years of abuse by member states, with the blessing of the European Commission. Thanks to our action, the E.U. environment will become a safer place."
The plaintiffs originally asked the Belgian Administrative Court to intervene in 2019 after Belgium, at the behest of the sugar lobby, approved emergency use derogations for neonicotinoid-coated sugar beet seeds.
"This success will have an E.U.-wide effect, to protect bees and insects across the E.U., as well as citizens' health," said Marc Fichers, secretary-general of Nature & Progrès Belgium. "Derogations with neonicotinoid-treated seeds are now definitely banned. This ruling is relieving and shows the environment counts more than profits from some sugar and pesticide companies!"
The European Environmental Bureau, a continent-wide network of green groups, also welcomed the ruling, describing it as "good news for bees" while demanding further action "to protect biodiversity, human health, and food security."
In 2013, the European Commission banned the use of imidacloprid, clothianidin, and thiamethoxam—three neonicotinoids lethal to pollinators—on bee-attractive crops including maize, rapeseed, and some cereals. This was followed by a prohibition on all outdoor uses in 2018.
The Court of Justice upheld the ban in 2021, rejecting an appeal by Bayer, the German pharmaceutical and biotech company that merged with agrochemical giant Monsanto more than four years ago and produces imidacloprid, clothianidin, and thiamethoxam.
As Euractiv reported Thursday:
The latest ruling concerns six authorizations issued by the Belgian state for the use of these plant protection products on the basis of 'emergency situations'—where danger or threat to plant production or ecosystems cannot be contained by other reasonable means.
For this reason, the court concluded that "as regards seeds treated with plant protection products containing substances expressly prohibited, […] the [E.U.] legislature did not intend to allow member states to derogate from such an express prohibition."
The ruling added that member states have an obligation "to take all necessary measures to promote low pesticide input pest control, giving priority to non-chemical methods wherever possible."
Reflecting on the case, PAN Europe executive director Martin Dermine said that "it was very shocking to observe that the European Commission kept protecting the abuses of the system by member states."
"The commission supported the provision of derogations for supposedly E.U.-banned pesticides that are highly toxic to human health and the environment," said Dermine. "It was evident that the commission stood on the side of agribusiness, rather than with citizens' health and the environment. The European Commission's lawyers even told the judges that member states only give a derogation when no alternative exists, which is opposite to the reality!"
"Today is a great day for European pollinators and for our environment," Dermine declared. "The E.U. pesticide law gives priority to citizens' health and the environment but its implementation at E.U. and national levels is poor. This verdict is a reminder that administrations and politicians are bound to the law, not to the interests of the pesticide industry, or industrial agricultural lobbies."
PAN Europe attorney Antoine Bailleux added that "the Court of Justice has made it clear that substances prohibited at the E.U. level for health or environmental reasons cannot be introduced through the back door at the member state level, which had become common practice."
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Over 400 Groups Call on UN Food Agency to 'End Partnership With Pesticide Industry'
"We cannot allow the U.N. agency mandated to support farmers and agricultural systems aligning with the industry that aims to influence national policy and causes such egregious pesticide poisoning and environmental devastation."
Jun 09, 2022
More than 400 advocacy groups on Thursday urged the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization to cancel its partnership with an industry lobby group representing the world's largest manufacturers of toxic pesticides.
"Use of hazardous pesticides is inconsistent with the rights protected by the United Nations."
As the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Council prepares to convene next week, the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) published a letter asserting that the U.N. agency's agreement with CropLife International--whose members include multinational pesticide giants BASF, Bayer, Corteva, FMC, and Syngtenta--"is incompatible with FAO's obligations to uphold human rights."
The letter's signers--who include 10 other global networks acting on behalf of 430 civil society, Indigenous, and other advocacy groups from 69 countries--assert that "use of hazardous pesticides is inconsistent with the rights protected by the United Nations."
These include the rights to "health; clean, healthy, and sustainable environment; safe working conditions; adequate food; safe and clean water and sanitation; a dignified life; and rights of Indigenous peoples, women, children, workers, peasants, and other people working in rural areas."
In a briefing to FAO member states, groups that signed the letter note that CropLife companies make 35% of their sales from highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs), which "pose the highest levels of risk to health and the environment and are behind some of the most egregious poisoning cases and environmental destruction."
According to the paper, 385 million farm workers--44% of the global total--are poisoned around the world annually by HHPs.
"These pesticide and GM seed manufacturers exert enormous pressure on governments that enact policies to protect against pesticide harms, and they particularly target the export of their products to countries in the Global South," Simone Adler, the organizing co-director and campaign co-coordinator at Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA), said in a statement.
"We cannot allow the U.N. agency mandated to support farmers and agricultural systems aligning with the industry that aims to influence national policy and causes such egregious pesticide poisoning and environmental devastation," they added.
The letter's signatories urge FAO to promote agroecology, an "approach that offers viable and sustainable proposals for generating ecologically based food and farming systems without the use of toxic pesticides."
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Groups Tell UN Food Agency to Ditch 'Toxic Alliance' With Pesticide Association
"This partnership with CropLife is in direct conflict with FAO's mandate as a U.N. institution to fulfill human rights to health, adequate food, clean water and environment, and safe working conditions."
Dec 03, 2021
A global coalition of food justice advocates on Friday urged the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization to sever ties with CropLife International, a trade association representing agrochemical corporations.
In a letter addressed to FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu and attached to a petition signed by more than 187,300 people from 107 countries, nearly a dozen groups wrote that "CropLife's sole purpose is to advocate for use of its members' products."
Those products, says the letter, "are both antiquated chemical solutions and techno-fixes (genetically modified seeds) that lock farmers into ever-escalating use of pesticides, in conjunction with proprietary seeds that have systematically undermined the rights and welfare of the majority of the world's food producers."
"A partnership with CropLife represents a perpetuation of this deeply unjust and unsustainable system," said the coalition, whose members include the petition organizers--Pesticide Action Network (PAN) International, the Center for International Environmental Law, and Friends of the Earth--plus several other groups fighting for food sovereignty, trade justice, and workers' rights.
"To strengthen official ties with CropLife," the groups wrote Friday, "directly undermines FAO's priority of minimizing the harms of chemical pesticide use worldwide."
"Reliance on hazardous pesticides undermines the rights to adequate food and to health for present and future generations," said the coalition. "More than one-third of CropLife member company sales are Highly Hazardous Pesticides that pose the highest levels of risk to health or the environment."
The letter continues:
Recent estimates show that there are 385 million cases of acute pesticide poisonings each year, up from an estimated 25 million cases in 1990. This means that about 44% of farmers and agricultural workers around the world are poisoned each year by an industry dominated by CropLife members. Pesticide products produced by CropLife member companies decimate pollinator populations and are wreaking havoc on biodiversity and already fragile ecosystems.
This is not the first time the U.N. food agency has come under fire for its alliance with CropLife. Last November, more than 350 civil society organizations from 63 countries, along with more than 250 scientists and academics, sent letters to Qu expressing concerns about the FAO's willingness to collaborate with a trade association whose raison d'etre is to market pesticides sold by companies like Bayer and Syngenta.
"We strongly urge you to... discontinue this deeply inappropriate alliance with an industry that places the interests of profit above that of public welfare and the planet."
In a statement released Friday, Simone Adler, organizing co-director at PAN North America, called it "completely inappropriate for FAO to partner with the world's largest agrochemical companies."
Adler, co-coordinator of the PAN International campaign to put an end to the cozy relationship between FAO and CropLife, stressed that "this partnership with CropLife is in direct conflict with FAO's mandate as a U.N. institution to fulfill human rights to health, adequate food, clean water and environment, and safe working conditions."
"A global movement of hundreds of thousands of farmers, fisherfolk, agricultural workers, Indigenous peoples, and activists is urging FAO to halt this partnership with CropLife, immediately," said Adler. "This toxic alliance facilitates the corporate capture of our global food systems, and directly undermines FAO's own Code of Conduct on Pesticide Management."
"Now that the director-general has the clear demands of nearly 200,000 people in front of him," Adler said, alluding to Friday's petition delivery, "we hope he will respond appropriately by putting the brakes on this partnership, and prioritizing instead the well-being of farmers, workers and food producers, and the planet."
The coalition told Qu that collaborating with CropLife "undercuts your agency's critical--and urgently needed--support for agroecology, which FAO itself notes 'can support food production and food security and nutrition while restoring the ecosystem services and biodiversity that are essential for sustainable agriculture.'"
"We strongly urge you to continue to support the transition to people-led agroecology," the groups added, "and discontinue this deeply inappropriate alliance with an industry that places the interests of profit above that of public welfare and the planet."
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80 Groups Blast US Interference in Mexico's Phaseout of Glyphosate and GM Corn
"We call on Secretary Vilsack and Trade Representative Tai, as key leaders in the new administration, to respect Mexico's decision to protect both public health and the integrity of Mexican farming."
Apr 29, 2021
A coalition of 80 U.S. agricultural, consumer, environmental, public health, and worker groups sent a letter Thursday to key figures in the Biden administration calling for them to "respect Mexico's sovereignty and refrain from interfering with its right to enact health-protective policies"--specifically, the phaseout of the herbicide glyphosate and the cultivation of genetically modified corn.
"It is completely unacceptable for U.S. public agencies to be doing the bidding of pesticide corporations like Bayer."
--Kristin Schafer, PANNA
"Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador quietly rocked the agribusiness world with his New Year's Eve decree," Timothy A. Wise of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (ITAP) noted earlier this year. "His administration sent an even stronger aftershock two weeks later, clarifying that the government would also phase out GM corn imports in three years and the ban would include not just corn for human consumption but yellow corn destined primarily for livestock."
"Mexico imports about 30% of its corn each year, overwhelmingly from the United States," Wise added. "Almost all of that is yellow corn for animal feed and industrial uses. Lopez Obrador's commitment to reducing and, by 2024, eliminating such imports reflects his administration's plan to ramp up Mexican production as part of the campaign to increase self-sufficiency in corn and other key food crops."
The groups' letter on the Mexican policies and U.S. interference--published in English (pdf) and Spanish (pdf)--is addressed to recently confirmed U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai. Its lead author is Kristin Schafer, executive director of Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA).
"We call on Secretary Vilsack and Trade Representative Tai, as key leaders in the new administration, to respect Mexico's decision to protect both public health and the integrity of Mexican farming," Schafer said in a statement. "It is completely unacceptable for U.S. public agencies to be doing the bidding of pesticide corporations like Bayer, who are solely concerned with maintaining their bottom-line profits."
Fernando Bejarano, director of Pesticide Action Network in Mexico, explained that "we are part of the No Maize No Country Campaign, a broad coalition of peasant organizations, nonprofit NGOs, academics, and consumers which support the presidential decree and fight for food sovereignty with the agroecological transformation of agricultural systems that guarantee the right to produce and consume healthy, nutritious food, free of pesticides and transgenics."
"We reject the pressure from corporations such as Bayer-Monsanto--and their CropLife trade association--which are working in both the United States and Mexico to undermine the presidential decree that phases out the use of glyphosate and transgenic corn," Bejarano said.
The letter highlights Guardian reporting on U.S. government documents obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity through a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents revealed that CropLife America and Bayer AG--which acquired glyphosate-based herbicide developer Monsanto in 2018--worked with U.S. officials to lobby against Mexico's plans.
According to journalist Carey Gillam's mid-February report:
The emails reviewed by the Guardian come from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and other U.S. agencies. They detail worry and frustration with Mexico's position. One email makes a reference to staff within Lopez Obrador's administration as "vocal anti-biotechnology activists," and another email states that Mexico's health agency (Cofepris) is "becoming a big time problem."
Internal USTR communications lay out how the agrochemical industry is "pushing" for the U.S. to "fold this issue" into the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade deal that went into effect July 1. The records then show the USTR does exactly that, telling Mexico its actions on glyphosate and genetically engineered crops raise concerns "regarding compliance" with USMCA.
Citing discussions with CropLife, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) joined in the effort, discussing in an inter-agency email "how we could use USMCA to work through these issues."
The Guardian also noted correspondence involving the Foreign Agricultural Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
As the letter to Vilsack and Tai points out: "This interference and pressure from the agrochemical industry is continuing. On March 22nd, industry representatives sent a letter directed to your attention as leaders of USTR and USDA, identifying Mexico's planned phaseout of glyphosate and genetically modified corn as a 'leading concern' for agribusiness interests and the pesticide industry (represented by the pesticide industry's trade group, CropLife America)."
"We strongly object to any interference by U.S. government officials or agribusiness interests in a sovereign state's right to enact policy measures to protect the health and well-being of its people," the letter states. "We urge your agencies to resist and reject these ongoing efforts."
"We welcome the administration's stated commitment to listening to the science, improving public health, protecting the environment, and limiting exposure to dangerous chemicals and pesticides, while holding polluters accountable and prioritizing environmental justice, particularly for communities of color and low-income communities," it adds. "We trust that these stated commitments, as well as your dedication to 'fairness for farmers,' extend equally to other countries and include respect for other nations' and peoples' rights to self-determination."
Other signatories to the letter include the American Sustainable Business Council, Beyond Pesticides, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace USA, Indigenous Environmental Network, ITAP, and Organic Consumers Association.
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'Huge Victory': Federal Appeals Court Orders EPA to Ban All Food Uses of Toxic Pesticide Chlorpyrifos
"EPA's time is now up," said the environmental law firm Earthjustice, which sued the agency on behalf of labor and public health groups.
Apr 29, 2021
The environmental law organization Earthjustice celebrated a "huge victory" for farmworkers and children on Thursday after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to ban all food uses of a toxic pesticide linked to memory loss and developmental harms.
The EPA was given 60 days (pdf) to revoke all food uses of chlorpyrifos and retain only those that are found to have no effects on people's health.
"This ruling is a huge victory for children and communities across the country who will finally be spared by needless poisonings and lifelong learning disabilities," said Earthjustice in a statement.
Representing labor groups including United Farm Workers and public health organizations including the Learning Disability Association of America, Earthjustice filed a lawsuit against the EPA after the agency refused to ban chlorpyrifos in 2019 and in 2016 under the Trump administration.
The Obama administration had been working to ban the pesticide before former president Donald Trump took office in 2016, and environmental groups have been calling for an end to all food uses for the chemical for decades.
"We have been working for years to make this happen," Earthjustice tweeted Thursday.
Numerous scientific studies have found that exposure to organophosphate pesticides, the class of chemicals that includes chlorpyrifos, is linked to attention deficit disorders, autism spectrum disorders, hand tremors, and other symptoms in children.
Organophosphates--which also include sarin nerve gas--were originally developed by the Nazis for chemical warfare but were later adopted for agricultural uses.
Chlorpyrifos was banned for household use in 2001, but is still used widely to grow strawberries, apples, citrus, broccoli, corn, and other fruits and vegetables--putting farmworkers and rural communities most at risk for exposure but also affecting children's long-term health through exposures in food and drinking water.
"The court got it right: EPA's time is now up. EPA must now follow the law, ban chlorpyrifos, and protect children and farmworkers from a pesticide we know is linked to numerous developmental harms."
--Patti Goldman, Earthjustice
The court condemned the EPA's "egregious delay" in banning the agricultural use of the chemical and accused the agency of exposing "a generation of American children to unsafe levels of chlorpyrifos."
"By remanding back to the EPA one last time, rather than compelling the immediate revocation of all chlorpyrifos tolerances, the court is itself being more than tolerant. But the EPA's time is now up," the ruling stated.
Earthjustice called on the EPA to put the ban into effect immediately.
"The court got it right: EPA's time is now up," said Patti Goldman, managing attorney at Earthjustice. "EPA must now follow the law, ban chlorpyrifos, and protect children and farmworkers from a pesticide we know is linked to numerous developmental harms. It would be unconscionable for EPA to expose children to this pesticide for any longer."
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit denounced the agency for failing to take action without legal intervention.
"Today the court has affirmed what scientists have known for decades: chlorpyrifos is much too dangerous to be using, and EPA's lack of action has put children, farmworkers and rural communities at risk," Kristin Schafer, executive director at Pesticide Action Network (PAN), said. "Sadly, it takes legal action to force our public agencies to do their job."
"We are gratified by the court's decision in this case, yet, outraged that the EPA has dragged this out for four years after their 2015 decision based on sound science to ban all food uses of chlorpyrifos," said Jeannie Economos of the Farmworker Association of Florida. "It is unconscionable that it has taken so long to provide equal protection to these beautiful, yet vulnerable children in our agricultural communities. EPA must act immediately to comply with the court's decision. This is about health justice and a human right to a healthy workplace."
Earthjustice noted that chlorpyrifos is just one of dozens of organophosphates used on produce at farms across the country.
"While we celebrate this win today, EPA must also ban all organophosphates to fully protect public health," said Goldman.
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Citing Her Ties to Agribusiness and Fossil Fuels, 160+ Groups Tell Biden That Heitkamp Is 'Wrong Choice' for USDA
"She has aligned herself with corporate agribusiness at the expense of family farmers, supports fossil fuel interests, and holds views that are out of step with the Democratic Party and the majority of Americans."
Nov 16, 2020
As part of progressives' broader battle to push President-elect Joe Biden to claim his "FDR moment" by choosing a Cabinet well-equipped to tackle the nexus of crises the country currently faces, more than 160 organizations came together Tuesday to oppose former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The coalition of environmental, social justice, sustainable agriculture, labor, animal welfare, public health, family farmer, consumer advocacy, and anti-hunger groups sent a letter (pdf) to Biden, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, and their transition team detailing Heitkamp's political record as well as her ties to agribusiness and fossil fuels.
Although she is considered the frontrunner to become Biden's agriculture secretary, "progressives have knives out for Heitkamp," Politico reported Monday. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) has expressed interest in the job and progressives have also pointed to Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) or Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) as possible picks.
"Heitkamp is the wrong choice for the USDA because she has aligned herself with corporate agribusiness at the expense of family farmers, supports fossil fuel interests, and holds views that are out of step with the Democratic Party and the majority of Americans," says the letter, spearheaded by Friends of the Earth (FOE).
"There will be a big fight on Heitkamp if Biden puts her name forward," Kari Hamerschlag, FOE's deputy director of food and agriculture, told Politico. In a statement Tuesday, Hamerschlag added that "if President-elect Biden is serious about meeting his climate goals, he cannot name Heitkamp as USDA secretary."
Other signatories to the letter include 350.org, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Center for Food Safety, Pesticide Action Network, the Sunrise Movement, Zero Hour, the HEAL Food Alliance, People's Action, and Family Farm Action--which last week put out a comprehensive plan detailing how the Biden administration can bring "economic vitality to rural communities in the face of racial injustice, economic decline, climate change, and a devastating pandemic."
"Facing excessive monopoly control of their markets and climate change, our farmers and ranchers need a USDA leader who has the experience and the vision to build a new resilient food system that works for farmers, workers, and local and regional businesses throughout the food system," Joe Maxwell, president of Family Farm Action, said Tuesday. "During her tenure in the U.S. Senate, Heidi Heitkamp has proven she is not that leader; she is part of the problem, not the solution."
"During her tenure in the U.S. Senate, Heidi Heitkamp has proven she is not that leader; she is part of the problem, not the solution."
--Joe Maxwell, Family Farm Action
The groups cite Heitkamp's history of taking tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry and agribusiness giants including Bayer-Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland, Syngenta, and Cargill. They also highlight that she "led legislation that exacerbated concentration in the agriculture sector, eased regulations on factory farms, and thwarted progress on combating climate change."
In addition to "boasting about" cutting food stamps for poor families, the letter continues, Heitkamp "helped lead negotiations on a Farm Bill that widened subsidy loopholes for wealthy mega-farms and exacerbated concentration in agriculture," and even sponsored an amendment to expand industry check-off marketing programs criticized by independent farmers and ranchers for "unfairly benefiting" Big Ag.
As Navina Khanna of the HEAL Food Alliance put it: "Heitkamp's track record speaks for itself: she cares more about corporations than communities." Khanna called on the incoming Biden administration "to name a USDA secretary who understands the urgency of the moment and will think and act with that in mind--with care for independent farmers, the food system's essential workers, and families all over that are struggling to make ends meet."
Given that Heitkamp "is in the pocket of corporate ag, fossil fuels, and the health insurance industry," warned People's Action director George Goehl, "appointing her would confirm people's fears that Democrats are controlled by the same corporate puppet strings as Republicans. If Democrats want to start winning a larger share of the rural vote, they have to cut the puppet strings and stand with everyday people."
The letter explains that Heitkamp cosponsored legislation to roll back environmental regulations, expand drilling on public lands, and ease air quality regulations on factory farms, along with seeking to "weaken longstanding conservation measures on subsidized agricultural lands." She also supported the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines, and broke with Democrats to back President Donald Trump's nomination of Scott Pruitt to run the Environmental Protection Agency.
With his win on November 3, Biden faces a mandate from voters and advocacy groups to act boldly to address climate chaos. "Heitkamp's environmental record and support of the fossil fuel industry should disqualify her from leading an agency that is crucial to President-elect Biden's bold plan to fight climate change," the letter charges.
After losing her reelection race to a Republican in North Dakota in 2018, Heitkamp "used leftover campaign funds to start an organization that urges Democrats to move to the right on a range of issues, including climate change," the letter notes. "The group is run out of a D.C. lobbying firm that works on behalf of Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Tech, and the fossil fuel industry."
"Tapping Heitkamp for this position in the Biden administration would enable the continuation of disastrous Trump-era food and farm policies, jeopardize President-elect Biden's climate goals, and boost corporate agribusiness at the expense of family farmers, frontline communities, the environment, hungry families, and animal welfare," the groups conclude. "We need a USDA secretary that we can fully trust to deliver a healthy, just, and sustainable food system."
Rather than selecting the former senator, the letter urges Biden to pick "one of the many other highly qualified candidates--including several women candidates and candidates of color--without ties to agribusiness and fossil fuels." More broadly, the groups call on him to "refrain from nominating any agribusiness or fossil fuel industry lobbyists and senior executives or members of Congress who have taken major campaign contributions from agribusiness or fossil fuel companies, PACs, or lobbyists."
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