“THE Our farmers deserve to be listened to. I know they are worried about the future of agriculture and their future. But they also know that agriculture must transition to a more sustainable production model, so that their companies remain profitable for years to come.” Thus the President of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen announced that she will propose “the withdrawal” of the legislative proposal on pesticides.
The U-turn on pesticides, a success for farmers?
The Commission’s about-face on the pesticide regulation (Sur) is an effect of the tractor march on Brussels’ agricultural policies, and it causes discussion. But according to Francesco Sottile, professor and researcher at the University of Palermo and member of the Slow Food Board of Directors, it is only proof that «at a European level there is no desire to open a serious table with farmers but only to quell the protest through concessions which have nothing to do with the true motivations of farmers, the real ones and not the exploited ones.”
The impact of the ban on pesticides on Italian agricultural production
The regulation indicted and withdrawn by von der Leyen would have had, according to Coldiretti, a devastating impact on agricultural production in the European Union and nationally: it would in fact have favored imports from non-EU countries which do not respect the same environmental, health and workers’ rights standards. Contributing to the crisis of an already tested sector: from wars and economic insecurity but also, very much, from climate change.
What is the Sur regulation
The Sur Regulation (Sustainable use regulation) proposed by the European Commission – but rejected by the EU Parliament – aimed at 50% reduction (compared to the three-year period 2015-2017) in the use of pesticides and chemical pesticides by 2030.
Each state would have to define its own reduction objectives developing a national strategy established together with the Union. In the case of Italy, the reduction should have been 62% for the total consumption of plant protection products and 54% for more dangerous substances. Not only that, it also provided for a cut in the economic resources of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
The dangerous food comes from non-EU countries
The withdrawal of the proposal for a regulation on the sustainable use of pesticides (Sur) saves, according to Coldiretti, 30 percent of the production at the basis of the Mediterranean diet, from wine to tomato, put at risk by the “unrealistic objective of halving the use of agrochemicals”.
And this does not mean, according to the association, that farmers are enemies of the environment. On the contrary. Italy has the largest number of green agricultural businesses in Europe, who cultivate organically on approximately one fifth of the total agricultural area. And it cut 20 percent of pesticides in a decade, a record cut.
If food safety is at risk it is due to products, more than eight out of ten, which come from abroad (86 percent). This is notable the Rapid Alert System (Rassf). Of the total of 317 alarms detected in 2022, 106 came from imports from other European Union states (33 percent) and 167 from non-EU countries (53 percent), and only 44 (14 percent) concerned products of national origin .
Hence also the opposition to the EU agreement with Mercosur, which consists in the elimination of mutual duties between EU countries and those adhering to the South American organization. According to Coldiretti it should be rejected. While the criterion of reciprocity of production rules must be introduced.
February 6, 2024, in Girona. Farmers’ protests have affected all EU countries (Photo by Adri Salido/Getty Images)
How can we impose the same production rules in Europe and around the world?
Francesco Sottile, of the Slow Food Board of Directors, puts the environmental issue at the centre, also in the interests of farmers. «The withdrawal of the regulation on pesticides, as well as the exemption from fallow land (a measure to make the agri-food sector sustainable, ed.), is useful in calming things down. But so production problems will only be exacerbated over the years due to an increasingly serious climate crisis».
How then to defend Italian productions? «Not through border closures and the imposition of duties but by demanding that trade agreements follow the imposition of similar production rules. What it is not acceptable that different countries have different rules and production costs, poisoning the competition to the detriment of serious and virtuous farmers who continue to produce in a certain way, especially according to the agroecological method”.
Incentives for the ecological transition
According to Legambiente too, farmers must be helped but in another way. And that is through interventions to support the ecological transition of the sector but at the same time guarantee income. «Bureaucracy should be streamlined and technical assistance and policies guaranteed that economically reward those who focus on agrogeology and ecosystem services. The development of renewables in the agricultural sector is encouraged reduce energy costs and approve the inclusion of agromafia crimes in the penal code to stop the illegality and unfair competition of the sector”.
Ideally possible interventions, whose implementation, however, evidently farmers no longer believe. What exists, before their eyes, is yes climate change but also the prices of their products which triple in supermarkets without even what was needed to produce them coming into their pockets.
From farm to table, prices triple (at least). The extreme case of bread
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