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Don’t Be A Sucker

This is the latest video to be making the rounds of the Internet, and as usual I’m a little behind everyone else.  Many people are comparing it to what’s happening in Charlottesville, what Trump is saying and so on.

For me this video says a lot about The Netherlands now.  All you have to do is substitute what’s said about negros with non-ethnic Dutch, and the Catholic church with mosques.  Like everywhere else, the number of bad people here is very small, but they are very effective at creating division between different groups, and making themselves heard.

The food industry in particular here is very effective in promoting their genetically pure and uniform products, using tactics like these and genetically pure, white, Dutch figureheads.

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European Farming in 2020

Last month the EU Council issued a press release announcing agreement on a new EU organic farming EU organic farming regulation.  This is actually a big deal, and I know a number of people who have been involved in the negotiations.  It still has to be formally passed as a legislative package, but since the important parties have all agreed, this is likely just a formality.  It will come into effect 1 July 2020, meaning it won’t fully be in force until the 2021 planting season, and consumers won’t fully see the changes until later that year after the harvest.

Not Perfect, and Lots of Compromises

This is not a perfect piece of legislation, and there’s still a long way to go towards reforming agriculture in Europe.  Putting so much emphasis on organic food is flawed.  Organic is a legally defined term, and is subject to different interpretations.

What we need in Europe is normal food, based on biodiversity, agroecology and grown and sold by small and local producers.  This regulation goes some way towards these goals, but is not enough.  This regulation gives too much control to large agricultural interests.  In particular it doesn’t do enough to control pesticide use overall, doesn’t do enough to reduce and sequester greenhouse gas emissions and doesn’t really promote agroecology.

What it does do is make agroecology theoretically possible, as well as provide a few loopholes to the strict EU seed laws.  It might mean fewer dangerous pesticides are used on food consumed in Europe.  It will mean consumers have access to more biodiversity in their food, and there are potentially big gains to be had in the quality of food available.

These small gains have been fought fiercely by the food industry, who have pretty much guaranteed market dominance for themselves.  The food industry is prepared in almost all ways to wait until a small farmer has a clever idea, then steal it and destroy the business model of the small farmer in the process.

Agroecology

This is a somewhat unfortunate term.  It’s a bit like organic, in that it’s being co-opted by industrial agriculture.  Like the term organic, it refers to what used to be normal agriculture.  Different people have given it different names along the way, like permaculture or ecological.  For some reason we’ve needed to invent yet another name for it, so different people can claim ownership over the idea and define it according to their own purposes.  I use the term reluctantly, because it is what a lot of people are saying at the moment.

This is a term that describes a system of ‘normal’ agriculture, without chemical or unnatural inputs, generally operating in a closed system without any inputs.  It’s principle is building soil over time — over centuries.  It has very little to do with the 3 years without chemicals need to produce certified organic food.  The consequence of building up soil is the sequestering of greenhouse gasses.  The system is very fragile, and any contamination with chemicals at all generally causes very long term damage.  It depends on large tracts of adjoining land, also based on agroecology, in order to maintain biodiversity and habitats for beneficial organisms.

This new organic regulation envisages patches of certified organic land, side by side conventional farms, where the classification of the land changes back and forth over time, and has little to do with agroecology or maintaining ecosystems and building soils.

The relationship between conventional and organic producers is somewhat like public smoking.  The use of pesticides damages the public health and environment.  A short term solution is isolating conventional farmers in their own regions, but in the long term no one will be happy with that solution, so eventually it will be necessary to phase out the use of pesticides.  The pesticide industry is however very powerful and deceptive, and difficult to deal with.

Pesticide Industry

What this organic regulation really does is significantly strengthen the position of the pesticide industry.  The pesticide manufacturers are already facing competition from old unpatented products like glyphosate.  Using very deceptive public campaigns, designed to look like some sort of activists’ issue, they are using organizations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth to promote their products — even to the extent of staging fake European Citizens’ Initiatives.

Not only is this likely to continue, but as the older products are removed from the market, new ones will take their place.  Since the definition of organic is subject to formal and strict interpretation, they are very likely to find ways of including their products in the food chain.  For example, they may develop new products based on GMOs, used in food packaging or that can be used on perimeters of organic land without actually contaminating the food grown on them, but possibly causing a great deal of damage to the ecosystem.

There are likely to be a lot more grey lines in the use of pesticides in organic agriculture, and still a lot more battles to be fought.  It’s going to be more important than ever to buy food from local producers that you know personally, trust and don’t have enough money to spend it on pesticides.

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The Segmented Society

This was the title of a book written by my late father.  You can buy it on Amazon here, if you’re interested.  It’s not my intention to say what this book means, or what he thought.  In fact not many people like it when others say what they think, and I don’t think he would have either.  If you want to know what he thought, you should read the book and come to your own conclusions, or maybe talk to some of his former students or colleagues.  His thoughts are his, and mine are mine.

The purpose of this post is to talk about what I think the relevance of segmentation in our society is, both to this blog as well as the seed movement and democracy in general.

Information Bubbles

We all live in our own information bubbles.  We all choose what information to read and acquire, according to our interests and the people we trust.  Reading this blog, and this article, identifies you with one particular bubble.  If you also listen to Fox News in the US, or the BBC in the UK, these are also information bubbles.  Your profession, religion, education, ethnicity and many other factors play a role in the information bubbles you participate in.  There are countless information bubbles all over the world, and seemingly more developing all the time.  Perhaps more important, is what you choose to exclude from your information bubbles.

Labour is an important political party in some European countries, comparable to the Democratic Party in the US.  Here in The Netherlands, the Labour party had similar problems to the US Democratic party, and is struggling to find relevance with voters.  It was once a somewhat left leaning party, but in recent times has mostly capitulated to the more conservative parties, and no one knows what they stand for any more.

The Labour party commissioned a study into their recent electoral losses.  One of the conclusions of the study was that society is becoming more fragmented, and they aren’t doing enough to stay sufficiently relevant, so people aren’t continuing to include them in their information bubbles.

The Rise and Fall of Television

The declining importance of TV, and the rising relevance of the Internet, has played an important role in the segmenting of society.  It used to be that TV was a major influence in people’s lives, all over the world, and being a part of everyone’s information bubbles was as simple as paying for an advertisement.

Cigarette advertising also played a major role, because the money the tobacco industry invested in advertising paid for a great deal of public advertising infrastructure.

Now, everything from ad blocking software, open source software, downloading TV programs with the advertising removed, and the ability to choose which internet sites we look at (often based on advice from others), give us all a lot more control over the information we choose to let into our bubbles.

We still have companies like Facebook, Amazon, Google and so on, which all play major roles in our news, choice of websites and what we choose to buy.

Bubbles as Membership and Labels

Participating in information bubbles can have very tangible consequences.  For example, when you read this blog, link to it, comment on it, talk to others about what you’ve seen, mention it on Facebook, put it in your own words elsewhere on the Internet and so on, it can have a cascading effect.

Initially, I will see it in my log files if you read this site.  This allows me to tell others how many readers I have, and if you leave comments others can see my readers are active.  If things I write about become topics of discussion, others will find my original post in Google, and may become more active or long term readers of this blog.  Even very passive participation can have a big impact on this blog.  If you get in touch with me, and tell me what you think, you even have a chance to participate in the contents of the blog.

But also, once you identify yourself as a reader of this blog to others, then they know something about you.  Just like if someone tells you they watch Fox in the US, you know something about them.  You can like or dislike this blog, tell others, and allow them to develop their own opinions about you.  You become a part of the community of this blog.

The same thing happens with every other blog or news site, or TV station.  The same thing happens when you join or support other organizations or groups.  I think this is an important way democracy works.

Importantly, you allow this blog to speak on your behalf!  If you identify yourself as a member or participant, you generally support the positions of this blog, and I sometimes make assertions based on this blog’s topics and size of readership.  This is true of any traditional media source, or any other organization.

Identifying Opponents

As well as finding friends within your information bubbles, and other like minded people, you can also use these bubbles to identify people who are working against things you believe in.  Sometimes this is intentional, perhaps because of commercial interests, and other times it’s just people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Sometimes the issues are very complicated, and people make the wrong spur of the moment choices.  It often requires thought and discussions with others to straighten things out, and above all it requires depending on people you trust.

This is a very important tool of information bubbles, and in my opinion as a society we are just learning how to do this.  This is an important part of this blog, and related to my discussions recently on fake news.

It often requires resisting the temptation to pay attention to famous or well known people, who are possibly trying to turn their notoriety into money.

Tool of Democracy

Effectively controlling and manipulating your information bubbles are a very important part of Democracy.  It allows you to filter out untrustworthy information, and to see the truth in situations.  It allows you to identify and resist advertising, and prevent being manipulated by the wealthiest 1% who continue to have the power to pay for providing you with fake news and misleading information.

I’m going to post more about this in the future.

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Ending Fossil Fuels

The Goal

I think many people agree, in an era of global warming, air pollution and international agreements like the Paris accord, we need to phase out the use of fossil fuels.  That at least seems like the obvious direction to head in.  Alternatives like sequestering carbon, which may be very important in the future, don’t seem viable at the moment.

Although I believe agriculture has a very important role to play in carbon sequestration, I also believe it’s important to phase out fossil fuels, at least in the way they are used today.  I think it may be possible to continue to use fossil fuels, in a very modest and efficient way, if they end up being the best solution under limited circumstances.  The issue is more that today they are used in very inefficient ways.

Air Pollution

I’m very unhappy air pollution is being used as a red herring in the issue of global warming.  If we phase out fossil fuels, cleaner air will certainly be a consequence.  Unlike climate change, when the sources of air pollution are addressed, the effects are pretty immediate and air quality rapidly improves.  Climate change however is something we will all have to live with during our lifetimes, no matter what we do now to address it.

I’m certainly in favor of taking steps to improve air quality, especially in the world’s largest cities, where it’s a major problem today.  At the same time, reasonable steps are being taken, and continue to be taken, and air quality in most places is improving.  Air quality should not be an obstacle to addressing climate change, except possibly on a localized basis, where it’s an unusually serious problem.

Air quality is also something that has not been well quantified by realities around us.  For example, we all know smoking is bad for you, and in many places lung cancer has even become the leading cause of death.  This is something that’s a clear and obvious threat.  Air pollution is less clear, and while politicians consider it top priority, very little is being done to make it a relevant day to day issue for people.  Lots of questions exist in my mind about the strategies being used to address air pollution.

For example, the two major components of diesel pollution are nitrous oxides and PM2.5 nano-particles.  While I don’t deny these are dangerous, the issue is putting them into perspective.  In the Netherlands, the places where nitrous oxide levels are considered high enough to be a health threat are in areas around intensive meat farms.  I’m not aware of any serious efforts under way to address this pollution.

I also don’t have any reference for considering PM2.5.  Who are the people dying or made sick by it?  What are their symptoms and medical diagnoses?  Besides politicians considering it serious, what other credible metrics can ordinary people use to gage it’s seriousness?  Why is it that since the industrial revolution air quality has been an issue, but only now is it so urgent?  This has not been well enough explained, and there is not enough independent science addressing the issue.

What about all of the freight being hauled by diesel fuel around the world: boats, trucks/lorries, trains?  I read somewhere that diesel cars produce more pollution than other sources.  Okay, if we accept that as true, a lot is being done to address the issue with cars.  For example we now have low sulphur fuel and  the EURO6 standard for diesel cars in Europe, although many people consider this inadequate.  What is being done for the other sources of diesel pollution?  Surely these cannot be considered completely insignificant?  We have all lived with diesel pollution for all of our lives, so why is it so urgent now and isn’t it getting better anyway?  If we phase out the use of fossil fuels, isn’t this a problem that will solve itself?

Why do we urgently need to address the issue of diesel pollution at the expense of climate change?  At the moment diesel is one of the best, most established and cheapest technologies for reducing greenhouse emissions.  Even hybrid electric cars are generally not more efficient than diesels, and diesels generally emit less greenhouse gases.

The High Price of Electricity

As a world, we pay a very high price for maintaining an electric grid and generating electricity centrally.  It’s a very inefficient way to produce and distribute energy, it’s main benefit is convenience.  Much of the generated electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels like coal or natural gas, and it’s often much more efficient to use these fossil fuels directly, to heat homes or run engines.  We take major risks using nuclear technologies for this purpose.  Even so-called renewable sources have their costs, cluttering landscapes and filling farmland with windmills or vast solar panel arrays, which all have their energy costs for construction and disposal.

At the moment, no one could even begin to argue that using electricity as a substitute for other fuels is a greener thing to do.  Only about 5% of electricity comes from renewable sources now.  Even if in the future we are able to generate 100% of our electricity from renewable sources, there will still be environmental costs.  Some people even argue that nuclear power is green, because there’s no greenhouse gas emissions.

The argument that switching to electric cars is more environmentally friendly is seriously flawed.  Now you have the inefficiencies of generating and transporting electricity that’s not sustainably produced, and even once that’s addressed you will still have problems associated with sustainable energy production as well as the manufacturing and disposal costs of the electric cars themselves.  It’s very unlikely modern lithium ion car batteries will ever be effectively recycled, together with the rest of the circuitry in a modern electric car.  In fact a great deal of mined finite resources go into electric cars, with few if any recycling possibilities.  Air pollution is another issue, and electric cars may make sense in some areas for this reason, but electric cars are unlikely to be a complete or sustainable solution for climate change.

Another problem with electric cars is their enormous power consumption.  You may not think of a light vehicle driving around on a battery as a fuel hog, but modern batteries are in fact very large and powerful.  Those of you familiar with 3-phase power may appreciate that electric cars benefit with faster charging with such a connection, and in some cases an electric car can consume many times more than an entire household.  Such a massive expansion of our power grids is not going to be a benefit to the environment, it’s only going to make the energy companies bigger and more powerful, and the wealthiest people richer.  Reducing energy consumption is a better approach than increasing it.

It’s also an incomplete argument that you might be able to choose the energy company you buy power from, and therefore can buy renewable energy.  If you draw power from the electric grid, it tends to come from the closest source.  If the closest source is a nuclear plant, then that’s where your power comes from.  Who you pay for using that power is more political than anything else, and is too dependent on government subsidies and taxes.  It’s false logic to say that if everyone stops paying for non-renewable energy it will cease to exist, there are simply too many variables at play.  If you want renewable energy, you need to generate it yourself.

Local Generation and Tesla vs Edison

Solar panels and electric cars have something very important in common, they both operate on DC current.  On the other hand our houses operate on AC.  Electricity generated by turning a turbine, like almost all modern electricity production, is also AC.

Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison are arguably two of the most important pioneers in electric power engineering.  It turns out the two of them worked side by side and had some very important philosophical differences, especially regarding the benefits of AC vs DC.

The main difference is that AC can be more easily transported greater distances by means of a power grid, but DC is safer because the voltage is generally lower and can be stored more easily.  It’s also a little costly to convert to and from AC and DC.  In the end Tesla won, and except for small battery powered devices, we use AC almost exclusively at home.

Now, if we need DC power for example to charge our phones, we plug a converter into an electric outlet.

What’s interesting, now with solar panels and electric cars, is the same debates Edison and Tesla had are coming back.  Since both solar panels and electric cars work on DC, it actually may be better to reassess if we actually need AC power at all, and if it would be better to base most things on DC power, and use a converter to change to AC when it’s really necessary.

Without AC power, it would not be possible to transfer it long distances with a power grid.  However with the technology of solar panels rapidly improving and getting cheaper, it may be possible to generate the majority of our power locally.  The problem now is it’s generally not feasible to power an electric car with solar panels alone, because a lot of solar panels are needed and electric cars need to be charged too frequently and rapidly.  It is however feasible to power your home with solar panels, and if necessary to store the excess energy in a battery, possibly even a car battery.  Converters can be used when necessary to power devices designed to operate on AC.  This is not the future, this is very much the reality now.

What’s handy, especially because we are in a transition phase now where we still have an important electric grid, is being able to feed back to the grid.  More specifically, there is a device called a grid-tie inverter, that converts DC power to AC in a form that can be fed onto the grid.  This means the grid acts as a sort of large battery, and you can draw the power back when you need it.  A grid-tie inverter can be purchased for as little as €100, and assuming your house is not fitted with a ‘smart meter’, you can feed onto the grid without your energy company knowing about it.  A standard electric meter will turn forward when you use electricity, and backwards when you feed back to the grid.

A grid-tie inverter simply plugs into a standard electric outlet.  If your grid-tie inverter has a capacity of more than 500w, it would be a good idea to use a dedicated circuit for it.  An alternative is to use more than one inverter on different circuits, or a battery with a charge controller to delay feeding some of the power back to the grid to hours when there is little or no power coming from your solar panels.

Glass panel solar panels are now old school.

The latest solar panels are plastic and weigh about 1kg.  They usually have grommets in the corners, and can be tied down with rope or fastened on a wall with a screw.  They are more efficient than solar panels from a few years ago, meaning they work better in lower light environments and don’t necessarily need to get full sun all day long.  A south facing wall is a good location.  They are intended for ‘temporary installation’, meaning building permits are often not necessary and you can take them with you when you move.  You also don’t need to put holes in your roof during installation.  The electricity they generate is DC, which means there is little risk of shocks, and they are generally safer than standard household electricity.

The wiring is easy for anyone with very basic handyman skills, but be sure to pay attention to the current rating of the various components and ensure you are using sufficiently heavy cabling.

The relationship between watts, amps and voltage is as follows:

I = amps
E = voltage
P = watts

P = I * E
I = P / E
E = P / I

For a short length, typical installation, a 4mm cable is sufficient for 30A and a 6mm cable is sufficient for 50A.  For distances longer than a few meters, be sure to consult an online calculator for the correct cable size.  To save on wiring costs, consider installing a 24V system instead of a 12V one.  24V can be made by connecting 2 12V or 18V panels in series.  Solar panels can be connected in parallel to combine their current outputs.

Poor connections, pinched cables or overloaded components are all fire hazards.  Be sure to pay attention to these things.

In my case, a 2kW installation would meet most of my needs.  That’s about 20 x 100w panels (€160 each), a grid-tie inverter for about €200, battery controller and battery, and some wiring.  About €4000 in total, for a system that should generate about €500 of electricity per year at current prices.  This would require about 10m2 of space on a wall or roof.  All the work can be dome by most people themselves often without permits, just figure out what you need, buy the parts and install it.  Everything can be bought online, almost anywhere in the world.

Prices will almost certainly come down further, so waiting might be a good idea.

My Conclusions

According to your personal situation, consider installing as many solar panels as is reasonable and possible.  Consider doing it yourself, or hiring a simple handyman.  Consider a long-term ‘temporary’ installation, without a contract with the energy company and without building permits.  Consider the technology is rapidly changing, so if you are forced to sell your house with the solar panels still installed, it may be like trying to sell an old computer.  Your house may have less resale value, and the new owner may want to install newer and better solar panels.

If you manage to install enough solar panels to heat and cool your house, as well as cook, great.  Otherwise, consider natural gas where possible.  This is more efficient than buying electricity.  When you are completely satisfied that the electricity powering the grid is better, then buy the electricity.

If you live in one of the larger cities where air pollution is a serious problem, consider if you need to buy an electric car.  Also, if you are able to generate enough electricity for a car, and only intend to drive it locally and charge at home, this might also be an option.  Otherwise, consider buying a diesel.

By some accounts, the greenhouse gasses and other environmental problems coming from the power grid, is much worse than that of cars.

Remember, the goal is to minimize fossil fuel use.  Think about this, don’t waste money on expensive new junk, and try not to buy consumer items that will become problems to dispose of in environmentally friendly ways.  Remember to consider the energy used in manufacturing, transporting and recycling your purchase.

It’s better to do what’s right, then to do what politicians and corporations tell us to do.

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Glyphosate ECI — Democracy Stolen

The organizers of the Glyphosate European Citizens’ Initiative issued a press release today claiming victory. Here’s a snapshot of the campaign page for future reference.

Activist Organizations as Proxies

This is a battle of Monsanto and Bayer against small farmers, plain and simple.  The patents on glyphosate have long since expired, and the sale of the product doesn’t result in high corporate profits any more.  Bayer is in the process of acquiring Monsanto, and wants to sell farmers new solutions for controlling weeds, that are more expensive and patented.  This is a similar situation as the banning of old TVs and light bulbs.

Glyphosate is an emotional issue.  Many activists have been against it for a long time now, and in general against all use of pesticides.  Glyphosate is particularly emotional for many of us, because we have come into contact with it through other gardeners, farmers and it’s even been used by local governments in urban areas.  It’s a horrendous health and environmental issue, but for better or worse, it’s also a critical tool for many farmers.

There’s been very little direct news from Bayer of Monsanto on this issue.  We hear things like ‘analysts say this ECI will cost Bayer millions of euros in Europe alone’ — but no confirmation from Bayer on this.  Neither Bayer nor Monsanto seem the least bit opposed to this campaign.  They are just sitting back and watching everything unfold.

Instead of involving themselves directly on the issue, these big companies are using a combination of fake activist organizations, together with other paid or tricked organizations, to promote their message and pretend this is some sort of activist issue.

There is no democratic control of this campaign, no way for participants to voice their opinions and influence the outcome.  I believe many of the people and organizations that gave their name and reputations in support of this measure, are aghast at how this has become a vicious attack on Europe’s farmers, small and large, but have no real way to voice that opinion.

Unrealistic Amounts of Money

There was a time, as recently as 5-10 years ago, when some of these health and environmental organizations were credible.  In particular, here in The Netherlands, for many people giving significant amounts of money to charitable organizations was an important part of their life.  Some of these organizations became obscenely wealthy as a result.  These days are gone, and people today realize if you give money to an environmental organization, your money is dwarfed by large corporate or philanthropist contributions, and as an individual donor you have no possibility of influencing them.  In the end, your contribution often doesn’t support the kinds of causes you think it should.

On the other hand, corporations and the wealthiest individuals have become particularly adept at using these organizations for their own purposes.

To put things in perspective, one of the most important seed initiatives right now, the Open Source Seed Initiative, after several years of fund raising, mentioned recently on their web page they had raised on the order of tens of thousands of dollars.  This isn’t really enough to hire a single person for an entire year.  The glyphosate ECI on the other hand is clearly involving millions of euros, and tens, hundreds or even thousands of people, many of whom are very skilled and highly paid lobbyists.

No Evidence of Real Signatures Being Collected

Signatures on a petition are understandably low on the radar in terms of considering forgeries.   At the same time, they are very susceptible to being manipulated with large amounts of money.  You can for example pay a student minimum wage to collect signatures from their friends, but you can also pay thousands of students to do the same thing.  You can also collect signatures at workplaces, under the watchful eye of their employers.

If you spend a lot of money this way, it can be visible, and people can ask questions about where the money is coming from.  If you copy signatures from an earlier ECI, probably no one would notice.  The same thing is true if you happened to have a list of people’s personal data, for example dates of birth and address, and forged the signatures as a sort of identity theft.  Who would notice this, and who would investigate?

What I can say with respect to this blog is that it is visible in Google, shared on Facebook and very visible to anyone researching this ECI.  Of the million plus people who signed it, only a few hundred were interested enough to research it on the Internet, and have ended up on this blog.

There’s no convincing publicly available evidence that any real persons have signed this initiative of their own free will.

Fake News, Fake Blogs and an Orchestrated Campaign

The Internet is swimming in fake and inconsequential news articles and blog posts on glyphosate right now.  Very few of them are real news outlets, and certainly very few big name papers or news sites.

They all repeat the same stories over and over, just slightly rewritten from site to site.  There’s no real debate, and very few offering different opinions or the perspective of farmers.

There have been very few announcements of events or promotional activities.  No real compelling news has emerged during this campaign.  The signatures have just appeared out of nowhere, without any reason or explanation.  In addition, the signatures appeared just in time, as the organizers planned, right at the end of June.

Fake Science with Changing Rules

The debate over science is almost laughable.  First all science has to be published articles, but most patent holders can block studies on their own products.  At the same time, loads of unpublished studies and unsupported facts emerge from anonymous sources, and they are supposed to be considered by the Commission.

The EU is supposed to only use ‘real’ science, but all of the science available is funded by industry.

The ECI itself even includes language that could possibly force all future science to be paid for and approved by the pesticide manufactures themselves.

It’s all just a catch-22 and all the arguments and debates are looping back on themselves.

Farming Crisis

There is and has been for a long time now, a farming crisis in Europe.  In the Netherlands, a tiny country of 17 million people, 10,000 farms are for sale now.  Many farmers report their children are not interested in becoming farmers themselves, or taking over the family business.  Not enough young people have the interest or financial means to start farming.  There is land grabbing which is driving the price of the most desirable land sharply up, while farming communities are reeling from the collapse of the family farming economy and the unprecedented numbers of farms on the market.

Banning glyphosate is all that’s needed to drive many more farmers into bankruptcy.

This is a very serious situation.

No Compromise

The organizations behind the glyphosate ECI are relentless in where they stand.  No compromises.  Glyphosate must be banned.  No sympathy for farmers.

The Real Solution

The real solution is extending the glyphosate license for 15 years, like the farmers are asking for, then highly regulate glyphosate.  It should only be available to farmers, and it should not be used in public spaces or near people’s homes.  Appropriate safety measures should be taken to avoid accidental contamination and contact with farm workers.

Genuine effort should be taken to encourage farmers to stop using glyphosate or any other pesticide, through education and incentives, rather than an absolute ban.

Consumers should have more information about what their food has been treated with, and have more opportunity to buy it from trustworthy sources.

Failing Europe

If the Commission accepts this ECI, and the arguements given for banning glyphosate, they are ignoring all their critics of an undemocratic Europe that ignores the wishes of the people.