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Pesticides in Europe

This post is part of the series EU Agriculture 2020.

Glyphosate

The EU Commission released it’s formal response to the European Citizens’ Initiative to ban glyphosate, the active ingredient in Round Up.  I think the response is very good, and the link provided to the Commission’s pesticide page also provides a lot of good information.

I share the disappointment a lot of people have that a formal phase-out of glyphosate was not agreed, as was proposed by France and others in an EU Parliament resolution.  That would have been a better solution than the straight 5-year extension that took place, but I think glyphosate needs to stay on the market a little longer, and I respect the fact that compromises needed to be made.  I will firmly oppose any further extension, and if it comes off the market in 5 years, all things considered, it will be a good outcome.

I’m going to go into a little more detail on this in the next section.  The problem is that pesticides in general, and chemical alternatives to glyphosate in particular, are mostly in the process of being phased out.  Those that are still on the market are generally much more expensive and toxic than glyphosate.  In addition, many pesticide manufacturers have other alternatives in the pipeline, and it’s important to prevent these coming on the market.  It’s not a good time to abruptly take glyphosate out of the hands of farmers.  Five years will be a good time to develop non-chemical alternatives, and give farmers the opportunity to develop and learn new techniques.

Pesticides in the EU

There is no mandate for eliminating pesticides in the EU, but the pesticides page linked to above explains how there is a process underway to mandate alternatives (integrated pest management or IPM) and safer pesticides where no non-chemical solution exists.

As a rule, pesticides are licensed for either 10 or 15 years.  For many of the most harmful pesticides, we are reaching the end of their license, and most of these are not being renewed.  There are several reasons the renewals are being rejected, but perhaps the most important is the pesticide companies themselves would like to see unpatented and less profitable products removed from the market.  Public opinion also plays a role, as does public health and safety.

Most pesticides now being approved are far less toxic than they were, even as recently as a decade ago.

In addition to the 10-15 year license periods, pesticides can be removed from the market or their use can be curtailed, when specific health or environmental concerns emerge.  This however requires the agreement of a qualified majority of EU states, and so is not as easy to achieve.

Especially the fact that corporate profits play such a strong role in the decision making, this process as a whole is not perfect.

It’s expected over time the EU will ban food imports that are not grown according to EU pesticide rules.

Political Process

The entire process of approving pesticides or not is a political process which has room for public opinion.  It’s not just a matter of a scientific process, where studies are made and decisions are automatic.  In fact, the reason many toxic products are coming off the market, are a direct result of consumers expressing a preference for organic products and public concern for the environment.

In the EU, there is progress being made.

Certified Organic

While there are still products on the market with pesticides consumers probably don’t want, the situation is changing.  In the next few years, especially if glyphosate is taken off the market in 5 years, the reasons for buying certified organic will be less.

Another side of certified organic is chemical fertilizers, and the EU is also in the process of reviewing fertilizer use.  There is an increasing mandate to use fertilizers in a sustainable way, that doesn’t harm the environment.  Probably around the time the most dangerous pesticides come off the market, the issue of chemical fertilizers will be less too.

Soon certified organic will only be a marketing term, and the negative aspects will probably outweigh the positives.

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Sugar and Isosugar

This post is part of the series EU Agriculture 2020.

Sugar from Starch

Americans are already familiar with High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), and this phenomenon has come screaming to European supermarkets too.  In the US, corn or maize is the principle grain used for food, and the reason why HFCS is common there.

In Europe wheat is mostly the grain of choice for sugar production, and it comes with lots of names.  Glucose syrup, glucose-fructose syrup, invert sugar, dextrose and many others.  If you come across a suspect ingredient, try looking it up in Google.

On the surface, there’s not a lot wrong with making sugar from starch.  This is how vodka is traditionally made for example, by first converting the starch in potatoes to sugar, then fermenting the sugar.  Beer is made in a similar way with barley.  Glucose syrup and barley malt have been available for purchase for a long time in supermarkets and other stores, added to processed foods and some people use these for cooking at home.

The main reason for making sugar this way is cost.  It’s very easy to make sugar very inexpensively this way.  If you’re a food manufacturer who’s business model is shaving a few cents off of every unit sold this, together with sugar substitutes like aspartame, is a key mechanism for profit.  Calories are a key way of measuring nutritional value of food, and so by some measures as the food manufacturers are pumping more sugar from starch into processed food, they are making food value available at lower cost and higher volume.

Until a few years ago, in the EU, sugar production was stimulated with subsidies, greatly reducing the costs.  In addition, the use of isosugars (sugar from starch) was restricted with a quota.  Now the sugar subsidies are gone, and the isosugar quotas have just been lifted.

In case you’re in Europe and wondering where the confusing array of sugars being added to food now came from, this is the reason.

Health Concerns

In a world without very much independent science, it’s not surprising there’s not a lot of proof isosugars are unhealthy.  After all, we have been eating them in one way or another for a very long time.  There is however a lot of concern coming from many quarters.

Obesity and diabetes in the US:  Starting in the 1980s, there was a dramatic surge of obesity, diabetes and other health problems, that seemed to correspond with the introduction of HFCS in the market there.  This was also the time when ‘diet’ or ‘light’ drink options became widely marketed, with sugar alternatives, which seem to be part of the problem too.

Fructose:  Isosugar/HFCS generally contains a lot of fructose, and the introduction of so much fructose to our diets is something new.  Fructose is the sugar in fruits, and while moderate fruit consumption is generally accepted to be part of a healthy diet, the amount of fructose in these new isosugars is much greater than we’ve seen before.  At least one study here in Amsterdam has sought to identify the risks of excessive fructose consumption in school children.

Appetite:  Ordinary sugar is a hunger suppressant, and also something people crave.   For centuries, undernourished people have used sugar as a cheap way to make themselves more comfortable.  There’s no doubt that sugar plays a role in a healthy diet as a way to limit consumption.

At least one study in the US suggested after the introduction of HFCS, the consumption of ordinary sugar stayed about the same.  In other words, HFCS did not seem to satisfy people’s craving for sugar.  Likewise, it may not act as a hunger suppressant in the same way ordinary sugar does.  It’s not hard to imagine how this may of led to the health crisis in the US.

It’s also not hard to imagine how dangerous the consumption of sugar alternatives can be, and why people who consume these products are on average heavier.  There are also suggestions that products like aspertame may be addicting, leading to binges in consumption in many ways.

Contamination

After decades of the food companies assuring Americans that HFCS was safe, in 2009 it emerged that many food products contained mercury through contaminated HFCS.  Does HFCS still contain mercury?  If the food industry assured you it didn’t, would you believe them?  What about here in Europe?

Alternatives

If you’re in Europe, and you’re anything like me, you’ve probably been going through ever more confusing food labels in the last few months.  At least here in the Netherlands, it’s still possible to buy foods with relatively normal ingredients, including normal sugar.

The problem increasingly is going to be what does ‘sugar’ mean when you see it on the label.  The food industry has already asserted that sugar from GM sugar beets is okay to use in Europe, because processing them supposedly destroys the GMOs.

‘Sugar’ is also a word that could include isosugar.  I’m not sure of the legal situation in Europe of claiming isosugar is sugar, but I can certainly see a lot of room for loopholes and interpretations here.  Cane sugar is also not something that’s currently widely grown in GMO form, so there may be reasons for needing to know the difference between cane and beet sugar.  You already see the food industry asserting the equivalence of sugar in their food packaging labels, preferring people think of it in terms of calories.

I know a lot of people wont accept this as I say it, but I think this needs to be a wake up call.  People need to take more responsibility for the food they eat.  We are reaching the point that we can’t trust processed or supermarket food.  It’s time for everyone to start growing more of their own food, cooking more of their own food, and eating less processed foods including animal products and any food sold with a nutritional analysis label.

Things to Prepare at Home

Sugar syrup:  By combining equal amounts of sugar and water, then bringing it to a boil in a pan stirring occasionally, you make a thick sugar syrup.  This convenient for example when making sweetened drinks, or anytime you might need to dissolve sugar in a cold liquid.  This is a common ingredient in cocktails.

Cookies: I suppose this is a very American thing, and most of the recipes on the Internet are in US measures.  American butter cooks differently from European butter, so you need to experiment a bit with proportions.

It’s not so hard to cook cakes, tarts and many other things at home, with real ingredients.  If you have a neighbor with similar interests, trading can be a great mutual benefit.

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Food Waste

This post is part of the series EU Agriculture 2020.

Lots of discussion, even fake news, on the topic of food waste.  This is a serious problem, but not in the way it’s often presented in the media.

The way our food is produced and distributed is horrendously wasteful.  Food that’s processed (including meats), transported long distances or grown with wasteful pesticides and fertilizers is not only often of very poor quality, but horrendously wasteful if it’s thrown away.  Is the answer to this to accept foods past their use by or expiration dates?  Should supermarkets just throw this food away or give it to the homeless?

A large portion of what supermarkets sell also just isn’t really necessary, like fruits and vegetables out of season or a lot of the processed foods.

Almost every food with a nutrition label is a processed food, and these labels often trick people into buying things they don’t need.  Rather than think about the quality of the food, and if it was produced locally or in a healthy way, these labels make you think you should buy according to ingredients.  The best place to buy food is one that doesn’t label their food this way.

I think the answer lies in reforming production and distribution systems.  Buying food at farmers’ markets, or local produce shops, not only often results in higher quality food, but much less inherent waste.  When people pay more for higher quality food, they tend to think more about wasting it.  It’s also really useful if people grow a portion of the food they eat.

One of the best ways everyone can waste less food is to avoid supermarkets entirely, or only use them for very basic food like seasonal vegetables, potatoes, rice and so on.

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Climate Change — Greatest Risk

This post is part of the series EU Agriculture 2020.

No more important issue exists concerning agriculture around the world.  I’ve had discussions with people in many different places over the last few months, from mountain tops in Italy to the US pacific northwest.  Climate change is destroying fragile local ecosystems, causing widespread drought, flooding, forest fires and many other natural disasters.  It’s changing growing regions, for example allowing rice to be grown further north, or wine to be produced in Holland.  It’s causing widespread devastation to crops like coffee.  It’s requiring seeds and plant varieties be adapted to new climates and diseases, almost faster than it’s humanly possible to do the breeding work.

It’s inconceivable that Europe is still pursuing biofuels, or that we are still producing electricity from coal.

It’s time to stop conflating air pollution with greenhouse gases, the latter being far more important.  Of course air pollution is important too, but climate change must have priority.  It’s time to stop talking, and time for action.  We know what we need to do.

As well as a threat to agriculture, agriculture is also a major cause of climate change.  Healthy crops, grown sustainably, builds topsoil, which is the most effective way to sequester greenhouse gases.  Wasteful agriculture like crops for biofuels, animal feeds, bioplastics and other non-human foods, are not only wasteful in fossil fuel, pesticide and chemical fertilizer use, but they also generally degrade the topsoil, releasing stored greenhouse gases.

Sustainable agriculture also reduces air pollution.  Nitrogen based air pollution is removed from the air at the same time as carbon based greenhouse gases, and these are combined to form healthy topsoil.  If you’re a gardener, you’ll certainly understand this is how compost is formed, combining the greens (N) with the browns (C).  Of course we have to deal with the sources of pollution too, but sustainable agriculture is the solution to healing the planet.

Unsustainable agriculture causes air pollution!  Mega-greenhouses in The Netherlands discharge nutrient solutions that are very damaging to the environment.  These discharges contain a lot of nitrogen, a great deal of which ends up in the air as pollution.  Factory farm feed lots are also a major source of air pollution.

It’s time to make a complete shift to sustainable agriculture.  Sustainable agriculture is not a threat to food security, food security is threatened by unsustainable agriculture.  It’s simply false to suggest we are living in a world of scarce food, or that we need more food to feed a growing world population.  We already produce roughly twice as much food as we need to feed the world.  We need to produce food smarter, with less impact on the planet, less emphasis on meat, and make more efficient use of what we have.

This is the most important thing to do, starting now.

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EU Agriculture 2020

Important changes are taking place in EU agriculture, and will climax in 2020 with the Regulation on Organic Production.  These are important changes and are going to significantly change the food available.  This is a very complex topic, with many aspects.  I’m going to do a series of posts in the coming days, weeks and months to discuss some of the issues.

It’s more important than ever that consumers get smarter about the food they buy.  Many consumers now trust the ‘Organic’ label, and assume this always means quality.  It’s been years since the food industry legally took over the label as their own, and in many ways their hold on it will get tighter.  Since the majority of the most damaging agriculture chemicals are being phased out and taken off the market in Europe, the difference for consumers between organic and non-organic will get less.  Increasingly the ‘Organic’ label will apply to industrial food, and non-organic food will have more value and be of higher quality, turning the world of many consumers upside down.

All crops are grown from seeds, and not all seeds are the same.  More than ever, consumers are going to need to be aware of the seeds their food is grown from.