The idea that pesticides are essential to feed a fast-growing global population is a myth, according to UN food and pollution experts.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A new report<\/a>, being presented to the UN human rights council on Wednesday, is severely critical of the global corporations that manufacture pesticides, accusing them of the \u201csystematic denial of harms\u201d, \u201caggressive, unethical marketing tactics\u201d and heavy lobbying of governments which has \u201cobstructed reforms and paralysed global pesticide restrictions\u201d.<\/p>\n The report says pesticides have \u201ccatastrophic impacts on the environment, human health and society as a whole\u201d, including an estimated 200,000 deaths a year from acute poisoning. Its authors said: \u201cIt is time to create a global process to transition toward safer and healthier food and agricultural production.\u201d<\/p>\n The world\u2019s population is set to grow from 7 billion today to 9 billion in 2050. The pesticide industry argues that its products \u2013 a market worth about $50bn (\u00a341bn) a year and growing \u2013 are vital in protecting crops and ensuring sufficient food supplies.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a myth,\u201d said Hilal Elver, the UN\u2019s special rapporteur on the right to food. \u201cUsing more pesticides is nothing to do with getting rid of hunger. According to the UN Food and Agriculture<\/a> Organisation (FAO), we are able to feed 9 billion people today. Production is definitely increasing, but the problem is poverty, inequality and distribution.\u201d<\/p>\n Elver said many of the pesticides are used on commodity crops, such as palm oil and soy, not the food needed by the world\u2019s hungry people: \u201cThe corporations are not dealing with world hunger, they are dealing with more agricultural activity on large scales.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Campaign<\/strong><\/p>\n Add your signature to the ECI<\/span><\/p>\n Also read:<\/p>\n Navdanya International, 13 December 2016<\/p>\n Navdanya International, 16 October 2016<\/p>\n By Dr Vandana Shiva \u2013 Commons Dreams, 12 October 2016<\/p>\n By Dr Vandana Shiva \u2013 The Asian Age, 8 September 2016<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Damian Carrington \u2013 The Guardian, 7 March 2017 Source The idea that pesticides are essential to feed a fast-growing global population is a myth, according to UN food and pollution experts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5352,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-news","category-news","thematic_area-food-for-health","thematic_area-poison-free-future"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/un-report-pesticides-900x300.jpg","wpml_translations":[{"language_code":"en","post_id":977,"original":true},{"language_code":"it","post_id":978,"original":false}],"custom_fields":{"_thumbnail_id":["5352"],"_fgj2wp_old_id":["367"],"_edit_lock":["1551384557:2"],"_edit_last":["2"],"wpl_sidebar_option":["on"],"wpl_featured_image_post":["on"],"wpl_share_buttons":["on"],"_wpml_media_duplicate":["1"],"_wpml_media_featured":["1"],"_wpml_media_has_media":["1"],"_alp_processed":["1552411778"]},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9KkNM-fL","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=977"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5356,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977\/revisions\/5356"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ MORE<\/strong><\/a><\/h4>\n
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