By Ruchi Shroff – Lifegate, 18 September 2017 | Source<\/a><\/p>\n A world free from poisonous chemicals is possible. And it’s in our hands. The op-ed by the Director of Navdanya International, the organisation that protects nature, the Earth’s biodiversity and people’s rights to seeds and food.<\/p>\n Corporations are putting our lives and our environment at risk through a growing and improper influence over institutions, whose responsibility should be, instead, protecting people and the planet. The visible consequences have made it imperative to expose their devious tactics and their steadfast and corrupt lobbying, recently revealed in the\u00a0Poison Papers<\/a>\u00a0(a compilation of over 20,000 documents obtained from federal agencies and chemical manufacturers\u00a0about the toxicity of many chemical products, editor\u2019s note). Up until this stark revelation, corporations have almost totally been absent from everyday news. What is increasingly clear to all is the impact of their \u201cbusyness\u201d on our lives \u2013 an\u00a0environment that is increasingly polluted and toxic<\/strong>, bad quality and unhealthy food, and an increase in disease, all of which too often aren\u2019t directly linked to these companies and the consequences of their policies in the public debate.<\/p>\n Evidence of the toxic consequences of the policies of these mega corporations, which we call the\u00a0Poison Cartel<\/a>, is however growing by the day \u2013\u00a0small farmers are losing their livelihoods, rural populations are being driven from their land to make way for industrial agriculture, biodiversity is fast\u00a0disappearing<\/a>\u00a0to make way for monocultures, and consumers increasingly have\u00a0no option other than to buy toxic food\u00a0<\/strong>grown\u00a0in increasingly contaminated, chemical infested\u00a0soils<\/a>.<\/p>\n Navdanya International<\/a>\u2018s latest report,\u00a0The Toxic Story of RoundUp<\/a>, unveils this corrosive business and indicates, at the same time, the alternatives to the poison model of agriculture which can\u2019t be considered sustainable or ethical from any point of view.<\/p>\n Is a poison-free world possible? We believe it is, which is why we must denounce the alarming and dangerous activities of the Poison Cartel. The \u201cBig 6\u201d pesticide and GMO corporations that own the world\u2019s\u00a0seeds<\/a>, pesticides and biotechnology industries are now enlarging their empire with mega buyouts. Syngenta is merging with ChemChina (43 billion dollar deal<\/a>); Dow Chemical, which bought up Union Carbide \u2013 responsible for the\u00a0Bhopal disaster<\/a>\u00a0killing over 20,000 people, is merging with Dupont (130 billion dollar deal<\/a>); while\u00a0Bayer<\/a>\u00a0is now merging with\u00a0Monsanto<\/a>\u00a0(57 billion dollar deal<\/a>). Should all these mergers\u00a0be approved by EU and US regulators,\u00a0just three companies\u00a0will be left in control<\/a>\u00a0of 60 per cent of the world\u2019s seeds and 70 per cent of\u00a0its chemicals and pesticides<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Over the last decades these companies \u2013\u00a0which produced lethal poisons during the two world wars \u2013\u00a0turned to the\u00a0agricultural market<\/strong>, where they saw enormous potential to keep multiplying their profits. They have enlarged their empires and established monopolies through free trade neoliberal policies and deregulation of commerce, broadening their control over our seeds, food, freedom and democracies.\u00a0In the name of science these war-based corporations\u00a0attack independent science<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0independent scientists<\/a>\u00a0to maintain and expand their empires. Corporate propaganda is their so-called science, and the science of biosafety by independent governments and scientists is branded \u201canti-science\u201d.<\/p>\n Our last studies expose in detail their strategies to generate profits at the expense of the common interest. But what does this actually mean? These corporations liberally spread agrochemical poisons wherever they can, wiping out millions of species, destroying our ecosystems, poisoning the entire web of life. Due to its widespread use,\u00a0glyphosate<\/a>\u00a0is considered the most widely used agricultural chemical in history. Since its introduction, 1.8 million tonnes have been applied to American fields, and\u00a09.4 million tonnes<\/a>\u00a0have been applied globally. Some 56 per cent of the total global usage of glyphosate is related\u00a0to\u00a0RoundUp Ready (RR) crops, and it has\u00a0tripled<\/a>\u00a0on cotton farms, doubled on soybeans and increased 39 per cent on corn. This is a trend that has to be reversed as we\u2019re also talking about a failed technology. US farmer fields have been witnessing the uncontrolled spread of \u201csuperweeds<\/strong>\u201d like amaranth, especially in the south-eastern states, where approximately\u00a092 per cent of RR cotton and soybeans are infested<\/a>. As a consequence, farmers have started to increase the use of pesticides.<\/p>\n We turn now to the propaganda of the Poison Cartel. Is it true these products don\u2019t have any impact on the environment? This has no place in reality. A pilot\u00a0study on soil contamination<\/a>\u00a0by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission and Wageningen University in which soil samples were collected in various parts of Europe have found\u00a0pesticide traces in over 66 per cent of the samples analysed<\/strong>, while only 34 per cent of the samples were clean. The most commonly recognised substances are glyphosate (46 per cent), DDT (25 per cent) and fungicide products (24 per cent). The study points out that glyphosate and AMPA (Aminomethylphosphonic acid) can concentrate on very small soil particles that are easily eroded and transported by wind and water. This shows that there is actual risk of contamination even at very long distances. A recent\u00a0US Geological Survey study<\/a>\u00a0sampled\u00a0waterways<\/strong>\u00a0in 38 states and found glyphosate and AMPA in the majority of rivers, streams, ditches and wastewater treatment plant outfalls tested. Glyphosate was also found in about 70 per cent of\u00a0rainfall samples<\/strong>.<\/p>\n One of the\u00a0myths<\/a>\u00a0is that \u201cpesticides are rigorously tested\u201d. Besides the fact that only a few hundred of the 80,000 chemicals used in US are tested for safety (USPCP), regulatory agencies only test the active substance of individual pesticides based on the indication provided by the manufacturers, avoiding to investigate either the toxicological risk of the product as a whole (complete with co-adjuvants and co-formulants) or in combination with the overall mix of pesticides available on the market and often\u00a0simultaneously used in fields and gardens<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The agrochemical industry will respond to the first objection with the assertion that pesticides are instead necessary to feed the world, which is both inaccurate and misleading because theoretically there is enough food to adequately provide for global needs, but those who most need it are prevented from receiving because of\u00a0inequitable production and distribution systems<\/a>. While causing\u00a075 per cent of the planetary destruction<\/a>, it only provides 30 per cent of the food, which is nutritionally empty and loaded with toxics. The toxic products of the Poison Cartel such as RoundUp (glyphosate) and Basta (glufosinate) or\u00a0GMO seeds<\/a>\u00a0have led to the destruction of soils, desertification, extermination of bees, rise in health epidemics such as cancer and birth defects, amongst others.<\/p>\n So now let\u2019s get back to reality as Hans Herren of\u00a0Biovision Foundation<\/a>\u00a0recently suggested:\u00a060 per cent of what you have in your plate needs bees<\/strong>. Animals are also affected and so are humans. As outlined in the\u00a0latest report<\/a>\u00a0by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Hilal Elver, published in 2017, it is estimated that pesticides are responsible for the deaths of\u00a0200,000\u00a0people each year<\/strong>, of which 99 per cent from countries where environmental, health and work safety rules aren\u2019t very\u00a0restrictive or are scarcely applied. In a\u00a0study promoted by the European Union<\/a>\u00a0on the impact of organic food and agriculture on human health research was undertaken on the overall impact of pesticides on human health. The report states: \u201c100 pesticides are known to cause adverse\u00a0neurological effects<\/strong>\u00a0in adults, and all of these substances must therefore be suspected of being capable of damaging developing brains as well\u201d. In our report we analyse numerous studies and cases, from Argentina to Costa Rica and Sri Lanka (where the government\u00a0banned glyphosate in 2014<\/a>).<\/p>\n What are the possible solutions? These are coming from the bottom rung. All over the world\u00a0small farmers and gardeners are already implementing biodiverse ecological agriculture<\/a>, while rejuvenating the soil and saving and breeding their seeds. They are providing healthy and nutritious food to their communities and bringing back food in the hands of farmers and consumers, making big agribusiness irrelevant and useless, along with their poisons and toxic food. In the course of 2016\u00a0more than 110 people\u2019s assemblies<\/a>\u00a0were self-organised by local communities in 28 countries throughout the world establishing a worldwide network with the aim of\u00a0creating a healthy future of food and of the planet<\/strong>. The global mobilisation culminated with the people\u2019s assembly and the\u00a0Monsanto Tribunal<\/a>\u00a0continued through 2017. Farming without poisons is in our hands. And as Navdanya\u2019s work over the last three decades has shown we can grow enough nutrition for two times the current population,\u00a0we can increase farmers\u2019 incomes tenfold by giving up buying toxic chemicals, we can address malnutrition and chronic diseases, and we can create climate resilience.<\/p>\n Also read:<\/p>\nThe Poison Cartel<\/h4>\n
A poison-free world<\/h4>\n
The impact on the environment<\/h4>\n
The myths about pesticides<\/h4>\n
Facts and figures about pesticides<\/h4>\n
Solutions are in our hands<\/h4>\n
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