PAN Asia Pacific (PANAP) lauds the government of Belgium for prohibiting the exports of pesticides banned in its own soil, becoming the second country in the European Union (EU) after France to end double standards in pesticides trade. This positive development came as the EU Commission continues to deliberate measures to address the exports of thousands of tons of pesticides that are deemed too dangerous for use in the EU and therefore banned. These banned pesticides are exported by EU manufacturers to the rest of the world, particularly the Global South.
On June 23, the Council of Ministers approved the export ban proposed by Federal Environment Minister Zakia Khattabi and Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke, and will take effect six months after the publication of the said Royal Decree.
In a letter to Khattabi and Vandenbroucke, PANAP executive director Sarojeni Rengam said, “We deeply appreciate your efforts to uphold the rights of all farmers and farmworkers to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. Recent estimates show that the majority of cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning occur in the Global South. As correctly pointed out by Minister Khattabi, this inevitably also affects European consumers who consume food grown beyond its borders.”
“The export ban in Belgium is a bold step forward in the right direction. We fervently hope that it would lead to a similar ban across the EU, as is now being discussed by the EU Commission,” Rengam added in the letter.
PANAP’s latest study on pesticides use in four countries in the Asia Pacific reveals that 69% of the pesticides used by farmers and farmworkers are banned in the EU. These highly toxic pesticides are used under appalling conditions (e.g. lack of PPE and training, exposure due to proximity of homes to fields), with one-third of respondents exhibiting symptoms of poisoning.
PANAP further urged the Government of Belgium to support a mechanism for the global phase-out of Highly Hazardous Pesticides, an issue that will be discussed at the upcoming International Conference on Chemicals Management in September 2023.
“Like Belgium’s export ban, we need more ambitious steps to eliminate the use of pesticides that cause the most severe harm to human health and the environment in order to respond effectively to the worsening global health, biodiversity, and climate crises,” Rengam stressed. ###
Reference: Sarojeni Rengam, PANAP Executive Director (sarojeni.rengam@panap.net)
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