Stop FAO-CropLife #ToxicAlliance Campaign: Updates

This webpage provides running updates into the global campaign to pressure the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to sever its partnership with CropLife International, the world’s biggest association of pesticide manufacturers. The campaign is co-coordinated by PAN Asia Pacific and PAN North America, and supported by a broad network of civil society and Indigenous Peoples organisations.

Campaign materials (e.g. social media cards, infographics, messages) can be freely downloaded and used to share our message: Stop to the FAO-CropLife #ToxicAlliance!

10 June 2024

PAN Asia Pacific (PANAP) joins civil society and Indigenous Peoples organisations in welcoming the end of a three-year controversial partnership agreement between the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and CropLife International, an association of the world’s largest agrochemical corporations.

Led by PAN International, 11 organisations today issued a statement saying that they have received confirmation of a decision by the FAO to not renew its Letter of Intent (LoI) with CropLife.

The groups said that they now looked forward to the FAO delivering on its commitments in the new Global Framework on Chemicals (GFC) and leading the work of the Global Alliance on Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs).

26 July 2023

Today, 11 global civil society and Indigenous Peoples organizations representing small-scale farmers, agricultural workers, trade unions, and rights holders urged Mr. Qu Dongyu to begin his new term as Director General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on a positive note by ending a controversial partnership with the pesticide industry signed during his previous term, and taking leadership on global action to phase-out Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs).

At its 43rd Conference early in July, the FAO appointed Mr. Qu as Director General for a second term of four years. The appointment, which was uncontested with no other nominations, comes at the heels of an investigative report revealing shipments of pesticides that FAO made to several countries during the Director General’s first term, while a partnership agreement with CropLife International (CLI), the association of world’s largest agrochemical companies, was in place.

15 August 2022

After a high-level meeting last week, we, representatives of civil society & Indigenous Peoples organizations, urgently call on the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to end its existing agreement with CropLife International (CLI), to publicly clarify the nature of its ties with the pesticide industry, and to subject these ties to greater transparency and accountability.

On July 25, representatives from PAN, FIAN, IITC and IPEN met with FAO Deputy Director General Beth Bechdol and her colleagues in the Project Support, Partnerships, and Plant Protection divisions. This meeting was held more than a year and a half after we – 11 civil society and Indigenous Peoples organizations – first made a formal request to sit down with the Director-General upon signing the Letter of Intent (LOI) between FAO and CropLife in October 2020. Our high-level meeting requests continued through the most recent June FAO Council meeting, amplified by the massive public opposition from hundreds of CSO & IP groups representing farmers, agricultural workers, and other communities, academics, scientists and funders from around the world, plus the over 187,300 people from over 107 countries that have petitioned the FAO to end this alliance with the pesticide industry.

9 June 2022

Reminding the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of its obligations to uphold human rights, 430 civil society and Indigenous peoples organizations from 69 countries across the globe today called on the FAO Council to rescind the agency’s partnership with CropLife International, the industry association representing the world’s largest pesticide manufacturers.

In the letter, the 430 organizations expressed concerns about how CropLife member companies (BASF, Bayer Crop Science, Corteva Agriscience, Sumitomo, FMC and Syngenta) have “interfered in national policy and exert enormous pressure on governments that take measures to protect people and the environment from pesticide harms.”

14 June 2021

At the start of the 42nd session of the Food and Agriculture Organization Conference, PAN Asia Pacific urged the FAO to stop the use of Highly Hazardous Pesticides in its desert locust control program. Chlorpyrifos, a pesticide linked to brain damage and other neurodevelopmental disorders in children, is among the HHPs purchased and delivered by the FAO to governments, according to PANAP’s press release. The group urged the FAO anew to stop its #ToxicAlliance with FAO.

22 May 2021

On #WorldBiodiversityDay, a Day of Messaging was held to drumbeat how pesticide products sold by CropLife member companies are linked to unprecedented biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse. Posts also looked back at how the pesticide industry employed a vast strategy to influence academics, beekeepers & regulators to keep selling bee-harming pesticides.

6 May 2021

Former senior officer of the FAO Allan Hruska wrote a revelatory piece on how the US & China reached a “gentleman’s agreement” on working together at the FAO because of shared commercial interests. This may explain a shift in FAO’s approach to pest management–away from agroecology towards genetically modified crops.

Various organisations shared the story that puts additional context around the FAO-CropLife #ToxicAlliance, and continue to call on the UN agency to sever its alliance with the pesticide industry.

22 April 2021

On Earth Day, various groups around the world mobilised for the Global Day of Action Against Corporate Capture of Food Systems. Farmers, especially from the Global South, carried the call to stop the FAO-CropLife #ToxicAlliance, as part of a bigger campaign against corporate capture and for just, equitable, healthy and sustainable food systems.

22 April 2021

Simone Adler, organizing co-director of PAN North America, also spoke on the #ToxicAlliance at #TheFoodWeWant: A roundtable discussion on the corporate control of food systems and its impacts.

7 April 2021

On #WorldHealthDay, a Day of Messaging was held to popularize the following messages, using social media cards and links to relevant information:

Pesticide poisoning is a global health issue

The need for agroecology- Organisations participating in the ongoing Committee on World Food Security (CFS) policy negotiations on Agroecological and other innovative approaches also brought our calls into the said policy space.

Eliminating health inequities or double standards in pesticides trade

There were 155 total tweets of the hashtag #ToxicAlliance, over 100 retweets, and at least 23 original contributors — all in all potentially reaching 314,000 viewers.

19 March 2021

PAN International released its updated List of Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) and Consolidated List of Banned Pesticides, emphasising the urgent need for a global phase-out of HHPs by 2030. In a press release, the network said that the FAO-CropLife partnership will likely undercut the FAO’s support for agroecological alternatives to HHPs, and jeopardise global efforts to push for a complete ban of Highly Hazardous Pesticides by 2030.

26 February 2021

As a follow-up to the letter by 350 civil society and indigenous peoples, 11 organisations submitted a joint letter to FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu. They requested a formal meeting to discuss concerns over the FAO’s strategic partnership with CropLife. The organisations asked Qu to immediately abandon the #ToxicAlliance and to instead develop an integrated policy to prevent conflicts of interest.

The letter was also disseminated to the media by co-sponsoring groups, which made separate statements. (e.g. IUF, PAN Asia Pacific, PAN North America, Center for International Environmental Law). The Director-General has so far not responded to the request.

19 November 2020

More than 350 civil society and indigenous peoples organisations call on FAO to NOT partner with CropLife International, following the signing of a Letter of Intent between FAO and Croplife on 2 October to officially strengthen ties.

The signatories against the #ToxicAlliance represent hundreds of thousands of farmers, fisherfolk, agricultural workers and other communities, as well as human rights, faith-based, environmental and economic justice institutions in 63 countries. The letter, addressed to FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu, pointed out that “reliance on hazardous pesticides is a short-term fix that undermines the rights to adequate food and health for present and future generations.”

An international group of 250 scientists and researchers also expressed concern about the proposed alliance and submitted a separate letter to the FAO Director-General. “UN institutions including the FAO should not be supporting a consortium of private businesses that stand to profit from the continued sale of products with documented harmful impacts on biodiversity including pollinators, ecosystem integrity and function, the health and livelihood of peasant farmers, vulnerable agricultural workers, rural and Indigenous communities,” their letter said.