{"id":3603,"date":"2021-02-26T10:58:52","date_gmt":"2021-02-26T02:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/panap.net\/?p=3603"},"modified":"2021-02-26T10:58:52","modified_gmt":"2021-02-26T02:58:52","slug":"fao-urged-anew-to-drop-toxicalliance-with-croplife-amid-reports-of-meddling-in-mexico-glyphosate-ban","status":"publish","type":"panap_updates","link":"https:\/\/panap.net\/beta\/updates\/fao-urged-anew-to-drop-toxicalliance-with-croplife-amid-reports-of-meddling-in-mexico-glyphosate-ban\/","title":{"rendered":"FAO urged anew to drop #ToxicAlliance with CropLife amid reports of meddling in Mexico glyphosate ban"},"content":{"rendered":"

PAN Asia Pacific today (PANAP) joined civil society and indigenous peoples\u2019 organisations in formally requesting to meet<\/a> with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General Qu Dongyu to discuss widespread public concern with FAO\u2019s announcement last November of plans to formalize a partnership with CropLife International \u2014 the global trade association of the world\u2019s biggest agrochemical corporations.<\/p>\n

The 11 organizations that co-sponsored the joint letter urged Qu to immediately abandon FAO’s strategic partnership with CropLife. They asked FAO to instead develop an integrated policy to prevent conflicts of interest to ensure that corporate \u201csolutions\u201d are not influencing its work on sustainability, and further threatening biodiversity, human health, and food sovereignty. The groups further said that the FAO-Croplife #ToxicAlliance would undermine the FAO\u2019s mandate as a UN institution and the principles set out in its Code of Conduct on Pesticide Management.<\/p>\n

The joint letter reiterated concerns voiced by 350 civil society and indigenous peoples organizations<\/a> as well as 250 scientists and academics<\/a> in letters sent to FAO Director-General Qu in November 2020. The Director-General\u2019s response dated 27 November 2020, however, did not satisfactorily address these concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe urge the FAO to sit with us and understand the gravity of our concerns regarding its proposed alliance with CropLife. The influence of the pesticide industry grows by the day, and is overreaching into public policy spaces in alarming ways,\u201d said Sarojeni Rengam, PANAP executive director.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rengam cited a recent report<\/a> that reveals how CropLife America closely worked with US officials to pressure the Mexican government to drop a ban on glyphosate, including attempts to fold the issue into the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement trade deal. In December 2020, Mexico declared a phaseout of glyphosate use, as well as the planting and consumption of genetically engineered corn, by 2024. CropLife\u2019s involvement in moves to counter Mexico\u2019s glyphosate ban is similar to how Bayer and the US government pressured the Thai government to reverse a ban on glyphosate<\/a> in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cCroplife is gaining notoriety for pressuring governments to rescind pesticide bans that protect people\u2019s health and the environment. The FAO should not further undermine its integrity, credibility and impartiality with a deepening partnership with CropLife,\u201d Rengam said.<\/p>\n

The FAO\u2019s alliance with CropLife comes on the heels of the UN\u2019s Strategic Partnership with the World Economic Forum\u2014a global platform representing the world\u2019s corporate giants\u2014and the \u201ccorporate hijack\u201d<\/a> of the planned UN Food Systems Summit 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe increasing corporate capture of the UN cannot be more inappropriate. At a time when a global pandemic has pushed hundreds of millions of food producers into even greater hunger and poverty, the same old \u2018corporate solutions\u2019 are not what they need. As massive protests in India show, farmers are hungry for real change\u2014and this does not include CropLife or the agrochemical industry, whose only purpose is to keep farmers dependent on Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs),\u201d Rengam said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A recent study<\/a> estimates that there are 385 million cases of acute pesticide poisonings each year, up from an estimated 25 million cases in 1990. This means that about 44% of the global population working on farms \u2014 860 million farmers and agricultural workers \u2013 are poisoned each year by an industry dominated by CropLife members.<\/p>\n

The joint letter to Qu notes that an \u201calliance with CropLife also undercuts the FAO\u2019s support for agroecology, an approach that offers viable and sustainable proposals for generating ecologically-based food and farming systems without the use of HHPs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Please see a copy of the letter to the UN FAO Director-General here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Reference: Sarojeni Rengam, PAN Asia Pacific, Executive Director, sarojeni.rengam@panap.net<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PAN Asia Pacific today (PANAP) joined civil society and indigenous peoples\u2019 organisations in formally requesting to meet with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General Qu Dongyu to discuss widespread public concern with FAO\u2019s announcement last November of plans to formalize a partnership with CropLife International \u2014 the global trade association of the world\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3604,"template":"","update_categories":[107],"class_list":["post-3603","panap_updates","type-panap_updates","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","update_categories-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/panap.net\/beta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/panap_updates\/3603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/panap.net\/beta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/panap_updates"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/panap.net\/beta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/panap_updates"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panap.net\/beta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/panap.net\/beta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/panap_updates\/3603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panap.net\/beta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/panap.net\/beta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"update_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panap.net\/beta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/update_categories?post=3603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}