{"id":76890,"date":"2020-11-19T19:15:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-19T19:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/?p=76890"},"modified":"2020-11-19T19:15:00","modified_gmt":"2020-11-19T19:15:00","slug":"investigation-how-pesticide-companies-marketing-themselves-climate-change-solution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/investigation-how-pesticide-companies-marketing-themselves-climate-change-solution\/","title":{"rendered":"Investigation: How Pesticide Companies Are Marketing Themselves as a Solution To Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was published as part of the launch of DeSmog\u2019s Agribusiness Database<\/a>, where you can find a record of companies and organisations\u2019 current messaging on climate change, lobbying around climate action, and histories of climate science denial.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cLike a pandemic, climate change is an inevitable threat that we must address before it is too late,\u201d reads a June 2020 statement<\/a>. \u201cAs the economy and agriculture begin to build back with the gradual easing of the COVID-19 restrictions, we need to support a recovery for farmers that puts the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss at its core.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The speaker? Not Greta Thunberg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Al Gore. Not, in fact, any environmentalist you might care to imagine. Instead, it was Erik Fyrwald, Chief Executive Officer of Syngenta Group \u2014 one of the world\u2019s five largest pesticides manufacturers, a major consumer of fossil fuels, and now a company marketing its products as a solution to climate change.<\/span><\/p>\n

Syngenta\u2019s messaging \u2014 alongside similar campaigns from the other \u201cbig five\u201d global pesticides producers Bayer<\/a>, BASF<\/a>, Corteva<\/a> and FMC<\/a> \u2014 reflects a sudden transformation within the agricultural world.<\/span><\/p>\n

After decades of denial and delay by big agribusiness, the pesticides industry now appears to have become a climate champion.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Waking up on climate change\u2019<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The pesticides market is dominated by a small handful of companies \u2014 Bayer<\/a> (which acquired Monsanto<\/a> in 2018), Corteva<\/a>(formerly Dow and DuPont), Syngenta<\/a>, BASF<\/a> and FMC<\/a> \u2014 whose hazardous products a United Nations report said<\/a> have \u201ccatastrophic impacts on the environment, human health, and society as a whole\u201d amid a global insect die-off<\/a> and legal battles<\/a> over carcinogenic effects of products once marketed as harmless. <\/span><\/p>\n

Together, these firms control the vast majority of the enormous global pesticides market. \u201cAs a whole, the market for agrochemical pesticides has grown steadily since 2006,\u201d reported a 2019 study<\/a>. The most recently available federal data<\/a>, from 2011 and 2012, shows that nearly 6 billion pounds (2.7 billion kilos) of pesticides were used each year worldwide, including 1.1 billion pounds (0.49 billion kilos) in the US alone.<\/span><\/p>\n

These chemicals play a key role in the fossil fuel-dependent farming systems that spread worldwide during the 20th century and have created complex ecological problems while boosting yields \u2014 including driving climate change. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPesticides are the lynchpin of an unsustainable industrial agriculture system,\u201d says the Pesticide Action Network<\/a> campaign group. \u201cThe current food system is responsible for one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions; it\u2019s also fully dependent on oil both for transport and because pesticides and fertilizers are petrochemically-derived.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Pesticides manufacturing also has its own significant direct carbon footprint \u2014 but a lack of data and independent research has made it difficult to find reliable numbers, researchers say. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWith the rapidly growing interest in greenhouse gas emissions (often embodied in Life Cycle Assessment or \u2018carbon footprinting\u2019), there are many studies using estimates of the emissions from agricultural pesticide manufacturing,\u201d a 2009 study<\/a> by Cranfield University reported. \u201cUnfortunately, it seems that almost no two studies use the same number for the same ingredient. This is mainly due to the paucity of original data on pesticides, often because of commercial confidentiality.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That study was prepared for the Crop Protection Association<\/a>, a British organisation that’s dubbed itself \u201cthe voice of the UK plant science industry\u201d and counts all of the big five pesticides manufacturers among its members.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s no secret that pesticides manufacturing is closely wedded to fossil fuels, which are the primary driver<\/a> of climate change. Some pesticides use oil and gas industry products as key ingredients, while others are synthesized from naturally occurring compounds \u2014 and both types often rely on fossil fuels for the heat and energy necessary for chemical reactions. <\/span><\/p>\n

The industry represents a significant chunk of the world\u2019s fossil fuel demand. \u201cCurrently, about 20 percent of oil is used for petrochemicals and 24 percent is used for agriculture, which includes manufacturing, production, processing, transportation, marketing, and consumption,\u201d notes a 2020 paper published<\/a> in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology journal. \u201cOil is used to make chlorobenzene, which in turn is used to synthesise [the pesticide] DDT. Similarly, many pesticides such as neonicotinoids, pyrethryoids, and glyphosate formulants are produced from gas and oil.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Big agribusiness also wields enormous political leverage. From 1998 to 2020, the agricultural industry spent more on lobbying in the USthan the defense industry, according to<\/a> the Center for Responsive Politics. And for decades, agricultural advocacy organizations like the American Farm Bureau Federation<\/a> used this clout to campaign in Washington DC against efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone on the Hill knew that there was a division of labor,\u201d Joseph Goffman, Executive Director of Harvard Law School’s environmental and energy program, told InsideClimate News<\/a> in 2018. \u201cOil companies argued that consumers would pay a price at the pump for regulation of fossil fuels. And the farmers could argue that they were a far more economically sensitive group of fuel users and would be seen more favourably than oil would be.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year, however, proved to be a brutal year<\/a> for many US farmers who faced catastrophic Midwest flooding. And advocates for big agribusiness have described<\/a> increasing concern that their industry might be left out of conversations about climate change. This year seems to be a moment when, as Politico put it<\/a> in December, \u201cfarmers are waking up on climate change.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Amid this awakening, pesticides manufacturers are now heavily promoting strategies to convince farmers and policymakers that their products still have a large role to play as the world warms.<\/span><\/p>\n

Companies like Syngenta acknowledge that industrial agriculture has contributed significantly to climate change but say they are now working to find less polluting ways to grow crops. \u201cUnpredictable weather events are becoming more common \u2013 from flooding to drought and extreme heat to early frost \u2013 and agriculture itself is part of the problem,\u201d Syngenta spokesperson Paul Minehart said in an email to DeSmog, describing the company’s targets aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from both farming and pesticides manufacturing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAgriculture can help meet the global Net Zero ambition by reducing emissions, locking more carbon in the soil and providing space to reforest,\u201d he said. \u201cAs far as crop protection products are concerned, yes they can play a role in helping reduce [greenhouse gases], reduce erosion and save water.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Selling the same old stuff\u2019<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Less than a decade ago, surveys<\/a> reported that nearly half of USfarmers weren\u2019t convinced climate change was happening. Just eight percent said they thought human activities were responsible for warming.<\/span><\/p>\n

But earlier this year, a Syngenta-funded poll<\/a> found that 87 percent of large-scale farmers in the US, France, China, Brazil, India and across Africa said that they\u2019d already experienced climate change firsthand \u2014 and a majority rated the effects on their farms \u201chigh impacts.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In response, the pesticides industry is putting huge resources in marketing climate action strategies attached to two labels: precision agriculture<\/a>, and regenerative agriculture<\/a> \u2014 with both items falling under the even broader umbrella terms \u201cclimate smart\u201d or \u201cclimate resilient\u201d agriculture.<\/span><\/p>\n

Genetic modification plays a significant role in most of the strategies backed by pesticides manufacturers. \u201cFor example, planting genetically modified seeds enables farmers to use reduced tillage and no till practices, which has resulted in a substantial reduction in carbon dioxide emissions,\u201d a video<\/a> by Bayer, the manufacturer of glyphosate-based pesticides like RoundUp, says. \u201cAnd as these tactics are adopted, farmers can help mitigate climate change and its impacts. That\u2019s not just good for farmers, it\u2019s good for all of us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JgJWnjnyux4<\/p>\n

These tactics have some potential to help farms cut their greenhouse gas emissions, but how much is highly debated<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

At a policy level, critics fear that terms like \u201cclimate smart\u201d and \u201cresilient\u201d farming are so vague that they\u2019re vulnerable to greenwashing. \u201cThere is no precise definition for \u2018climate smart agriculture\u2019 and deliberately so,\u201d the Down to Earth blog reported<\/a> in 2016, adding that, for example, the Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture<\/a> \u201cleaves it to its members to determine what \u2018climate smart agriculture\u2019 means to them. There are no social or environmental safeguards.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Critics also argue that the dual \u201cprecision\u201d and \u201cregenerative\u201d climate strategies pesticides manufacturers are now pushing could in fact maintain \u2014 or even increase \u2014 the world\u2019s dependence on fossil-fuel based agricultural products.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey’re just trying to sell the same old stuff under different labels,\u201d says Stacy Malkan, co-founder of the food industry watchdog group US Right to Know<\/a>. \u201cThe bottom line is they’re chemical companies and they want to sell more chemicals.\u201d  <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just campaigners who are concerned. A 2017 report<\/a> by the UN\u2019s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food found that, \u201cit is commonly argued that intensive industrial agriculture, which is heavily reliant on pesticide inputs, is necessary to increase yields to feed a growing world population, particularly in the light of negative climate change impacts and global scarcity of farmlands\u201d. But noting that 200,000 people die of acute pesticides poisoning each year, it added that \u201creliance on hazardous pesticides is a short-term solution that undermines the rights to adequate food and health for present and future generations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond sustaining the pesticides-heavy status-quo, there are other problems with these approaches: from pricing out farmers in developing countries, to the technology not actually working, and a paucity of data to actually measure success.<\/span><\/p>\n

Precision agriculture<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the oldest truisms<\/a> about farming is that it\u2019s an uncertain business \u2014 so much depends on the weather. So-called \u201cdigital\u201d and precision agriculture strategies rely on technology to enable farmers to control the inputs and outputs of their farms down to the most minute details in an attempt to insulate each individual farm against the growing risks of operating in a changing climate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sensors collect pinpointed data<\/a> about soil moisture, nutrient levels, and leaf temperature and wetness. GPS-guided tractors<\/a> can navigate at night, in fog or rain. Agricultural robots<\/a> spray, prune and thin crops. Corteva Agriscience says it has trained<\/a> over a thousand pilots to fly data gathering drones over farms. FMC\u2019s Arc farm intelligence<\/a>software uses machine learning to forecast exactly where insects, weeds and diseases are likely to arrive. <\/span><\/p>\n

Precision agriculture \u201cuses technology to sharpen focus, zero in on, and narrow down, for example, land mapping, soil sampling, fertilization, pest and disease control, and weather alerts. It will pick out a puddle in a field or a change in gradient within a tea field for treatment,\u201d The Stir, a coffee and tea trade publication, explains<\/a>. \u201cIBMestimates that PA [precision agriculture] generates 500,000 data points per farm each day.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

These tactics are marketed by the big five pesticides manufacturers as a central tenet of their responses to climate change. Bayer, for example, advertises<\/a> a \u201cSmart Fields\u201d strategy for \u201cdigitalization in farming,\u201d adding that<\/a> \u201cdevelopment of climate-smart solutions including digital farming and improved plant breeding technologies will help reduce agriculture’s impact on climate change in the future\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

The biggest problem with this precision approach, critics say, is that all of these high tech solutions are extremely expensive.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNot many farmers use precision agriculture technologies, although the percentages vary by region,\u201d Tamme van der Wal, a Wageningen University data scientist, wrote<\/a> in a 2019 Future Farming opinion column. \u201cThe overall complaint is that the technology is too expensive, too complex and farmers don\u2019t have a reasonable outlook on the return on their investment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a huge barrier for small-scale farmers, especially in places like South America and Africa, where, for example, a farming revolution promised by organizations like the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa<\/a> wound up<\/a> leaving farmers in debt, criticis say, while enriching multinational agribusinesses.<\/span><\/p>\n

The technologies on which precision agriculture relies may also prove to be ineffective because of climate change \u2013 like, for example, one of the world’s most widely-used pesticides. \u201c[O]verreliance on glyphosate for weed control under changing climatic conditions may result in more weed control failures,\u201d reported a 2019 study in Nature<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Regenerative agriculture<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Precision agriculture isn\u2019t the only strategy marketed by the pesticides industry as the answer to climate change.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year, US Farmers and Ranchers in Action<\/a> (USFRA), an organisation whose board members include representatives from Bayer and Corteva, launched its \u201c30 Harvests\u201d campaign, linked to a video production<\/a> depicting a farmer on the cusp of moving to the city and giving up his family farm.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOh my gosh, I think that we are the solution to climate change,\u201d an agriculture industry rep says over the radio while the farmer drives his pickup truck past foreclosure signs and farmland. \u201cWe have not had the conversation that we actually can offset carbon for the fossil fuel sector.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n