Today, 430 civil society and Indigenous peoples organisations from 69 countries around the world called on the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to uphold human rights and end its partnership with CropLife International. CropLife is the industry association that represents the world’s largest pesticide manufacturers.
Ahead of the FAO Council’s 170th session that begins on June 13, Pesticide Action Network (PAN) submitted a letter, co-sponsored by 10 other global networks and on behalf of the 430 organisations, urging the Council to take immediate action. This demand follows the recommendations made by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food during the Human Rights Council’s 49th session, namely: “to review the agreement with CropLife International with an eye to human rights concerns” and “to consider directing the Director-General of FAO to rescind the agreement.”
The letter 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.”
In October 2020, the FAO signed a Letter of Intent with CropLife to cooperate on a broad range of areas, as part of the agency’s Private Sector Engagement Strategy. “FAO deepening its collaboration with CropLife International directly counters any efforts toward progressively banning Highly Hazardous Pesticides, as recommended for consideration by the FAO Council as early as 2006,” the letter stated.
The organisations also point out that the partnership, which has been in effect for over a year and a half, “undercuts the FAO and several Member States’ support for agroecology, an approach that offers viable and sustainable proposals for generating ecologically-based food and farming systems without the use of toxic pesticides.”
The letter pointed out that FAO’s own due diligence process indicates that companies involved in human rights abuses can be excluded from potential partners. The 430 organisations assert that the “use of hazardous pesticides is inconsistent with the rights protected by the United Nations to: Health; Clean, healthy and sustainable environment; Safe working conditions; Adequate food; safe and clean water and sanitation; A dignified life; and Rights of Indigenous Peoples, women, children, workers, and peasants and other people working in rural areas.”
In addition, a briefing report entitled “Addressing the Conflict of Interest and Incompatibility of FAO’s Partnership with CropLife International”–detailing the necessity to end what civil society and Indigenous peoples call the “Toxic Alliance” between the FAO and the pesticide industry–was submitted to the FAO Council by 11 global organizations spearheading the campaign.
A separate briefing report entitled “Corporate Capture of FAO: Industry’s Deepening Influence on Global Food Governance,” presenting the partnership with CropLife as one of its case studies, was also submitted to the FAO and Member States in time for the FAO Council session.
Read a previous post: Is FAO in the pocket of the pesticide industry?
