17th February 2024
Insatiable
Dear readers,
In an informative interview in the «Tages-Anzeiger», Lausanne-based economics professor Howard Yu explains the importance of large companies to a country's prosperity: «They are hugely important. No country can stay rich without having global companies of this kind based on its territory. After all, such national champions are the main driving force behind the growth of the entire industry. Large companies create an economic ecosystem in which small and medium-sized enterprises can then flourish. All these factors combined lead to economic growth, employment and social stability.» And, according to Professor Yu, this applies not only to Switzerland: «Global corporations are the ones driving innovation on the world stage.» He therefore recommends that Swiss industry looks beyond Europe's borders, as «Europe has a tendency to act too slowly and too conservatively. Directives emanating from Brussels focus principally on data protection and regulation. They hinder innovation.» The Brussels bureaucracy has become notorious. And it seems to be insatiable when it comes to regulating the world according to its narrow world view. Just like the «Very Hungry Caterpillar» which eats its way through the pages of Eric Carle's picture book for children.
Until recently, no one seemed able to halt its advance. But then the farmers lost patience. Waves of demonstrations by farmers rippled across the countries of Europe. The «NZZ» was correct in its analysis that this is not just about money. «Their dissatisfaction with politics is the main issue.» The president of the Belgian farmers' union, Hendrik Vandamme, is quoted as saying: «There is a lack of respect for agriculture.» Indeed, what is being demanded of European agriculture is almost an impossibility. It is supposed to produce economically, ensure security of supply and at the same time do without key tools of production.
This is what German farmers' representative Anthony Lee said to the magazine Weltwoche: «We are told we have to use fewer plant protection products, 50% less across the board – no one can (…) explain to us where this figure has come from.» He finds the regulations «completely absurd and arrogant» and says that politics currently poses a great risk to farming. Regulations are making farmers’ lives increasingly difficult.
Now the President of the European Commission has backed down. Ursula von der Leyen has withdrawn the Regulation on the Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products (Sustainable Use Regulation, SUR). The Regulation provided for a 50% reduction in the use of pesticides by 2030.
The rationale for the withdrawal is based less on fundamental understanding than on anxiety about the upcoming European elections in June. Ursula von der Leyen made the following statement: «The proposed SUR has become a symbol of polarization», she said in a speech to the European Parliament Plenary in Strasbourg. «It has been rejected by the European Parliament. There is no progress anymore in the Council either. So we have to do something.»
In other words, the farmers' desperation has made itself felt in the political arena. The farmers have won a partial victory with their resistance to the EU's unrealistic targets. However, what they will need even after the elections are a clear long-term framework and access to innovations supporting fully sustainable production.
In principle, it is therefore encouraging that the European Parliament is taking a step in the right direction when it comes to gene editing. The licensing of new breeding techniques would make new tools available to farmers. More resistant plants can go at least some way toward reducing the use of pesticides. But there is still a long way to go until then, as the EU legislative process is still far away from reaching its goal. And there is great resistance. Over 250 individual motions have been tabled in Parliament in response to the Commission's proposal, which in itself is a good one. The aim of this political maneuvering is clear: the proposal is to be overloaded with additional requirements and restrictions and thus rendered useless in practice.
This has been done successfully once in the past, during the deliberations on the genetic engineering law on transgenic plants. In the EU – unlike in Switzerland – there is no moratorium on such plants, but due to the extreme requirements regarding licensing, coexistence, labeling, monitoring and separate flows of goods, in practice they play only a niche role in European agriculture. An insatiable appetite for requirements is the strategy of the opponents of modern agriculture, which ultimately wants nothing more than to feed us all in a generally more sustainable way.
For many years, products labeled as «GMO-free» – even organic products – have actually involved genetic engineering: any kind of breeding is an intervention in genes. Since mankind has been breeding plants, it has been changing the DNA of seeds. You can find out more about this in ORF's «Eco Special», which is well worth watching. The program examines the question of how plant breeding and genetic engineering work. Its message is very clear. Along similar lines, an organic farmer in Switzerland is calling for genome editing for his fruit-growing business.
However, new breeding methods do not make plant protection indispensable. After all, a plant which is resistant to everything forever is an impossibility. Farmers will still need to have sufficient means of protection available for their crops. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that this will be the case. Not only in the EU, but in Switzerland too, the authorities are putting the brakes on pesticides without having any realistic alternatives. The federal government is immediately withdrawing approval from pesticides which the EU takes off the market. At the same time, the authorities are still insisting on an independent Swiss licensing process for the licensing of new active substances. The consequences of this are a huge amount of bureaucracy and a massive licensing backlog. The status quo is unsatisfactory. The «Tages-Anzeiger» has also commented on this: «Unreasonable demands are being placed on farmers.» Farmers need better alternatives. You can't just withdraw more and more pesticides, allow them only to use old, non-specific products which enjoy the benefit of having an «organic aura», and simultaneously deny them access to modern products because the bureaucrats' in-trays are overflowing. If you care about both the environment and production, you cannot turn your back on the farmers. This is the clear message from Europe.
It is increasingly evident that crop failures are becoming more common. Farmers need real-life solutions. A shift in policy is therefore now underway. As part of the consultation process on the Plant Protection Product Ordinance, the federal government is proposing aligning licensing with the EU. The thinking behind this: Anything that has already been substantiated in extensive reports and studies and reviewed by x officials in the finicky EU should not need to be chewed over yet again in Switzerland. As in the EU countries, specific requirements that take local conditions into account should simply be imposed. However, the proposals are unsatisfactory. Parliament is quite rightly insisting on a more credible solution.
The Federal Council's proposal for a totally revised Plant Protection Product Ordinance (PSMV) brings with it a horrendous increase in fees for the licensing of pesticides. This is also the view of Jürg Burkhard at Sintagro, a company which imports pesticides into Switzerland from abroad and applies for a license for them here, as quoted in the «BauernZeitung» and the «Tages-Anzeiger». «For a new pesticide with a new active ingredient, licensing will be 40 times more expensive and will now cost CHF 100,000 instead of the previous CHF 2,500. If the active ingredient has already been approved in the EU, it will in future cost 30 times more.» This means that it will no longer be worth licensing products in Switzerland.
The Swiss farmers' union shares the importer's concerns: «The variety of active ingredients and products available would fall still further,» says David Brugger, Head of the Crop Production Division. And Jürg Burkhard from Sintagro finds the harmonization of rules with the EU and the simultaneous explosive rise in fees incomprehensible: «What is more, I fail to understand why, despite the simplification, the administration costs are not going down.»
In the industry’s view, robust, risk-based licensing systems like those used in the leading agricultural nations would be the most effective. As the European precautionary principle hinders innovation rather than managing risk. This makes it a preventive principle. However, this would require the discontinuation of the current dishonest practice of emergency licenses issued by federal and cantonal governments and producer organizations. Switzerland's licensing mountain is even worse than the EU's. An efficient licensing process harmonized with the EU would be a first step along the path to making modern and innovative protection concepts available for Swiss farmers too. The main concerns regarding the current draft for a totally revised Ordinance are that it does not include automatic transferal of pesticide licenses or binding deadlines for the issuing of licenses, it does not lighten the load on the authorities, and the colossal new licensing fees in effect hinder licensing, thereby jeopardizing domestic production. If Parliament does not take countermeasures to address these issues, the tried and tested ploy of prevention through overload will once again be successful here.
Because the opponents of any kind of plant protection product are also insatiable. They have already mobilized and are stoking fears that at least 50 problematic new active ingredients which are already licensed in France, Germany, Italy and Austria will in future be sold to farmers in Switzerland without closer inspection and might then be released into the environment by them. This ignores the fact that companies will still be needed in the future who want to sell products in the small Swiss market and are therefore willing to apply for licenses. There will be no flood of automatically transferred licenses. However, political action is urgently needed to ensure that there is a sound legal basis in place for the protection of crops and to respond to consumer desire for sustainably produced regional food.
The swiss-food editorial team
