Getting lost with a bad compass: Precaution and pesticides
August 8, 2016
From: The Risk Monger
***
EU agriculture policy: How lost are we?
The EU’s use of the precautionary principle on agricultural technologies is a bad, broken compass. How far lost are we? The EU went from being a region producing food surpluses to a trade zone that can no longer feed itself. Banning most GMO production, the EU is forced to import GM feed in order to raise livestock. The recent precautionary moves on neonicotinoids and now glyphosate means that certain insect infestations like the cabbage stem flea beetle, and the inability to efficiently control weeds, will further reduce agricultural yields.
We continue to follow this bad compass down a path with no concern for the consequences. Can we continue to rely on others to feed us? How many famines in Africa in the next decade will be due to our demand for that continent to adopt medieval agricultural practices to meet our food needs? Relying on a bad compass makes us blind to signals that we are lost. There will be those in 15 years who will pat themselves on the back saying: “Yay! We still have bees!” Well … the bees, as data shows, were not suffering as claimed, and where there were issues, it was not from pesticides!!!
Leave a Comment