Pesticides in 68% of fruit in Italy. The pesticide industry is fighting to survive, against everything and everyone. The farmers' protest is not what we see on TV
The Italian farmers who protest claim that they eat the identical products that then end up on Italian tables. This reading, however, contrasts with the common belief that the EU is green and farmers are conservative and polluters. But what sense would there be for farmers to poison themselves even by exposing themselves to so many poisons with their own hands? Nothing in reality is as it seems.
The demands of farmers protesting throughout Europe are different country by country, but if you land in the chats of Italians (the chats are on a regional level from Sicily to Trentino Alto Adige, plus some national ones) there is a minimum common denominator which however does not see the light of day in the mainstream media.
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The requests in summary: being paid the right price for products that are qualitatively better than imported ones, helped to produce quality by lowering energy and raw material costs, not having rigid EU rules, not addressing the environmental issue in an ideological way, having fewer pesticides in products, receiving contributions for a real conversion to new non-toxic forms, more flowering areas for bees, more economically sustainable stables and better paid products, etc.
Now, even if it takes second place, among the protestors there is a resurgence of challenges to the EU institutions which have made the environmental question only an ideological topic, to the point that first the EU approved plans for a green economy, then prolonged the use of glyphosate and finally the limitation of the use of pesticides which are undermining biodiversity and future food production was rejected. It's understandable, the pesticide industry is struggling to survive but for how long?
We are faced with an EU green economy that seems very superficial, as with electric cars, good for high income brackets and which present many doubts in terms of long-term pollution or with new technologies (see AI ), which consume more energy than the previous ones but are applauded because the lobbies that sponsor them determine the market.
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It is clear that important planning and a deeper reconversion must be done between the use of pesticides and the transition to natural remedies, many Italian farmers argue in the chats. It is foolish to even think of reconverting a sector with two lines of provision as the EU did, undermining harvests and not enhancing organic and quality, they repeat. However, massive use of pesticides and poisons will continue to call into question the entire fundamental habitat in which farmers themselves live.
A recent report by the World Biodiversity Council explained that the risk of mass extinction of species is equal to that of climate change and that at this rate we are faced with an unprecedented loss of species. This also causes serious problems for crops and what we eat, to the point that what ends up on the table will be increasingly influenced by chemistry.
The result: the number of insects killed fell by almost two thirds compared to 2004. Researchers at the University of Würzburg recently discovered that 29 percent fewer species live in agricultural landscapes, and even 56% fewer insect species at risk of extinction compared to natural areas, recalls the German newspaper Tagesspiegel. Without pesticides, it is said, yields would be lower.
But as insects disappear, birds also disappear and crops change. “Almost all species of Birds use insects as food for their young,” explained Ariel Brunner, European head of the organization BirdLife International.
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However, substances actually considered dangerous continue to be sprayed in EU fields: those already banned can receive an emergency authorization for 120 days if the crop cannot otherwise be saved. In France, sales of pesticides increased from 61,000 to 76,700 tonnes from 2011 to 2020, he always says Tagesspiegel. In Italy, a Legambiente report revealed, there are traces of pesticides in 68% of fruit. And in descending order, the insecticides Acetamiprid, Fludioxonil, Boscalid, Dimethomorph were reported, present from the most widespread fruit on the market to the least.
At this rate, however, a purely ideological clash only favors the lobbies that aim to maintain their own status quo, to the detriment of consumers and farmers, subjects who are much closer than one might think.
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