by Frédéric Loore, photo report by Roger Job
Translation by Oliviero Aseglio
Brussels, 28 March 2023. The Mont des Arts conference centre is hosting the “Forum for the Future of Agriculture” for its annual rave. The Gold Hall is packed to the rafters. Among the participants are a whole panel of experts, representatives of the United Nations World Food Programme and the European Union’s DG Agriculture and Rural Development, as well as Frans Timmermans, the European Commission Vice-President in charge of the Green Deal. The organisers are even giving the legendary ethologist Jane Goodall, the UN’s messenger of peace, the honour of headlining their major event.
The farming world is the big absentee at this event, which nonetheless has a major challenge on its front: “debating sustainable agriculture and environmental challenges”. We thought the event was a must in the context of our investigation into the international pesticide trade. But it soon became clear that the Brussels agora was primarily intended to serve as an amplifier for the voices in favour of the agro-industrial model. The day’s speeches confirmed what was suggested by the list of conference sponsors, which included the European landowners’ lobby (ELO), the food multinationals Nestlé and PepsiCo, the raw materials giant Cargill and the agricultural machinery giant John Deere, and last but not least, Syngenta, the world leader in pesticides.
“Pesticide” is a word we won’t be hearing in the lobby, where lobbyists prefer to talk about “plant protection solutions”, adopting the language carefully selected by the communications consultants. The term even seems so unpronounceable that the slogan “Stop pesticide”, which appeared for a time on the Forum’s participative fresco, will eventually be covered by an accommodating bright red “Together”.
Chemical bomb in the heart of the Andes
Early May, in the fertile valley of Chillon, carved out by the river of the same name that flows down the steep slopes of the Andes to the desert coast of Lima. As the southern winter approaches, the Peruvian capital and the entire region are bathed in “garua”, the maritime fog that envelops the Pacific coast and becomes thinner as the altitude increases.
It takes a good two hours by car to escape the urban chaos of the metropolitan area and find yourself in the middle of vegetable and fruit plantations, spread out at heights of over 3,000 metres, on the edge of farmland and livestock areas. Under the combined effect of galloping demographics and the voracity of property developers, Lima’s megalopolis of twelve million inhabitants is constantly expanding the boundaries of its suburbs, which are entangled in a magma of human misery. Heading north from Lima, it’s an uninterrupted parade of potholed streets, miserable breeze-block shacks spiked with concrete reinforcing bars and clustered on hillsides, small shops with gaudy signs, stray dogs on the verges and street vendors in shambles. The change of scenery comes shortly after the district of Carabayllo. Suddenly, you find yourself immersed in 5,000 hectares of crops divided between some 1,200 farmers. In the surrounding plots, farm workers equipped with petrol-powered sprayers are tirelessly surveying the rows of vegetables onto which they pour truckloads of pesticides.
Here, unlike Brussels, the word does not frighten people, far from it. In the space of twenty years, the number of shops selling plant protection products has literally exploded in this part of the valley. There are now around sixty of them, all connected to the resale network provided by companies with import authorisations for pesticides and synthetic fertilisers, including the Peruvian subsidiaries of the world’s major manufacturers.
Trapiche has the highest concentration of specialist shops. In the main street, they stand side by side, their shelves crammed with cans of herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, neonicotinoids and other fumigants. There are also heaps of sacks of nitrogen fertiliser, made from ammonium sulphate and nitrate. A veritable chemical bomb in the heart of the Andes.
The business of prohibited substances
« There are more and more brands whose representatives come and offer us their products by catalogue, especially generics, which cost less, around 10 euros a can, compared with 50 euros for patented pesticides », confides Hector, manager of a flourishing business, judging by the comings and goings of his customers, lured by the enticing adverts on the shop front.
Hector, like all its competitors, offers the full range of products available from the agro-industry. And among them are a host of pesticides containing active substances reputed to be highly dangerous to human health and the environment. Thiamethoxam, carbendazim, acetochlor, Ferbam and others are classified as “CMR”, which means that their carcinogenic, mutagenic and toxic effects on reproduction are known or suspected. Banned from use in the European Union (EU), they can nevertheless be found on the shelves of retail outlets in the Chillon valley.
« That’s the hypocrisy of it all », says Jonas Jaccard, head of the campaign run by the Belgian NGO Humundi (formerly SOS Faim), along with six other organisations campaigning against the trading of banned pesticides with developing countries. « Europe has severely regulated and banned the use of 207 active substances in agriculture, in recognition of their extremely harmful effects on human health, biodiversity and the natural environment. On the other hand, it authorises its Member States to produce and export them en masse, usually to poor countries ».
81,000 tonnes of plant protection products, banned in the EU, were exported in 2018 by European-based agrochemical heavyweights, 75% of them to low- and middle-income countries. This was revealed two years later by the NGO Public Eye, based on the records of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), which is responsible for centralising Member States’ export notifications. And Belgium is not to be outdone : « In 2022, it will rank third among exporting countries, behind Germany and France. », points out Jonas Jaccard, who also refers to ECHA data. For the Belgian Federal Public Service – Public Health, the figures for the period 2013 to 2021 show that the UK exported nearly 63,000 tonnes of these active substances not authorised in the EU to some seventy countries. The last year was the most prosperous, with the tonnage doubling compared with the average for previous years.
Belgium, home of the pesticide giants
Belgium is one of Europe’s leading pesticide exporters because this petrochemical sector is one of the Kingdom’s industrial flagships, and is also export-oriented. The Federal Minister for Agriculture, David Clarinval (MR), said as much in April 2021, in response to a parliamentary question : «Belgium plays a very important role in the trade of active substances and plant protection products ».
The lack of transparency surrounding this industry, which willingly hides behind the law of business secrecy, makes it difficult to accurately assess the weight given to it by the Minister. In any case, according to a report by the Federal Public Service Economy, the industry’s turnover for 2020 was €477 million. Moreover, three of the four behemoths that control two-thirds of the global pesticides market have major infrastructures in Belgium. These are Syngenta, Bayer and BASF, while the American Corteva has its Benelux subsidiary based in the Netherlands, close to the border.
The number one, Syngenta, a Swiss company until 2017, which has since been taken over by the Chinese state-owned conglomerate ChemChina, operates the Seneffe plant in Hainaut (Belgium). Bayer, Monsanto’s successor, and BASF are also present in the port of Antwerp, with BASF boasting the largest chemical production site in Belgium. Each of these companies has a subsidiary in Peru. According to a study by the highly respected French Bureau d’Analyse Sociétale d’Intérêt Collectif (BASIC), with the exception of Syngenta, which has been taken over by Beijing, the capital of the other three companies is partly in the hands of large private American investment funds, including the “Big Three”: BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street. This oligopoly shares the bulk of a global market worth €53 billion in 2020, with Europe still the leading exporting region.
The growth of the pesticide sector, where sales have doubled in twenty years, is now taking place outside Europe. « Multinationals have understood this for two reasons: firstly, because generic products are in the process of establishing themselves on the market, and it is in India and China that they are manufactured. », explains Philippe Baret, agronomist and geneticist, professor at the Faculty of Bioengineering at UCLouvain and Chairman of the Humundi Board. « Secondly, because in Europe, the model of agriculture based on synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, mechanisation and hybrid seeds is increasingly being called into question. Admittedly, this is the most efficient way of producing large quantities at low cost, but we know that it is unsustainable. Eventually, under the impact of regulations, it will run out of steam and lead to a significant reduction in pesticide consumption. As a result, manufacturers are turning more and more to emerging countries to export their model and their stocks of plant protection products, even if it means that these countries will lose their way on the trajectory we are trying to reverse. ».
«Their obsession is yield.»
Standing in front of Hector’s display case in Trapiche, which is cluttered with pesticides and fertilisers, Luis Gomero, founder of the RAA (Network for Alternative Agriculture), confirms what the professor from Louvain has said: « As the State offers virtually no technical assistance to farmers, they are at the mercy of the companies that rely on the valley’s commissioned chemical salesmen to convert them to intensive farming. And it works: of the 1,200 farmers in Chillon, only ten or so refuse to use plant protection products », deplores the man who is also an agronomist, producer and President of the Peruvian Agroecological Consortium (CAP).
CAP, a multi-faceted civil society organisation, campaigns for agro-ecological food production and sustainable regional development. Luis Gomero and his friends face an unequal battle against the Goliaths of agrochemicals. In spite of everything, they are fighting relentlessly to convince the farming community to revive the 5,000-year-old Andean agricultural heritage, which is still practised only by the indigenous peoples of the high plateaus. Modernised using contemporary engineering techniques such as biomethanisation, this traditional approach uses resilient methods that « help respect ecosystems while ensuring food security », says CAP’s Chairman.
However, the latter is meeting with very strong resistance from small farmers, who are totally under the influence of the strategy of pesticide manufacturers, who dangle the promise of huge productivity gains in front of them. What’s more, while they all own their « chacra » (farm) inherited from the agrarian reform of the 1970s, only 40% of them cultivate it themselves. « The others rent their land on a year-round basis to investors who control the sales channels on Lima’s central market, as this guarantees them a more stable income,” explains Luis, adding: “These investors run seasonal campaigns for which they hire farm workers, practise monoculture and make massive use of chemical inputs. Their obsession is to get the highest yield at the lowest price ».
«Glyphosate? It’s not dangerous!»
This is the case everywhere in the Chillon valley, as well as in the Lurin valley, whose golden hills south of Lima cascade beneath the towering silhouette of Pariacaca, the sacred mountain of the Incas. Among the plantations lined up in a perfect geometry, or in the compact orchards clinging to the slopes of the massifs, the same actors appear when the sun lifts the curtain of mist.
They are often young. The work of spreading and fumigating is reserved for men from the age of fifteen, while sowing and harvesting are entrusted to women. Women make up two-thirds of the hard-working workforce of these country folk. Around them, the countryside has long been silent. The hum of sprayers has replaced the buzz of bees. Chemical treatments have wrung out the soil, wiped out the insects and frightened away the birds more effectively than an army of scarecrows. Proof of the scale of this aggression, strings of emptied cans litter the edges of crops or drift on the surface of irrigation canals.
In the town of Macas (Chillon), at the corner of a chive plant, a grower is busy working around a huge barrel in which he is preparing with his bare hands a mixture based on mancozeb, a fungicide, classified as an endocrine disruptor in Europe and recognisable by its blue colour. Man draws water from nearby « rio » to dilute the mixture. Then, without a mask, gloves or goggles, he sprays his toxic potion on the crop, which immediately appears to be overcome by cyanosis. Not far away, two young people are carrying out the same type of operation in the middle of strawberry plants, but this time it’s a cocktail of herbicides they are about to pour. When we asked them about their lack of protective equipment and the health risks they might be taking, one of them, aged 16, grinned broadly from beneath his filthy cap and said, mockingly : « I don’t think it’s risky, I’ve always worked like that and so has my family. Besides, I’m strong anyway! ».
It’s hard to distinguish between denial and lack of awareness. There’s a bit of both in the case of Jesus, 54, an “old hand” wading through glyphosate on the edge of a ditch. We ask him about his careless handling of this weedkiller, a generic of Monsanto’s famous Roundup. « Oh, but glyphosate isn’t dangerous! No need to protect me », he says. On the other hand, he says he is taking precautions with other products that worry him a little more : « I’m careful, I’ve got friends who are ill. In any case, you have to work, you have no choice ». Would he be tempted by the alternative to conventional farming? « I hear people talking about agroecology, but I don’t really know what it is. Besides, everyone here does conventional farming, and that’s what gives the best results ».
It’s much the same story for Pedro Luis, who grows apples, quinces and avocados several hours away, on the rugged slopes of the Antioquia district (Lurin). Under a relentless sun, he is clearing the undergrowth from his four-hectare plot, hunting down the flies and worms on his fruit, his arms cluttered with cans of herbicide, fungicide and insecticide. « I carry out an average of five fumigations a month, but I have to increase the doses and applications because the parasites tend to resist », he admits. He explains that he received training from the La Molina agrarian university in Lima, which was designed to teach him natural processes for trapping insects. He tried the experiment before giving up : « My neighbours continued to use chemical products. As a result, the flies and worms from their plots migrated to mine, so I stopped everything ».
Paraquat smuggling with Ecuador
On our way to meet a farm worker suffering from the disease, we come across a squad of eight sprayers. They are attacking a cabbage crop that stretches as far as the eye can see, towards the horizon where the mountains proudly rise up. For protection, they have cobbled together a pair of plastic leggings. After activating their giant foggers, they move forward between the plants and begin an impeccably choreographed sweep, similar to a military parade on a parade ground. As they chase each other, a halo of pesticides forms around the troop, then spreads into the overheated air.
John Bordaleon knows this job very well. He has been doing it for the last five years. Aged 34 and originally from Apurimac in central Peru, he immigrated to the Chillon valley to take up a job as a farm labourer paying 60 soles (15 euros) a day. He greets us on the doorstep of his small home in Macas. Huddled up against the façade, with his wife and two of his four children by his side, he tells us in a voice that is almost deadpan : « I’m not well. I’m being treated in hospital, mainly for stomach pains, but the doctors don’t really know what’s wrong with me. They tell me it’s an infection and give me antibiotics. When I was spraying every day, I suffered from burning eyes, skin irritations and breathing difficulties. It’s been better since I stopped. I think that’s where my health problems come from. Many of us have these symptoms ». He confides that he has never protected himself for lack of means, apart from wearing a derisory scarf. He won’t say it in front of his neighbours on the pavement opposite, but if he had ventured to ask his bosses for a protective kit, he risked losing his job.
Before saying goodbye, we ask John if he is aware that products prohibited in Peru are in circulation in the region. He discreetly confirms this. In fact, we managed to get our hands on some used cans containing paraquat, a particularly virulent active substance that has been banned from entering the country since July 2020. But the illegal sale is fuelled by smuggling with neighbouring Ecuador. The NGOs also denounce the opacity of the globalised production channels used by the major groups to circumvent regulations. They point the finger at Belgium, which exported paraquat until 2014 (data from the Federal Public Service for Health confirms this), and at Syngenta in particular, which has been marketing this herbicide for half a entury and is reportedly cunningly trying to keep it on the market. When contacted, the company denies this. It claims to be scrupulously complying with current Peruvian legislation, and also states that it has never manufactured or exported paraquat-based products from its Belgian factories.
High levels of contamination among the population
Can a direct link be established between the illnesses reported among the farmers of Chillon and Lurin, from the age of 25 according to eyewitness accounts, and their prolonged exposure to the pesticide molecules they use? The question also arises for consumers, given that agricultural produce from the valleys feeds the whole of Lima after passing through the gigantic Santa Anita wholesale market.
Flora Luna Gonzales is a paediatrician, a professor at various medical faculties and a specialist in human nutrition. Based on her field observations in the capital and elsewhere, her findings are clear-cut : « The population’s state of health continues to deteriorate ». She is particularly alarmed by the attention she pays to children. « In particular, cases of autism are exploding. I’ve been practising for 30 years, and when I started I hardly ever saw any cases, but now I see several a week ». The chemical analyses she has had carried out in the United States show the significant presence of pesticide residues in her young patients. As for establishing a correlation with autism and other illnesses, she is cautious, but the results of incidence studies that flash across her computer screen lead her to this conclusion : « As a scientist, I do not overlook the role of other factors. Nevertheless, in my view, plant protection products are among the most serious candidates for explaining the health situation ».
« Stomach and colon cancers are on the increase, and this is extremely worrying », insists Jaime Delgado. A lawyer specialising in public law and health policy, and a former member of parliament, he founded Peru’s first consumer protection association in 1984, one of the pioneers in Latin America. At the end of 2022, he initiated a study supported by a group of associations. The scientifically validated results piling up on his desk have public opinion in a panic. And with good reason: of the 84 fruit and vegetable samples taken from wholesale and retail markets, as well as from Lima supermarkets, more than half contained very high levels of pesticides. The most serious case was that of celery: eight different substances were detected, with concentrations 25,000% above the maximum limit authorised by health standards! « In very concrete terms », observes the lawyer, « according to the law on permitted concentrations of pesticide residues, Peruvians eat food every day that should be declared unfit for consumption ».
A system out of control
« This catastrophic situation is largely due to the absence of the State », denounces Jaime Delgado. « The government is betting everything on agri-export, leaving small producers and consumers to fend for themselves. The national agri-food system is neither controlled nor planned, farmers use pesticides at an alarming rate because they are not supervised, and the chemical giants occupy the field ».
Peru, a world producer of avocados, asparagus, quinoa and bananas, is focusing its entire strategy on exports. In order to comply with European Union health and environmental regulations, the authorities are focusing their control efforts primarily on cash crops grown by large-scale farmers. However, these farmers still use pesticides to optimise their yields, including the notorious banned active substances imported from Europe. Their residues end up on the plates of consumers in Belgium and elsewhere, as shown by several reports from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the Belgian Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (AFSCA).
All the local observers we interviewed were unanimous about the reasons why the Peruvian authorities are failing to exercise real oversight of their inward-looking agricultural sector. In addition to a relative lack of resources, they criticise endemic poor governance and corruption, the entrenchment of the pesticide lobby at the highest level of government and, above all, the dispersal of powers between the various bodies officially responsible for enforcing regulations.
In fact, everyone is passing the quid, placing the primary responsibility for controlling farm produce destined for the commercial network on the shoulders of the municipalities. However, according to Juan Sanchez, an economist specialising in rural development and a member of citizens’ groups involved in promoting virtuous peasant farming, « if there is one level of government in Peru that, even more than the others, lacks the skills to fulfil this role effectively, it is the municipalities ».
This raises questions about the scope of the principle of prior consent on which the Rotterdam Convention, which regulates world trade in the most dangerous chemicals, is based. Peru and the Member States of the European Union are signatories to the Convention. Belplant, the Belgo-Luxembourg association of the plant protection industry, refers us to it. So be it, but in the light of the above, what is the real value of the consent given by the Peruvian government to the import into its territory of pesticides about which the country of origin has duly informed it of the harmful effects?
Paris Match wanted to confront the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Christian Alfredo Barrantes, with these findings, as well as the directors of SENASA, the National Agricultural Health Service. Our repeated requests have gone unanswered. Only Yvette Sanguinetti, the director of Indecopi, the consumer protection body, agreed to meet us. However, what she had to say was a half-hearted admission of powerlessness.
« Women can make a difference! »
Faced with the laxity of the State and the omnipotence of agribusiness, a handful of family farmers, driven by a spirit of resistance and supported by the Peruvian Agroecological Consortium, are doing their utmost to bring about change. Gianina Loayza is one of them. A brave mother of three, she organically grows around sixty varieties of vegetables and aromatic herbs on just over a hectare of land in the commune of Choca (Chillon).
Health problems linked to her diet and a decisive meeting with Luis Gomero six years ago were at the root of her fierce determination to demonstrate that intensive farming is not inevitable. To achieve this, she had to train and, above all, overcome the scepticism of her husband and the hostility of her male-dominated community. « I did it for myself and for my children’s future », she explains. « I went step by step. At first, my husband was against it, because he was afraid we’d lose productivity. Like everyone else, he only believed in pesticides. There were tensions between us. My first good harvests calmed things down. Since then, he’s let me get on with it, but he continues to use conventional methods. Here, people are so convinced that you can’t grow crops without pesticides that even the danger to our environment and our children’s health doesn’t dissuade them ».
Luis agrees : « Mothers are more sensitive to these issues. What’s more, as they are the ones who cook, they are more concerned about diversifying the family’s diet. And diversification is essential to the ecological transition. Unfortunately, they are victims of a patriarchal culture that hinders their autonomy. The key for them is to generate their own income to gain their independence ».
This is the tour de force that Gianina has achieved. A real event in a rural world steeped in conservatism. As the sentinel of a farming industry rid of its evil spirits, she has become a messenger to her sisters in the valley. « It’s difficult for them to break free, because they are under the weight of tradition and, above all, they lack technical skills. But minds are opening up. I’m convinced that women can make a difference!».