October marks the second anniversary of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) toxic partnership with CropLife International (CLI), the global trade association for the world’s largest pesticide companies. The IUF, together with the Pesticide Action Network and numerous other organizations, are renewing our call for the immediate dissolution of this partnership.
- CLI members make over 35% of their income from the sale of highly hazardous pesticides that pose the greatest levels of risk to health and to the global environment; estimates suggest that every year, 385 million farmers and agricultural workers suffer from unintentional acute pesticide poisoning which equates to 44% of the global population working on the land
- In June of this year, the IUF was a signatory to a joint statement denouncing the FAO-CLI agreement as a threat to “FAO integrity, credibility, impartiality, independence, and neutrality. Aligning with the pesticide industry can lead to reputational risk and threaten its ability to fulfil its mandate to reduce hunger and support farmers and rural communities”
- UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri has recommended that the FAO Council ‘review the agreement with CLI’ and ‘consider directing the Director General of the FAO to rescind the agreement’
IUF Agricultural Workers Trade Group Chair Anja Westberg stated, “CLI are part of the problem, not the solution. The FAO must recognize their mistake, cut ties with CLI immediately and refocus their efforts on the critical work of eradicating world hunger.”
