Good morning,
The EU prides itself on having strict rules on the chemicals and pesticides used in their food. Some of us remember a Simpsons episode ‘the crepes of wrath’ where Bart becomes a hero in France after telling the authorities that his captors have been putting antifreeze in their red wine to make it age faster.
But it has something of a blind spot when it comes to banned chemicals being sold and used in farming elsewhere.
In Kenya, a court case is underway where several NGOs are suing a group of western chemicals giants, including BASF, Monsanto and Syngenta, for poisoning and, in several cases, killing farm workers. They also want the country's Supreme Court to force their government to ban the chemicals in question.
“Importing death” was the lurid headline on the front cover of one of Kenya’s main daily papers last week. Gladys Boss, a senior local MP, has described the EU’s stance as “bad faith”.
It’s not a great look for the EU. It’s not a surprise that chemicals made in Europe that are harmful to human health are going to be just as harmful to human health anywhere else.
There are only two options: the EU could decide that all pesticides banned across the bloc are also banned for export to third countries. The chemicals industry wouldn’t like it – it would cost them many millions - but it would leave little legal ambiguity.
There is also the status quo, where third countries get to decide whether they want to ban the import of dangerous chemicals. In the case of Kenya, the government has sat on the fence. It banned around 70 chemicals in June but left many others unaffected. The irony is that locally produced meat, fruit and vegetables in Kenya – and South African wine for that matter - taste far better than Europe’s produce.
There is a strong sovereignty argument in favour of this line, even if it is a choice about whether to poison your own people.
The trouble with the status quo option, at least for the EU, is that some agricultural produce made using banned chemicals is almost certain to end up back in the EU’s food chain. The bloc’s customs officials are supposed to do spot checks on imported produce. Many thousands of tonnes of food are rejected as a result, but it is not a perfect system.
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