Can’t have it both ways: European consumers want affordable food without glyphosate

The European Crop Protection Association has said Europeans don’t understand the harsh realities of food production . . .pesticides are important in maintaining supply and keeping prices down, it says.

More than nine out of 10 (91%) consumers think food should remain affordable, but only a shade over half (54%) think that farmers should be able to use pesticides to keep prices down.

The findings, from a poll of 5,631 people in Germany, Spain, Poland and the UK, are being used by the European Crop Protection Association (ECPA) to defend the role of agri-chemicals as it launches a campaign to address what it calls “negative perceptions”.

. . . . The spotlight has recently been fixed on . . . glyphosate – a chemical the International Agency for Research on Cancer has tagged as “probably carcinogenic”, but which the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has concluded poses no cancer risk to humans.

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More than 1.4m people have signed a petition to ban glyphosate. . . .

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. . . ECPA spokesman Graeme Taylor suggested shoppers can’t have it both ways. “To continue to be able to produce sufficient quantities of quality crops requires sustainable use of pesticides,” he argued. “If farmers cannot protect their crops, cost will inevitably increase.”

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The ECPA’s poll showed consumers’ poor understanding on a range of issues linked to food security and protection, including:

50% underestimate the extent to which global crop yields are lost due to plant pests and diseases each year

31% think farmers’ inability to protect their crops against diseases and crop infestation is a factor directly linked to the cost of the world’s food supply; climate change is seen as a much bigger issue (50%).