The newly released European State of the Climate 2024 annual report (ESOTC), co-published by the European Union’s Copernicus Earth observation program and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), confirms what public health experts have long warned about: the health costs of climate change in Europe are rising fast, and so is the human toll.
Today, the European Commission published its Vision for Agriculture and Food, outlining plans for the European agri-food sector for this 2024-2029 term.
HEAL appreciates the document’s overall ambition to work towards a more sustainable, healthier and fairer agricultural sector that functions within planetary boundaries and the commitment to “operate in line with a One Health approach.” However, this requires renewed commitment and urgent steps towards effective reduction of pesticides use and exposure.
People’s health is threatened like never before from the triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, including pesticides pollution. Exposure to pesticides in our food, air, drinking water, and the wider environment is linked to illnesses such as cancer, heart, respiratory and neurological diseases as well as infertility issues. Scientific reports have shown how early life exposure to pesticides can harm children’s healthy development and disrupt the body’s natural hormone system. This is especially concerning considering biomonitoring data: at least two pesticides were detected in as many as 84% of samples in a 2023 study. In 2017, the societal costs on a European scale directly attributable to pesticides were around €2.3 billion.
Evidence suggests that the link between pesticide exposure and disease is stronger amongst occupationally exposed groups, such as agricultural workers. Especially concerning is the link between those who have been occupationally exposed and diseases in their children, such as childhood leukaemia.
“People’s and farmers’ health should be at the heart of the EU’s vision on agriculture and food. The most vulnerable to the impacts of health-harming pesticides are those who come in close contact with pesticides in their work or in their communities. We must see pesticide-related occupational diseases included in plans to improve working conditions in the European agri-food sector.”
Iiris Lamminmaki, Advocacy and Campaigns Officer, Health and Chemicals
HEAL notes that the Vision mentions plans to continue the work to restrict the use of pesticides that pose a threat to human health. Health protection is key to achieving a resilient agricultural sector and long-term sustainable food production. It is thus crucial that decisions on phasing out pesticides are led by scientific evidence on their harmful effects, and further action is taken to implement and enforce existing pesticide legislation (the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Directive 2009/128/EC and the Regulation on Plant Protection Products No 1107/2009).
