A European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) review has found no “critical areas of concern” about the use of glyphosate, the controversial chemical herbicide.
Glyphosate has been at the centre of a decade-long controversy as to whether it causes cancer and has a disruptive impact on the environment.
Companies looking to extend the use of the chemical beyond its current December deadline in Europe have hailed the EU food safety agency finding. Unsurprisingly, their view is not shared by the environmentalists.
Greenpeace’s Eva Corral accused the European food safety body of having “again decided” to sweep the issue “under the carpet” even though “the evidence of glyphosate’s toxicity for people and the environment has been stacking up”.
Now, spurred on by the latest EFSA advisory, the European Commission and the EU’s 27 member states face a decision to authorize use of the chemical beyond the end of this year. Doing so would require the assent of all 27 EU member states as well as a majority vote in the European Parliament.
According to the EU food safety agency’s detailed scientific review, its assessment of the impact of the chemical “on the health of humans, animals and the environment did not identify critical areas of concern.” It defined a concern “as critical when it affects all proposed uses of the active substance.”
EFSA pointed out how last year the European Chemicals Agency had determined that glyphosate could not be classified as a carcinogenic substance. In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a part of the World Health Organization, had classified glyphosate as a “probable human carcinogen”.
Angeliki Lysimachou, a researcher at Pesticide Action Network Europe, described the EFSA advisory as being “beyond any logic”, adding that numerous new independent studies “show negative impacts of glyphosate on health and environment.”
The Glyphosate Renewal Group, a consortium that includes agro giants like Bayer Agriculture and Syngenta Crop Protection, issued a statement that EFSA’s announcement opened the way for “the successful re-approval of glyphosate in the EU” and matched the conclusions of “leading health regulatory bodies from around the world for nearly 50 years.”
