Status: 4/4/2023 1:12 p.m
Pesticides are used in crop protection products, among other things, and are toxic and harmful to the environment. For the first time, the German Environmental Aid and Foodwatch are now taking legal action against the approval of some pesticide products.
For the first time, the German Environmental Aid (DUH) and the consumer organization Foodwatch are taking legal action against the approval of five pesticide products. The DUH submitted formal objections to the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety, as the two organizations announced at a press conference.
If these are rejected, a complaint will be filed with the administrative court in Braunschweig. The aim is to stop the sale of products with “particularly toxic and environmentally harmful active ingredients” in Germany. Among other things, it is about the product Roundup Powerflex from Monsanto Germany, which contains the controversial herbicide glyphosate.
Foodwatch: “It needs a complete phase-out of pesticides”
These products “poison water, kill important food plants and thereby animals and also get into the human body via water and food. Some of these substances cannot be removed from the environment again,” it said in the communication. “There needs to be a complete phase-out of pesticides and these legal actions are an important first step,” added Foodwatch’s Annemarie Botzki.
So far, the federal government has prevented German environmental organizations from judicially reviewing the approval of pesticides “to protect chemical companies,” it said. The lawyer Caroline Douhaire, who represents the DUH in the proceedings, is quoted as saying that this is scandalous.
However, DUH and Foodwatch are now referring to a judgment of the European Court of Justice from November 2022, according to which a German ban on class action lawsuits against product approvals is illegal and the review of product approvals is final. You can now “have a court check whether certain pesticide products are legitimately approved or not,” said Jürgen Resch, managing director of Deutsche Umwelthilfe.
Cancer risk from glyphosate disputed
Pesticides are contained in plant protection products and biocides as active ingredients and, according to the Federal Environment Agency, are toxic – especially for plants or insects. How dangerous individual pesticides are, however, is sometimes controversial, as is the case with glyphosate.
The US environmental agency EPA as well as the supervisory authorities in the EU and Germany – among other things Federal Institute for Risk Assessment 2019 – concluded that glyphosate does not pose a cancer risk. In contrast, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which belongs to the World Health Organization (WHO), stated in 2015 that glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic in humans”.