The amendment:
- Replaces the word synthetic with hazardous, and applies it to both pesticides and fertilisers.
- Adds the funding of research and use of green alternatives to them.
Why:
- We believe the word ‘synthetic’, just like the word ‘chemical’ are non-scientific words used as buzzwords. Most substances, if processed in any form, whether green or organic, are still synthetic or chemical substances. We therefore want to stress the use of hazardous substances that are dangerous to human or environmental health, to ground water and nearby water supplies, soil health, air, and other beneficial organisms.
- Invasive pests present a massive issue in the cultivation of crops. In order to ensure food supply and combat rising food costs such as the resolution willed in the preambles, it’s important to not only aim for the facilitation of the abandonment of hazardous pesticides and fertilisers, but to provide a green alternative to them. Alternatives like biocontrol and natural barriers and predators and polyculture have long been used in traditional farming. The field of research into biopesticides is fairly new. Research into both these traditional and new alternatives have to be stimulated to bring these into commercial viability, such as the use of biosolarisation (biocontrol) and semiochemicals (biopesticides) to combat pests without adverse harm to human health or the environment.
- Natural pest control can contribute to species evenness, which in turn has beneficial effects on biodiversity: http://indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/Organic%20agriculture%20promotes%20evenness%20and%20natural.pdf
- Benefits of biosolarisation (equa or higher yields, cheaper), strawberry case: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01234832/document
- Some examples of semiochemicals: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1351/pac200779122129/pdf