What stands in the way of socio-ecological transformation in food, agriculture and chemical policy?

Why does pesticide pollution in water persist? The short answer may be: the state is not ready for transformative change in food/agri/chemical policy - at least, this is what our newest article in the journal Environmental Science and Policy (Volume 128, February 2022, Pages 185-193) suggests. You can download the article, for free, clicking here.

In our new article we explain why state actors are not tackling pesticide overuse, despite stringent pesticide regulation in the EU. We show - based on what we learned from more than 100 interview partners in the policy field - how land use patterns, EU agricultural policy, regulatory apathy and regulatory capture, consumer norms as well as the exclusion of civil society contributes to dependency on agricultural chemicals. We use a concept by Seto et al. that is very useful for structuring these insights and for understanding the dynamics of complex, unsustainable systems: (carbon) lock-ins. Sometimes, unsustainable systems are simply stuck and on path-dependent trajectories that are hard to change. Seto et al. (2016) above to describe how “[t]he inertia of technologies, institutions and behaviours individually and interactively limits the rate of systemic transformations”.

Here's our attempt to think about similar lock-ins for the case of pesticides. Basically, a system can be locked-in in an unsustainable state in infrastructural, institutional or behavioral ways. These are the 6 explanations for why we use too many pesticides in Germany/Europe.

Over and over and over, different science-policy actors describe the impact of chemical pollution & land use on biodiversity. Excessive pesticide use is leading to severe water quality problems in Europe - the main culprit being intensive agricultural production. For example 81% of small streams which are near agriculture have their regulatory acceptable concentration values exceeded?(Liess et al., 2021). So what's hindering effective regulation? Why is hazardous pesticide pollution of water bodies in the EU not effectively limited by state regulation? How can we better govern micropollutants?

We explore this through 27 formal qualitative, semi-standardised research interviews which were undertaken with decision-makers and experts from policy-making, administration, political associations, different scientific disciplines and various societal stakeholders. Twelve site visits (to conventional farming sites, parliaments, regulatory agencies, ministries, lobbying offices) and eight background talks with experts and policy field insiders completed the empirical research. Here are the 6 explanataions.

1. Land use history and the reinforcing EU-policy framework CAP

• quite self-explanatory, unfortunately.

2. Complex regulatory infrastructure built around authorization of single chemical substances

• the idea that EU regulatory system does not lack chemical expertise, but has little use for biological expertise - couple with a widespread belief system around the technological controllability of chemical risks which also prizes narrow forms of expertise

3. Regulatory and conceptual capture of state actors

• The division between technical and political in the field of pesticide politics is very blurred - and plays out across all public agencies. The agrochemical lobby is strong, and modes of communication are opaque. But we also see that public actors also share industry viewpoints and argumentation on their own account: agencies who should be reducing and control pesticides instead follow economic and not ecological priorities.

4. Regulatory ignorance

• A key finding is that state actors regularly negate, ignore or deny the adverse effects of pesticides on ecosystems in our interviews - while saying they are happy with their regulatory performance. They believe that pesticide authorization is regulated effectively given that individual chemical substances are controlled. They hold that because risk assessment and management is effective, widespread environmental problems cannot occur. The lack of political will can best be shown in the ineffective implementation of the sustainable use directive (SUD) and their NAPs, compared with the tremendous political effort undertaken to optimize the approval regulations and the edifice of risk assessment.

5 Consumer interests

• People vote at the polls, but also at the supermarket...

6 Excluding civil society

• We find that formal processes are lacking that include civil society. There is a lack of political venues in which civil society could propose arguments about sustainable transformation of the current system or could hold other more powerful actors accountable (e.g. on how to apply integrated pest management systematically).

In the end, we have a situation where noone is seriously looking at aggregate exposure and the dependency on pesticides continues. What can get us out of this mess? Our article does not go into much detail here, but several ideas are on the table: a risk-adjusted pesticide tax? More political capital put into actually implementing existing regulation through levels of governance? Tighter controls on industry lobbying? More courage to simplify the system of risk assessment? A true implementation of farm-to-fork principles? Tighter control of agricultural consultancy, pesticide commerce and monitoring? Much better data on both production and application levels? Better systematic water quality monitoring even at small streams? An end to the widespread practice of emergency approvals? A focus on reduction of pesticides, not just on "risk" reduction? A true precautionary approach throughout the policy field? Rethinking micropollutant governance by adopting rigorous polluter-pays principles? Revamping the CAP and stopping the subsidizing of agriculture based on size or area under cultivation? Public servants that look beyond their narrow area of responsibility? Several ideas come to mind. What do you think?