The European Union (EU) finally came to a
decision on whether banning glyphosate or not. On 19 April, 2016, it is
reported that the European Commission (EC) voted to decide the possibility of
banning glyphosate, with a result of 374 votes in favor, 225 against and 102
abstentions.
Source: Baidu
In the end, the EC reached the compromise
in which glyphosate is allowed to be registered for use for the next 7 years,
during which the EU will seek for substitutes for it. Originally, the suggested
years were supposed to be 15, but the EU declared that glyphosate can only be
used by professionals. Moreover, experts from the European Committee for
Standardization may decide to vote again to influence EU's decision in May
2016.
Coincidentally, the Joint Meeting on
Pesticide Residues will also give the result of re-evaluation on glyphosate in
May. Moreover it is worth to notice that, in regard to the concerns for health
and the not-enough-transparent new approval procedure, 67 senators from the EU
parliament (8.5% of the total senators) wrote a letter to Vytenis Andriukaitis,
a committee member who is responsible for the health & food safety from the
EU, managing to avoid the re-approval of the use of glyphosate.
In fact, before the EC made this decision,
each EU country held different opinions regarding the matter, about which
Germany said yes while France said no.
According to the news reported on 14 April,
2016, the German government stated to support the continued use of glyphosate
after obtaining positive votes from the Environmental Department, the
Agricultural Department, the SPD and CDU of Germany.
According to a letter from the EU Agriculture
Commission, Germany agreed to the evaluation report on glyphosate that was
released by the European Food Safety Authority which pointed out that
glyphosate is not likely to cause cancer to human.
Considering the risks for human health, the
Health and Safety Department of France recently decided to ban the
tallowamine-containing glyphosate and herbicides. The French Agency for Food,
Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES) has informed producers
to cancel the registration of glyphosate products and, even before that,
tallowamine-containing glyphosate and herbicides in the German market have been
voluntarily canceled by manufacturers.
Nonetheless, it will still take a few weeks
for the ANSES to make the final decision since it must take into consideration
the opinions of manufacturers. In Nov. 2015, the EFSA announced that glyphosate
being mixed with tallowamine would pose higher risks than the use of glyphosate
alone, which prompted ANSES to review this product again. Tallowamine refers to
polyethoxylated tallowamine (POEA), which can help active ingredients to be
absorbed efficiently by crops when being mixed with herbicides.
POEA exists in many products related to
glyphosate, but in France there are many glyphosate products not using POEA as
auxiliaries. Monsanto Company holds the belief that the cancelation of POEA
will nearly have no impact on its performance because it has no longer used
POEA as auxiliaries.
According to the poll, most of people favor
banning glyphosate. News that have been reported on 14 April, 2016 showed that
Yougov, a European survey agency, has made a poll that revealing that 2/3
people in Europe support banning glyphosate.
The poll was conducted in five largest
countries in Europe, covering 7,000 participants, in particular, 3/4 of people
in Italy, 70% of people in Germany, 60% of people in France and 56% in the UK
said yes to the ban of glyphosate.
However, 150 people submitted urine samples
to detect whether or not they contain glyphosate residuals. Urine samples from
18 countries of Europe were found containing glyphosate in the past, in
addition, glyphosate residuals were detected in over 60% of the bread sold in
the UK.
This article comes from Glyphosate China Monthly Report 1604, CCM
About CCM:
CCM is the leading market intelligence provider for China’s
agriculture, chemicals, food & ingredients and life science markets.
Founded in 2001, CCM offers a range of data and content solutions, from price
and trade data to industry newsletters and customized market research reports.
Our clients include Monsanto, DuPont, Shell, Bayer, and Syngenta. CCM is a
brand of Kcomber Inc.
For more information about CCM, please
visit www.cnchemicals.com or get in touch with us
directly by emailing econtact@cnchemicals.com or calling
+86-20-37616606.
Tag: glyphosate