An alliance of environmental organizations and organic companies has called on the Bundestag candidates to campaign in the new legislative period to end the use of “chemical-synthetic pesticides” by 2035 and to enforce a ban on harmful pesticides by 2026.
The call was initiated by the “Alliance for Agriculture Suitable for Grandchildren”.
The signatories of the letter to the Bundestag candidates from the Union, SPD, Greens, FDP and Left include the Demeter Association, around a hundred organic companies and the "Deutsche Umwelthilfe" (DUH).
The AfD candidates did not write to the initiative, the call was only addressed to representatives of the parties who, from the point of view of the association, were democratic, it said.
Rudiger Soldt
Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.
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Johannes Heimrath, board member of the ecological agriculture alliance founded in 2017, said that the previous measures for species and insect protection were inadequate, especially pesticides such as prosulfocarb, pendimethalin or glyphosate had to be reassessed because these substances spread over many kilometers in the air and thus nature reserves and city dwellers also polluted. "It is questionable whether the coexistence of organic and conventional agriculture will still be possible in the long term because we were able to detect the pesticides kilometers from the place of origin." In no case should conventional farmers be burdened even more, but rather the "biodiversity services" of conventional and organic farms should will be rewarded more in the future.
“The environmental services are still undervalued, and the area under cultivation continues to play too big a role. The industry should therefore pay a pesticide levy, ”said Heimrath of the“ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ”. The MEPs in the future Bundestag, said the farmer, should also advocate a new pesticide approval procedure within the EU, the combined effect of different pesticides must be scientifically investigated even better.