The Crush - December 2019 - 3

[ FROM THE PRESIDENT ]

EU: Certain Pesticides Bad, But Cigarettes OK

THE EU WANTS TO BAN CROP PROTECTION TOOLS THAT BENEFIT WINEGRAPE GROWERS
By John Aguirre
During the entirety of my career working on farm and food
issues, growers have consistently lamented the heavy toll placed
on them by excessive state and federal regulations. Regulatory
initiatives and new burdens never retreat. It's always more and
more. Now another regulator is asserting itself, the European
Union (EU).
On behalf of its 28-member states, the EU is pursuing an
aggressive approach to pesticide regulation that threatens to deny
California winegrape growers the use of various important crop
protection tools. EU regulators have embraced the precautionary
principle as the basis of regulation. In 1999, EU Trade
Commissioner Pascal Lamy described this approach as follows:
"In the EU it is believed something should not be authorized if
there is a chance of risk." This is radically different than the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) approach to pesticide
regulation.
EPA's approach to regulating crop protection products tolerates
some risk while considering the potential benefits of these
products. EPA's regulatory approach is intended to ensure crop
protection products do not result in unreasonable adverse effects
to humans or the environment, or unreasonable human dietary
risks. This "unreasonable" standard deems the existence of lowlevel potential risks as acceptable when countervailing economic
benefits exist, i.e., the benefits of an abundant availability of fruits
and vegetables outweighs the theoretical individual risk of 1 in 10
million chance of cancer.
In 2017, the EU effectively prohibited the continued use of
buprofezin (trade name Applaud) when the maximum residue
level (MRL) for aniline in food was reduced to 0.01 parts per
million. When buprofezin residues in food break down, aniline
can form. While posing no significant risk at low levels, at high
levels of exposure aniline can cause adverse health effects in
humans. The EU's very conservative precautionary principle
dictated discontinuing agricultural use of buprofezin. In contrast,
EPA determined its continued use presents little risk of adverse
effects to human health or the environment.
The EU is poised to dramatically reduce MRLs for various crop
protection products - including glyphosate and neonicotinoids
(includes imidacloprid) - and in so doing deny many U.S.
winegrape growers the ability to use these products. Human
dietary exposure to neonicotinoid residues in foods has been

judged to pose little to no risk
for human health effects, but
EU regulatory officials want to
prohibit neonicotinoid residues in
foods in order eliminate their use
over concerns about pollinator
health. The EU believes California
grape growers shouldn't use
neonicotinoids because of
potential injury to bees, despite
the fact grapes have low value as
a forage crop for bees and other
pollinators.
The EU has a habit of selecting easy targets to regulate, like
pesticides. The United Nations International Agency for Research
on Cancer (IARC) has determined cured meats (e.g., Serrano ham,
Parma ham and pepperoni) probably cause cancer. In fact, there
is strong evidence that elevated consumption of cured meats
poses significant cancer risks. IARC put glyphosate in the same
cancer risk category as cured meats. Despite the strong connection
to cancer, the EU has no intention of banning the production
and sale of cured meats, but they appear intent on banning
glyphosate, for which there exists much more evidence of safety.
Unfortunately, Europe is an important export market for many
of California's largest wineries, so when the EU bans certain crop
protection tools, exporting wineries in the U.S. will follow suit,
which affects our growers.
The EU conveniently overlooks the most obvious source of cancer
in its populace: cigarette smoking. Forty-two percent of adults in
Greece smoke cigarettes, and rates of adult smoking in Austria,
Bulgaria, Croatia and Germany all exceed 30 percent, compared
to just 17.25 percent in the U.S. Perhaps the U.S. should turn the
table and export its regulatory values to the EU and prohibit the
import of European cheese, cars and machinery until the EU
curbs smoking among its citizens. That would mirror the EU's
audacious regulatory approach to neonicotinoids.
The EU acts virtuous and enlightened when regulating crop
protection products based on the precautionary principle - "better
safe than sorry" approach - but the EU would never jeopardize its
capricious, unscientific approach to regulating risks by targeting
popular products, so they will continue to target crop protection
products while ignoring cancer risks from the most obvious
sources.
DECEMBER 2019 / 3

The Crush - December 2019

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