A/HRC/34/48 “bought” to restate industry talking points. Other egregious practices include infiltrating federal regulatory agencies via the “revolving door”, with employees shifting between regulatory agencies and the pesticide industry. Pesticide manufacturers also cultivate strategic “public-private” partnerships that call into question their culpability or help bolster the companies’ credibility. Companies also consistently donate to educational institutions that conduct research on pesticides, and such institutions are becoming dependent on industry owing to shrinking public funding. 88. Industry has also sought to dissuade Governments from restricting pesticide use to save pollinators. In Europe, a campaign was mounted preceding the decision by the European Union in 2013 to ban neonicotinoids. The chemical industry, allegedly with support from the Government of the United Kingdom, publicly contested findings of the European Food Safety Authority about the unacceptable risk of neonicotinoids to bees. Syngenta reportedly even threatened to sue individual European Union officials involved in publishing the Authority’s report.69 Bayer and Syngenta are still refusing to disclose their own studies that demonstrated the harmful effects of their pesticides on honeybees at high doses.70 89. Scientists who uncover health and environmental risks to the detriment of corporate interests may face grave threats to their reputations, and even to themselves. One of the most prominent examples are the actions of Novartis (later Syngenta), producer of atrazine, which engaged in a campaign to discredit scientists whose studies suggested adverse health and environmental impacts of this pesticide. 71 Despite their efforts, subsequent research by scientists largely validated the original findings.72 In 2012, Syngenta settled a class action lawsuit brought by 20 water utility companies, paying $105 million to cover the costs of atrazine removal from affected water supplies. V. Alternative to extensive use of pesticides: agroecology 90. Today, hazardous pesticides are in excessive use, inflicting damage on human health and ecosystems around the world, and their use is poised to increase in the coming years. Safer practices exist and can be developed further to minimize the impacts of such excessive, in some cases unnecessary, use of pesticides that violate a number of human rights. A rise in organic agricultural practices in many places illustrates that farming with less or without any pesticides is feasible. Studies have indicated that agroecology is capable of delivering sufficient yields to feed the entire world population and ensure that they are adequately nourished.73 91. The assertion promoted by the agrochemical industry that pesticides are necessary to achieve food security is not only inaccurate, but dangerously misleading. In principle, there is adequate food to feed the world; inequitable production and distribution systems present major blockages that prevent those in need from accessing it. Ironically, many of those who are food insecure are in fact subsistence farmers engaged in agricultural work, particularly in lower-income countries. 69 70 71 72 73 Damian Carrington, “Insecticide firms in secret bid to stop ban that could save bees”, Guardian, 27 April 2013. See https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/pesticide-manufacturers-own-testsreveal-serious-harm-to-honeybees/. Rachel Aviv, “A valuable reputation”, The New Yorker, 10 February 2014. Thomas O. McGarity and Wendy Elizabeth Wagner, Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health Research (Harvard University Press, 2012). International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, Agriculture at a Crossroads. 19