A/HRC/34/48 I. Introduction 1. The present report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food was written in collaboration with the Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes. Pesticides, which have been aggressively promoted, are a global human rights concern, and their use can have very detrimental consequences on the enjoyment of the right to food. Defined as any substance or mixture of substances of chemical and biological ingredients intended to repel, destroy or control any pest or regulate plant growth, 1 pesticides are responsible for an estimated 200,000 acute poisoning deaths each year, 2 99 per cent of which occur in developing countries, 3 where health, safety and environmental regulations are weaker and less strictly applied. While records on global pesticide use are incomplete, 4 it is generally agreed that application rates have increased dramatically over the past few decades. 2. Despite the harms associated with excessive and unsafe pesticide practices, it is commonly argued that intensive industrial agriculture, which is heavily reliant on pesticide inputs, is necessary to increase yields to feed a growing world population, particularly in the light of negative climate change impacts and global scarcity of farmlands. Indeed, over the past 50 years, the global population has more than doubled, while available arable land has only increased by about 10 per cent.5 Evolving technology in pesticide manufacture, among other agricultural innovations, has certainly helped to keep agricultural production apace of unprecedented jumps in food demand. However, this has come at the expense of human health and the environment. Equally, increased food production has not succeeded in eliminating hunger worldwide. Reliance on hazardous pesticides is a short-term solution that undermines the rights to adequate food and health for present and future generations. 3. Pesticides cause an array of harms. Runoff from treated crops frequently pollute the surrounding ecosystem and beyond, with unpredictable ecological consequences. Furthermore, reductions in pest populations upset the complex balance between predator and prey species in the food chain, thereby destabilizing the ecosystem. Pesticides can also decrease biodiversity of soils and contribute to nitrogen fixation, which can lead to large declines in crop yields, posing problems for food security. 4. While scientific research confirms the adverse effects of pesticides, proving a definitive link between exposure and human diseases or conditions, or harm to the ecosystem presents a considerable challenge. This challenge has been exacerbated by a systematic denial, fuelled by the pesticide and agroindustry, of the magnitude of the 1 2 3 4 5 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO), International Code of Conduct on Pesticides Management: Guidelines on Highly Hazardous Pesticides (Rome, 2016), p. vi. In the report, the authors examine only pesticides used in agriculture and not so-called “public health” pesticides used in disease control. Måns Svensson and others, “Migrant agricultural workers and their socio-economic, occupational and health conditions — a literature review”, Lund University (1 January 2013). Lynn Goldmann, Childhood Pesticide Poisoning: Information for Advocacy and Action (Geneva, FAO, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and WHO, 2004), p. 7. See www.fao.org/faostat/en/#home. Heinz-R. Köhler and Rita Triebskorn, “Wildlife ecotoxicology of pesticides: can we track effects to the population level and beyond?” Science, vol. 341, No. 6147 (16 August 2013), pp. 759-765; M. Allsop and others, Pesticides and Our Health: A Growing Concern (Exeter, United Kingdom, Greenpeace Research Laboratories, 2015), p. 3. 3