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agroecology
Pesticide Scorecard Exposes Which Food Retailers Are Failing Bees
"Under the incoming Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency will likely do even less to mitigate the damage of pesticides, putting even more onus on companies to address the escalating risks," said one climate advocate.
Dec 10, 2024
A report released Tuesday from the environmental group Friends of the Earth finds that the U.S. food retail sector's use of pesticides on just four crops—almonds, apples, soy, and corn—could result in over $200 billion worth of financial, climate, and biodiversity risks for the industry between 2024 and 2050. Pollinators, including bees, form a crucial link between pesticide use and these risks.
The report was released in tandem with the group's annual retailer scorecard, which ranks the largest U.S. grocery stores on the "steps they are taking to address the use of toxic pesticides in their supply chains and to support the expansion of organic agriculture and other ecological solutions."
While it highlights some industry leadership on this issue, the authors of the scorecard say that, on the whole, retailer action to curb the impact of pesticides falls short. The following retailers received an "F" grade from Friends of the Earth: Wakefern, Publix, Dollar General, 7-Eleven Inc., Hy-Vee, Walgreens, H-E-B, BJ's, Amazon, and Wegmans.
Although its owner, Amazon, received an F grade, the grocery store Whole Foods was the only retailer that was given an A grade.
A handful of the companies, including Whole Foods, have made time bound pledges to address pesticide use by requiring fresh produce suppliers to adopt ecological farming methods and to confirm their practices through third-party verifications. Eight companies have created policies that encourage suppliers to reduce the use of "pesticides of concern—including neonicotinoids, organophosphates, and glyphosate—and to shift to least-toxic approaches," according to the scorecard.
Friends of the Earth's report on risks associated with pesticide use explains why scrutiny around retailers' use of pesticides is warranted, and why retailers themselves ought to be motivated to reduce these risks.
For one thing, "under the incoming Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency will likely do even less to mitigate the damage of pesticides, putting even more onus on companies to address the escalating risks," according to Kendra Klein, deputy director of science at Friends of the Earth.
"Food retailers must urgently reduce their use of pesticides and advance organic and other ecologically regenerative approaches. They have the opportunity to lead in the fight against biodiversity collapse and climate change, helping to ensure Americans have continued access to healthy food," she said in a statement.
An estimated one-third of world crops rely on pollination, and a little less than three-fourths of fruit and vegetable crops require pollination from insects and other creatures, according to the report. Pollinators are often studied as an indicator for biodiversity risk and general environmental health—and experts cite pesticides as among the reasons that pollinators are in decline. Research also shows that pesticides poise a threat to healthy soil ecosystems.
According to the report, an estimated one-third of world crops rely on pollination, and a little less than three-fourths of fruit and vegetable crops require pollination from insects and other creatures. Pollinators are often studied as an indicator for biodiversity risk and general environmental health—and experts cite pesticides as among the reasons that pollinators are in decline, per the report. Research also shows that pesticides poise a threat to healthy soil ecosystems, the report states.
The report states that 89% of the almond crop area, 72% of apples, 100% of corn, and 40% of soy receives more than one "lethal dose" of an insecticide that is considered toxic to bees. This "quantification of the risk of pesticides to pollinators" for the four crops "provides the values to conduct the financial analysis in this study."
The document details how the food retail industry's use of pesticides creates direct costs for the industry—for example, the money spent purchasing and applying the pesticides, the CO2 emissions associated with using or producing pesticides, and the impact on crop yields, as well as indirect costs.
When it comes to climate damage costs, the report estimates that U.S. food retailer sales for products that include soy, corn, apples, and almonds will suffer $4.5 billion over the period of 2024-50. Biodiversity risk stemming from using pollinator-harming pesticides on those four crops is valued much higher, at $34.3 billion, over the same time period.
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World Bank Leads Development Giants in Investing $2.27 Billion in Factory Farms
"We're calling on World Bank President Ajay Banja to phase out these investments, which are undermining his climate agenda," said one researcher.
Oct 21, 2024
The Green Climate Fund and 11 of the 15 multilateral development banks together invested at least $2.27 billion in factory farming in 2023, undercutting their stated climate goals, according to a report published Monday by the Stop Financing Factory Farming coalition.
The report, launched the same day as the start of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank's annual meetings in Washington, D.C., found that the World Bank was the worst offender. The bank—principally through its private-sector lending arm the International Finance Corporation (IFC)—put nearly $750 million toward industrial agricultural projects, five times more than any of the other banks.
"Factory farming is a leading driver of greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, biodiversity loss, animal cruelty, and water pollution," Merel van der Mark, head of Animal Welfare and Finance at Sinergia Animal, said in a statement. "Development banks have all pledged to align their investments with the Paris climate agreement, yet are failing to make the kinds of investments needed to keep the goal to limit global temperature rises to 1.5°C within reach."
"There are examples of better practices out there."
The report was based on 2023 disclosure information scraped from project webpages by the Early Warning System. It found that the Green Climate Fund and 11 of the 15 multilateral development banks had invested a total of $3.3 billion in animal agriculture generally, funding 62 projects. The banks also mobilized another $3.4 billion for the sector from other sources including banks and governments. The World Bank Group also led the pack in animal agriculture financing overall at over $1.5 billion.
Factory farming—or industrial agriculture—received most of that money, representing 68.3% of investments and 76.7% of supported projects. Only 2.3% of investments and 6.7% of projects involved non-industrial farming that might potentially be sustainable.
The report's authors said their research "reveals a concerning trend toward support for the industrialization of animal agriculture." This can occur through more monocropping of plants like soy or corn for animal feed; more warehousing of large numbers of animals in concentrated feed operations that release large amounts of climate-, land-, and water-polluting waste; and the construction of slaughterhouses.
The World Bank's investments in factory farming go against its own research. The bank released a report in May finding that the agrifood system generates a third of total greenhouse gas emissions, and that animal production and consumption make up almost 60% of those emissions. It even stopped serving meat in its staff cafe.
"The World Bank has set out an ambitious road map to drastically cut agricultural emissions while feeding the world. However, this good work is being undermined by its private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation," said International Accountability Project researcher Alessandro Ramazzotti. "Last year IFC invested $501 million in factory farming including a $47 million loan to a Chinese company for a multi-story pig farm, making it the largest investor of all the development banks. We're calling on World Bank President Ajay Banja to phase out these investments, which are undermining his climate agenda."
In addition, the groups behind the Stop Financing Factory Farming coalition—which is headed by Bank Information Center, Friends of the Earth U.S., Global Forest Coalition, International Accountability Project, Sinergia Animal, and World Animal Protection—call on all development banks to move their money from industrial agriculture to regenerative agriculture that boosts biodiversity, helps the environment, and strengthens local communities, following the model of the five banks in the report that did not invest in factory farms in 2023.
"There are examples of better practices out there," said Ladd Connell, environment director at Bank Information Center. "The Green Climate Fund supports some low-carbon projects, such as providing financial and technical support to smallholder women farmers in Cote D'Ivoire to help them adapt to climate change. Where banks invest in new livestock projects, they should be innovative and sustainable, following agroecological principles."
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Multilateral Banks Must Stop Funding the Factory Farms Fueling the Biodiversity Crisis
Animal livestock is the leading driver of biodiversity loss. At the U.N. biodiversity summit next week, leaders must agree to shift finance towards more sustainable forms of food production.
Oct 18, 2024
Correction: An earlier version of this article said that pig farms in Ecuador's Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas region generated roughly 15 million pounds a day. It has been corrected to reflect the fact that 4.4 million pounds of waste are generated per day.
Our natural world is in crisis. An area the size of Portugal is deforested every year on average, and wildlife populations have declined by an average of 73% since 1970. Deforestation is a leading driver of the climate crisis, and wildlife loss can destabilize precious ecosystems.
To tackle this, two years ago governments agreed on the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), a set of goals and targets to protect nature. On October 21, leaders will meet at the United Nations biodiversity COP16 summit in Colombia to formally review their progress for the first time.
The industrial animal livestock sector is by far the largest driver of biodiversity loss, and must be where attendees at COP16 focus their attention.
“There is no nature anymore. Pollution in the air, pollution in the river.”
In the last 50 years, global milk production has more than doubled and meat production has more than tripled. This increase has been achieved through industrialisation—by putting more and more animals in smaller spaces, in worse conditions, feeding them more supplements and medicines, and using resources more intensely. It has led to poor animal welfare, low quality of food, and health risks for humans and other animals, including antibiotic resistance.
It has also led to hugely negative impacts on the environment, including for wild animals and their habitats. Livestock farming is the leading driver of deforestation—with clearing of forests for land for cattle accounting for 42% of all deforestation. The production of farmed animals and the feed for them now occupies 80% of the world’s agricultural land, yet provides just 17% of humans’ global calorie supply.
As a result of these factors, today 70% of all birds on Earth are farmed poultry, and 93% of all non-human mammals are livestock with just 7% wild. Overhauling the way we produce food is vital to protect our natural environment and to stem species loss.
Multilateral development banks (MDBs)—such as the World Bank Group—have made a series of commitments to protect nature, yet despite this the five biggest MDBs invested over $4.6 billion in factory farming between 2011 and 2021, and have shown no signs of reducing their spending since.
At the U.N. climate conference COP26 in 2021, leading MDBs released a Joint Nature Statement promising to support governments and the private sector to tackle nature loss. And at COP28 last year they went a step further, including committing to “tackl[e] the drivers of nature loss by fostering ‘nature positive’ investments” and “valu[e] nature to guide decision-making.”
In addition, Target 14 of the Global Biodiversity Framework agreed by world leaders requires public and private financial flows to be aligned with the goals of the GBF. This means MDBs must ensure their investments align with other GBF targets, like Target 4 to halt species extinction, and Target 10 to enhance biodiversity and sustainability in agriculture.
But rather than investing in sustainable forms of food production, MDBs are propping up a broken model of factory farming that is totally at odds with these pledges.
For example, the private sector branches of the World Bank Group and the Inter-American Development Bank Group have together invested over $200 million into PRONACA, Ecuador's largest pork and poultry producer. PRONACA used the funds to build and expand a series of factory farms, including in Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, an area of Ecuador home to Indigenous peoples and tropical forest.
According to a shocking report by the Ecuadorian Coordinator of Organizations for the Defense of Nature and the Environment (CEDENMA), PRONACA's pig farms in the area generate roughly 4.4 million pounds of toxic waste each day, fouling the soil, air, and waterways.
CEDENMA surveyed local communities about the impact of the factory farms. Interviewees told them that PRONACA contaminated rivers, killing off fish that local people rely on for food and jobs, and harming local tourism. One intensive pig breeding farm was set up just meters away from a sacred site.
“There is no nature anymore. Pollution in the air, pollution in the river,” said one local resident.
Investments like in PRONACA are unfortunately just one of hundreds of harmful factory farm investments made by MDBs. Similar investments have been made or are being planned in Bangladesh, Nigeria, Poland, and elsewhere all over the world.
Ahead of COP16, we and other members of the Stop Financing Farming coalition are calling on MDBs to stick to the commitments they’ve made to protect nature by ruling out any further finance for factory farming and instead supporting more nature-friendly forms of agriculture. This means investing in the production of more plant-rich foods, and when they do finance animal agriculture, ensuring it is sustainable, following the principles of agroecology.
Shifting finance in this way would not only help protect nature, but also promote nutritionally superior diets, create jobs, and tackle climate change.
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