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Bees are dying out. Big pesticide producers like Bayer-Monsanto will do anything to increase their sales and bottom-line, and they are forcing the hands of farmers. The only way for farmers to succeed in this intensive, industrial agriculture system is to use pesticides that kill the bees.
We need the bees because they pollinate one-third of the food we eat. Pollination is essential to our lives because our fruits, vegetables, and the crops that feed livestock require pollination to be fertilised. Without bees, there would literally be no food! [1]
And we have little time to prevent bee populations from disappearing. That’s why we’re supporting a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) to radically change our agriculture for the better, restore our ecosystems, and protect our farmers and bees.
We’re asking for all pesticides to be phased out. It’s a big ask, but if more than ONE MILLION of us sign, the EU Commission and our MEPs will be legally obligated to meet us and address our demands. There’s already big momentum on pesticides -- glyphosate will soon be re-evaluated by the EU and more and more citizens are calling to protect the bees. [2]
Intensive agriculture (made possible by synthetic pesticides) has destroyed the diversity of the Earth’s nature. That diversity is essential for sustainable agriculture and protecting our climate. Thankfully, nature recovers quickly when we take decisive action to bring back wildlife and abandon the use of synthetic pesticides. But we have to act now, before it’s too late.
For decades, billions of euros worth of public and private funds have been poured into the pockets of pesticide producers. All while those producers have convinced our politicians to ignore the negative effects pesticides cause on bees, the environment and on our health. But finally, our leaders are starting to wake up to our calls because of people’s mobilisations.
Following calls from millions of Europeans last year, the EU agreed to a near-total ban on neonicotinoids, a specific kind of pesticide that harms the central nervous systems of bees. [3] Just last month, the EU decided that it will not renew the license for another pesticide. [4] And all of this on the back of a new law that the EU approved earlier this year, increasing transparency throughout the pesticide approval process! [5]
But we can’t just keep banning individual types of pesticides! Our public resources ought to fund research to allow agriculture to prosper and bees to thrive, while also rebuilding our dying ecosystems. And to do that, we need to phase out synthetic pesticides altogether.
Sign now to rebuild our ecosystems!
Pesticide producers argue that we can’t phase out pesticides, or else the price of food will skyrocket. But the highest price we could ever pay for our food is the destruction of our planet for future generations to come. And that’s the price they’re already producing and selling unsustainable, cheap food for -- we pay for it through burning our forests, polluting our water, eroding our soil, contaminating our air. And killing the bees.
Our WeMove community has been at the forefront of the struggle for sustainable agriculture in Europe. Now, with this ECI we have a real chance to push for a truly different and sustainable agricultural model for Europe and the world. Will you join us?
David, Virginia (Madrid), Alex (Marseille), and the entire team at WeMove Europe
PS: Because this campaign is a European Citizens’ Initiative, you’ll have to enter your details in a two-step process. The ECI is like an official EU petition, so it requires more information than we’d normally ask from you to sign a petition. Please fully complete the ECI form in order to have your signature counted and verified by your national government.
References:
[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/bee-decline-dying-out-honeybees-uk-food-production-extinction-a6939266.html
[2] In 2017, our community launched an ECI to ban glyphosate with a large coalition of partners across Europe. While we didn’t get an EU-wide ban on glyphosate, we won major changes to the EU transparency of the pesticide approval procedure which were passed into law earlier this year. For more information about ECIs, see the EU website here: https://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/public/welcome
[3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-43910536
[4] In October 2019 the EU agreed to not renew the license for thiacloprid -- another bee-harming neonicotinoid pesticide: https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/eu-will-not-renew-authorisation-of-bee-killer-substance-thiacloprid/
[5] https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/choir-of-approval-over-new-eu-food-safety-transparency-rules/
