Europe has now changed the way it approves pesticides, with its decisions no longer based on science or international testing on human health.

In trade, the EU is, instead, moving many pesticides off the [Maximum Residue Limits, or] MRLs that ensure human health and putting them onto limits of determination (LoDs), meaning if any part per million of a pesticide can be found, the food is turned away.

It has also stopped registering or reregistering pest control products, despite their approvals everywhere else in the world and the health findings of the WHO, under a new European policy principle, called the Precautionary Principle.

[T]he bigger issue for Kenya is the trade barrier the battle is now creating: for Europe’s moves to abandon the global safety system are set to play out catastrophically for our own nation.

Our biggest agricultural market is Europe. Agriculture is the biggest contributor to our livelihoods.

But Europe is now moving in multiple ways to prevent us from using crop protection, and simultaneously ban our produce in the event of any pests: while also declaring its intent to push up its own agricultural production.

This is an excerpt. Read the original post here.