A normal working-class German has a political list of things that the government (doesn't matter which party is in charge) ought to be fixing or resolving.
Glyphosate? Well...no, it's not on the list of most working-class Germans.
So to explain the glyphosate issue....a little history.
Back in the 1970s....glyphosate was invented to kill weeds for crop farming. You know it today as 'Roundup'. For almost 40 years, it's been used to downsize the weed problem when producing a crop.
At some point in 2013, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment stood up and said the numbers don't relate to a safe weed-killer. For about four years now, there's been several arguments going on within Germany, the EU and the world health organizations. A vast amount of research over forty years says that there is no health hazard. This German research organization has said otherwise.
So we have one German national cabinet group (Department of the Environment) and a second group (the Ministry of Agriculture), which have two different political figures (SPD for the Environment, and CSU for the Agriculture).
The SPD policy is that they want to terminate it in Germany, and throughout the EU. Most farmers aren't really that happy with the SPD policy.
Why the farmer situation? When you produce a row-crop....you are dependent on as few weeds interfering with the production cycle. If your main solution is glyphosate....then you have a fairly good idea of the control over weeds. If you have no use of glyphosate.....then you can depend on a fair growth pattern of weeds, and a lesser production. No one says how much....maybe 5-percent, maybe 10-percent, or maybe 20-percent.
Compensation for the farmers? Well....NO. That's never been discussed by the SPD or their cabinet minister. If you were a farmer and the NO-glyphosate was the rule, you would probably be making less money.
Why this story today stands out?
Well....the Environment Minister Hendricks (SPD) wants to limit the use of glyphosate. She wants farmers to have to apply for permission to use it....meaning it'd be the Environmental Ministry who grants permission....NOT the Agricultural Ministry.
How would this permission be granted, or be disapproved? No one says.
The other problems with this? This gets to being interesting. A fair amount of the fruit and vegetables sold in German groceries....are not produced in Germany. Would this screw up this entire strategy by Hendricks? Well....yeah. Produced even outside of the EU? Well.....yeah. I sat there this week and bought grapes from Brazil, and some oranges from Turkey.
Would German farmers, if denied glyphosate....go and find the next weed-killer? Well.....yeah, that's another interesting topic. I'm guessing that most of the big name chemical companies have an alternate formula ready to go, and will surprise folks with a new chemical. Naturally, in five years....another research group will suggest that this chemical is toxic as well.
All of this leading to some mandated bio-farming deal? That's the sad part of this story. You have to groups with interest in the process. One wants to have an ideal agricultural program, with absolutely no chemicals used at all. This group has no real background over farming or the money involved, or the potential for financial failure. The second group knows what it takes to produce X-amount of fruit or vegetables and doesn't want a whole bunch of rules.
I'm guessing this won't go well for farmers, and you will see a year or two with vast financial failures, and a bunch of German political folks trying to understand why production levels dropped by 10-to-20 percent.
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