By Valérie Le Brenne
Translation: Pierre Chabal
Passage au crible n°61
Wikimédia
On February 13th, 2012, the high court of Lyon, France, ruled that the American firm Monsanto was guilty of the poisoning of a grain farmer by a pesticide, Lasso, banned in France since 2007. The court then required an expert’s report in order to determine the amount of damages which the firm is to pay in compensation to the victim. In France, this first conviction could constitute a precedent, should further cases linked to the use of this chemical come before the courts.
This case, linked to the many health and sanitary scandals involving the American firm, Monsanto, raises the issue of the need to regulate the use of phytosanitary chemicals.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
In 2004, a grain farmer inhaled toxic fumes while inspecting a tank on his property. After the accident, medical analyses revealed a contamination due to monochlorobenzene, a solvent used in a pesticide, Lasso. In 2008, the Mutualité Sociale Agricole or MSA, an agricultural insurance fund, established a cause-to-effect link between the farmer’s neurological disorders and the use of the phytosanitary chemical. This led to the admission of his disability as a professional disease. The farmer then filed a suit in civil liability against the giant American firm, Monsanto, which made him the spokesperson of victims of pesticides in France.
One should recall that during the 1960s, experts in demography had pointed to the increase of the world population and warned about the risks of food shortages. The objective of raising agricultural outputs thus imposed itself onto all western societies. Urged on by national governments, farmers therefore invested heavily in order to modernize their activities. This ‘green revolution’ led to the mechanization of production, land restructuration, the use of synthetic inputs, the selection and hybridization of cultivations and crops.
The American firm Monsanto, founded in 1901 in St Louis, Missouri, represents an emblematic instance of a firm having benefited from this context and hoisted itself to the level of a major player in the agrochemical sector. Yet, the world reputation of this conglomerate is often marred by sanitary and environmental scandals.
Two lines of reasoning are relevant.
1. A technological acceleration. in order to anticipate agricultural needs, agrochemical firms develop products aiming at improving agricultural outputs. They thus contribute to the process of ‘technological acceleration’, as Susan Strange conceptualized it. At the same time, these firms gradually cover sectors hitherto monitored by the sole State actor and thereby keep on chipping at the regulatory capacity of the State.
2. A failed regulatory capacity. Pointing to numerous sanitary scandals, ‘sovereignty-free actors’ – to quote James Rosenau – gradually favored the emergence and the dissemination of norms in the field of the world governance of phytosanitary products. Yet, the persistence of conflicts of interest between market dynamics and health interests or sanitary stakes seems to have triggered a lack of precaution as well as an inadequacy of the State regulatory mechanisms.
The conviction of Monsanto by the high court in Lyon shows the extent to which agricultural practices have been transformed under the impact of the green revolution. To be sure, the increase in world population induces a constant pressure on agricultural products. Farmers, in order to reduce the risks of food shortages and remain competitive, must continue to expand the outputs of their crops. For chemical firms, the agricultural sector thus represents a substantial market on which to position themselves. These firms therefore develop and sell chemicals aimed at improving the level of agricultural productivity. While fuelling the process of ‘technological acceleration’, these private actors thus contribute also to the reversal in power relations between the State actor and the markets. While assuming responsibility for sectors hitherto subject to State monitoring, these firms substantially curtail the capacity of public authorities to intervene. Henceforth, the regulatory power of the State is only exercised marginally, outside markets. The conviction of the Monsanto firm by the Lyon high court, symbolic as it might be, shows the regulatory limits in France as to phytosanitary products. One must recall that France is both the number one agricultural producer in Europe as well as the number one consumer of pesticides. The intertwining of agricultural and economic stakes has long eclipsed the sanitary impact of pesticides and begotten a lack of precaution on the part of States.
Yet, the numerous denunciations of agrochemical firms by actors of the civil society have gradually led to the elaboration and dissemination of norms in the field of phytosanitary products. From this perspective, several agencies of health safety were set up in France during the 1990s in order to prevent, early on, the risks linked to the use of chemical inputs in agriculture. This led, at the European level, to the adoption of Directives aimed at the harmonization of the conditions in which pesticides are put on the market in Member-States. These regulatory mechanisms, in constant evolution, are built on the basis of an accumulation of experiences and often enter into force only after the putting on the market of the products in question. One might as well state how ineffective these preventive mechanisms are for farmers and farm workers, a population foremost exposed to these products. The increase in the numbers of cancer patients and the multiplication of neurological disorders remain among the principal professional diseases linked to the use of pesticides. However, the gradual recognition by the MSA of these medical conditions contributes to the emergence of a professional claim. Despite an important phenomenon of self-censorship, a number of farmers are now mobilizing some of the modi operandi displayed by environmental NGOs in order to bring their concerns to the attention of public authorities.
In all, damages caused by the unreasoned use of pesticides constitute today a precedent in the field of the effort to regulate biotechnologies, notably at a time when agrochemical firms suggest that GMOs are an alternative to the use of phytosanitory products. In this vein, certain European States show more and more reserve when it comes to authorizing the import of these seeds into their territory. One must yet underline that the logic of the market leads these firms to turn to developing counties in order to export banned phytosanitory products and commercialize transgenic seeds.
Champion Emmanuelle, Gendron Corinne, « Le ‘développement durable’ selon Monsanto », Écologie et politique, 29 (2), 2004, pp.121-133.
Parmentier Bruno, Nourrir l’humanité. Les grands problèmes de l’agriculture mondiale au XXIe siècle, Paris, La Découverte, 2009.
Rosenau James, Turbulence in World Politics: a Theory of Change and Continuity, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1990.
Strange Susan, Le Retrait de l’État. La dispersion du pouvoir dans l’économie mondiale, [1996], trad., Paris, Temps Présent, 2011.
lemonde.fr, Planète, « Monsanto, un demi-siècle de scandales sanitaires », disponible à la page: http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2012/02/16/monsanto-un-demi-siecle-de-scandales-sanitaires_1643081_3244.html, dernière consultation: 8 mars 2012.
