Like “big pharma” the global agricultural chemical companies run very sophisticated marketing and sponsorship networks that reach into almost every facet of rural life.
The agvet companies, as they are known, are major financial partners – whether it’s funding for the conferences of agricultural organisations such as Cotton Australia and the National Farmers’ Federation, or for university research and specialist advisory organisations such as WeedSmart.
German multinational Bayer, Swiss based Syngenta, Canadian based Nutrien, Adama (owned by Syngenta) US based Corteva (formerly Dow Dupont chemicals) and Australian company Nufarm contribute millions, if not billions, in support for rural activities.
They subsidise agronomists in rural towns. They provide scholarships at agricultural schools and fund farm safety programs.
They even fund government bodies, including – most controversially – providing 90% of the budget for Australia’s pesticides regulator , the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, which operates on a user-pays basis.
What they do is not illegal. Some would say it’s philanthropy. But it raises questions about whether organisations advising farmers, universities conducting research into improving crops, and even the regulator would be prepared to bite the hand that feeds them when it comes to pesticide use.
‘The companies fund the people advising farmers’
One of the key services in local farming towns is the local agronomist.
“Agronomists used to be with the Department of Agriculture,” said Charles Massy, an author, academic and merino sheep farmer on the Monaro, who is a leading advocate for pesticide-free regenerative farming.
“That is all gone so there is no neutrality [on pesticide use]. Now the companies fund the people advising farmers.”
Nutrien, for example, has taken over the locally owned Ruralco and Landmark companies, which operate rural supply businesses. They provide fertiliser and crop protection products to farmers as well as the advice of agronomists, who are supported by the company.
For those running industrial-scale farms, the question of which products to use and when has become increasingly complex, with more than a dozen different chemicals often applied at different times of year, Massy said.
Many farmers are unable to keep up with the complexity of the science that is behind the regime they are using.
“Farmers are totally dependent on the agricultural advisers of the companies. They just don’t have the knowledge themselves,” he said.
A captured regulator?
Several reviews have raised concerns about whether Australia’s pesticide regulator is overly close to the agvet industry and not sufficiently cognisant of consumer and environmental perspectives.
In 2020-21 the APVMA received more than 89% – $38.9m – of its budget from fees, charges and levies paid by the pesticide industry for approving new products under a user-pays model of regulation.
In 2006 the Australian National Audit Office recommended that the authority needed to better manage the risk of actual or perceived conflict of interest.
Instead it has gone in the other direction, according to Friends of the Earth’s pesticide campaign leader, Anthony Amis.
The APVMA has regular contact with the industry it regulates and with farm organisations but has struggled to interact with the environmental movement or consumer groups on a regular basis.
The APVMA’s community consultative committees were shut down in 2012 and its advisory board abolished in 2015, as part of reform by the then-agriculture minister, Barnaby Joyce, when he moved the organisation to his home town of Armidale.
A governance board was reinstated last April but its members are either from farming or an agricultural science background.
Asked by the Guardian how it engaged with the wider community and environmental organisations, the APVMA said that in 2020, it had invited six environmental and community groups to participate in the APVMA Consultative Forum.
“One group accepted the offer to participate only if sitting fees were provided,” it said, without clarifying whether any were now participating.
More recently, environmental groups including Birdlife Australia, which is concerned about the threat to native birds that eat rats and mice, have engaged with some vigour with the review into anticoagulant rodenticides.
Close links with farmer organisations
The agvet companies also share close links with farmer organisations, agricultural product organisations and various outreach programs.
Unsurprisingly, the pesticide companies are major sponsors of the annual conferences run by commodity groups that use pesticides extensively, such as cotton and wheat. The conferences often include exhibitions of farm machinery and agvet chemicals.
For instance, the National Farmers’ Federation’s Sustaining the Nation conference in 2022 was backed by Nutrien. The NFF would not comment on the value of these sponsorships saying they were commercial arrangements.
Cotton Australia 2022 was sponsored by Adama, Bayer, Corteva, Nutrien and Syngenta. And the Grain Growers’ Innovation Generation event was sponsored by Nutrien.
The pesticide companies also fund ongoing programs like WeedSmart, which “delivers a science-based weed control solution to growers and advisers for long term profitability in Australian agriculture”.
The program promotes six strategies, including crop rotation, mixing and matching herbicides and “double knock” spraying with herbicides.
WeedSmart’s three gold sponsors are the Grains Research and Development Corporation (a government body) and Syngenta and Bayer (two of the largest chemical manufacturers in the world).
WeedSmart in turn is a supporter of the Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative at the University of Western Australia, which “researches solutions to minimise the adverse impact herbicide resistance and crop weeds have on Australian cropping”.
Extending the life of herbicides is one of the key objectives of the industry.
Organisations such as the NFF are strong supporters of glyphosate for weed control. On its website it offers advice to farmers about the safety of the controversial pesticide, including listing major countries or territories that have renewed its registration on the basis that “glyphosate does not cause cancer”, but without any reference to the countries that have not.
It cites the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority’s decision in 2016 not to review glyphosate but makes no reference to ongoing debate in relation to the chemical, including no information about the continuing US court battles and Bayer’s $US10bn in settlements.
Nor does it mention the class action now under way in Australia involving 700 people who have used glyphosate and who allege it caused their cancer. Bayer says there is “overwhelming scientific and regulatory support” for the safety of Roundup, and the “strength of the science” is on its side.
Asked whether financial support from the agvet industryinfluenced the organisation’s stance on the regulation of pesticides, a spokesperson for the NFF told Guardian Australia that it had “strict governance arrangements in place to ensure our public policy positions are determined exclusively by our farmer members”.
The organisation said it had confidence that the APVMA regulates agricultural and veterinary chemicals in a way that effectively manages the risks of pests and diseases for the Australian community and protects Australia’s trade and the health and safety of people, animals and the environment.
“Australia is fortunate to have one of the world’s most respected, science-based regulators for agricultural chemicals. We support Australia’s science-led, risk based approach to chemical regulation which has a proven track record of safety and sustainability,” the spokesperson said.
