385 million – that is the number of people worldwide said to suffer from crop protection poisoning every year. Statistically, that means one in 20 people. At least that is what was claimed in a study published in the scientific journal ‘BMC Public Health’ in 2020. The study was written by activists from the Pesticide Action Network (PAN), a non-governmental organisation critical of crop protection.

However, as the German agricultural industry association has reported, this is a false statement. The editorial team at BMC Public Health has withdrawn the study because ‘indications of gross methodological errors’ have been received. The meekly states: ‘The editor no longer has confidence in the results and the conclusions presented’. The study is methodologically untenable. Pure exposure to a potentially dangerous substance was counted as a case of poisoning. This inflated the number of poisonings enormously.

False figures still in circulation

Much worse than the ‘horror story without substance’, as the debacle is referred to in the industry association's media release, is the visibly uncritical behaviour of both the media and government agencies. Instead of questioning the study, the figure was uncritically disseminated. Swiss media outlets such as infosperber and the Schweizer Bauer have also adopted the figure. On infosperber, the portal that, according to its own self-image, focuses on relevant research and contributes to opinion-forming, the untruth is cheerfully spread.

Even official bodies have spread the false projection and it can still be found on numerous official websites today – including those of various international organisations such as the European Commission, the UNO and the WHO.

As so often, the correction does not receive the same attention as the false report. The German agrochemical industry association cites the Irish author Jonathan Swift, who wrote 300 years ago: ‘The lie flies, and the truth limps after it’. Outrageous false reports make headlines, whereas the truth does not. At least some German media outlets have corrected the story, including Die Welt, which put the false projection in a political context. ‘Politicians listened to activists instead of science,’ the article said.

And they preferred to listen to NGOs rather than the relevant industry. After all, the Swiss association scienceindustries had already debunked this and other claims in 2022. But the figure lives on.

According to the ‘Welt’ report, the mudslingering against crop protection has also influenced decisions on export bans on crop protection. The German Green Party, for example, had insisted on such a ban in the coalition agreement. And exporting companies complain that the administration is sloppily handling export applications with a recognisable intention to prevent them. In other words, wrong figures lead to wrong political or administrative decisions. This also applies to Switzerland. swiss-food has reported on the export bans on crop protection.

The case of the flawed study is an important lesson: critical consideration of scientific studies is extremely important. swiss-food has taken up the issue. Supposedly ‘scientific’ data is continuously used to support arguments on environmental issues. False data is then also used to conceal the madness that the EU is being turned from a wheat exporter into a wheat importer by massively restricting the use of crop protection. This is also emphasised in the ‘Welt’ article by Harald von Witzke, an agricultural economist at Humboldt University in Berlin. He says that global demand for food is constantly growing, which is why the soil must be used more and more productively. He argues that production in poor countries in particular could be increased by reducing harvest losses. There, diseases and pests destroy up to 50 per cent of the potential harvest. Plant protection products therefore play a ‘vital’ role, emphasises von Witzke. ‘An expert report that is unlikely to make headlines – unlike some dazzling nonsense figures,’ concludes the ‘Welt’.