Dr May van Schalkwyk, a Research Fellow at the Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention and the Global Health Policy Unit at the University of Edinburgh, shares insights into how the pesticide industry shapes policy and science and its impact on people’s health and the planet.
*Warning: This article discusses suicidal behaviour. If you have questions on self-harm or feel suicidal, use this link to find an international helpline.*
Man reaching towards a shelves of pesticide bottles in Nepal. Credit: Heshani Sothiraj Eddleston
Why the pesticide industry’s influence on science and policy deserves more attention
The study of corporate power and practices has revealed how commercial actors shape health and equity – increasingly referred to as the commercial determinants of health (CDOH).
Diverse industry sectors employ strategies and tactics to maximise profits and block policies that threaten their business interests, which often have harmful consequences on people and the planet.
To date, health researchers have mostly focused on scrutinising the types of practices adopted by well-known health harming industries, principally tobacco, alcohol, ultra-processed foods, and sugar sweetened beverage companies.
But there are other industries which have not been studied in this way, with the pesticide industry being a notable example.
A powerful yet understudied industry
The pesticide industry is made up of powerful commercial actors with just six companies dominating almost 80 per cent of global pesticide production.
These companies produce substances toxic not just to pests, but to people and the planet.
They produce and profit from the sale of pesticides classified as highly hazardous that are linked to cancer, neurological disorders, and environmental degradation.
The most serious health effects of pesticide exposure, including poisoning, long-term illness, and fatal and non-fatal self-poisoning, happen in low-and-middle-income countries.
In many such contexts, regulation is often weaker, which allows the industry to keep marketing and selling their harmful products and access and usability of safety equipment and personal protection is limited.
Yet, despite its scale and impact, the pesticide industry is yet to receive the same level of scrutiny by the public health community as other harmful industries.
Farmers using pesticides in a field
Mapping what we know: A review of industry tactics
As researchers from different academics fields – pesticide suicide prevention and commercial determinants of health – we came together to examine what is known about the types of practices adopted by major pesticide corporations and the types of data and studies that have been used to record and understand these practices.
We aimed to build understanding of how the pesticide industry functions as a commercial determinant of health.
To do this, we conducted a scoping review of the literature to explore how the pesticide industry works to shape science and influence policy-making.
We examined 31 documents, including academic research papers, reports from NGOs and investigative journalists, opinion pieces and books.
Looking across this range of documents, we identified a clear picture of the strategies pesticide companies have used to influence scientific research, shape public policy and affect regulatory decisions.
A Familiar Playbook
Our findings show that the pesticide industry clearly operates much like other health harming industries.
It uses well-established strategies to protect its profits, even when that means delaying action on products that are proven to be harmful.
These strategies include:
Shaping the science:
Pesticide companies fund and promote research that favours their products, while attacking or undermining independent studies that demonstrate the potential harms associated with pesticide use and exposure.
We found examples of ghost-writing studies, manufacturing doubt about the harms of pesticides, and distorting the academic evidence base by funding strategically useful research.
These strategies are highly consistent with those adopted by the tobacco industry, which over many decades cast doubt on critical research establishing a causal link between smoking and disease, and delayed tobacco control.
Influencing policymaking and regulatory processes:
Through lobbying, political donations, and the ‘revolving door’ between regulators and industry, pesticide companies have been able to shape policymaking and regulatory decisions in their favour.
We found examples across diverse country contexts where they successfully pushed for weaker regulations, re-licensing of harmful products, and blocked restrictions altogether.
Presenting the industry as an expert and policy partner:
The industry often presents itself as a champion of food security and agricultural innovation.
Meanwhile, it acts to discredit the work and reputation of those who are critical of its products potentially disarming the threat these pose to their corporate image and use of their products.
Evidence gaps and directions for future research
Our review shows that the pesticide industry warrants more attention and should be scrutinised as a powerful commercial actor shaping health outcomes.
It highlighted some important commonalities with other industry practices, but there are still significant gaps that need to be addressed.
For example, while banning highly hazardous pesticides is a proven way to prevent suicides, the industry often promotes alternatives based on the discredited concept of “safe storage” which keep their highly lethal products on the market.
To date there has been limited research exploring how the industry shapes suicide prevention policymaking and practice, including their involvement in the uptake of measures based on safe storage versus bans of highly hazardous pesticides.
We also need to study the industry’s role in global policy spaces and how these practices align with other powerful industries.
Most importantly, much of the existing research focuses on high-income countries, but it’s low- and middle-income countries that face the greatest risks and burden of harm.
We need more research that critically examines how this industry operates, particularly in most affected countries in the Global South, and examine how industry practices may be deepening health inequalities.
The case for change
Our review adds to the growing evidence that protecting public health and the environment requires much broader structural changes that address upstream commercial drivers.
We therefore support previous calls to reform how science is produced and used, strengthen regulation of industries producing harmful pesticides and protect policy making from undue commercial influence to ensure public health is prioritised above corporate profits.
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