Chemistry in agriculture - that is putting more and more people on the barricades.
This explosive topic was also discussed controversially in the Großweiler municipal council.
Großweil
- Mayor Frank Bauer (Free Voting Association) recently received mail on an unpleasant topic - one that affects almost everyone because it has to do with poisons and pollutants in local areas.
Poisons that you cannot escape because they are carried away with the slightest breath of wind and end up where you don't want them: on furniture, clothes and your own skin.
In a letter that was also formulated as an application, a community citizen expressed his concern about the use of chemical pesticides on agricultural or horticultural areas in Großweil. He would like a "uniform regulation" for surface spraying. Specifically, he is concerned with distance issues: he demands the distance between an area that has been sprayed with a chemical agent for pest control and the next residential development should be 20 meters. A corresponding test is requested. In vain: the local council rejected the request. And unanimously. But not voluntarily.
Many grudgingly raised their hands when the vote came, because the man's motion obviously hit a nerve, as the sensitivities to the agenda item and the avalanche of speeches showed: Seldom has the committee discussed so controversially within minutes, rarely cooked Emotions so high. As a rule, the committee has a collegial, almost friendly tone. The desire for agreement is in the foreground, dissonances are seldom heard.
Not this time.
At the beginning, the town hall chief had pointed out the legal situation on this point, recorded in a message from the Bavarian Municipal Association, which took a position on the subject of consumer protection and food safety.
It states that the municipalities have no competences in matters of plant protection law.
This is the responsibility of the Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL).
The minimum distances listed therein are far from the 20 meters that the Großweiler wishes for: For so-called area crops, the distance must be two meters, in rooms five meters.
If, for example, a strip of green along the roadside is sprayed, then parks, green spaces or gardens can be a stone's throw away.
Glyphosphate is toxic, carcinogenic and makes us sick, you have to be very clear.
Local councilor Johann Kirner
This does not exclude school and kindergarten grounds, playgrounds and even cemeteries.
In other words: public areas are just as affected as private ones.
This is exactly what made many elected officials blush with anger.
Johann Kirner, for example (CSU), who referred to the dangerousness of the substances in chemical pesticides: "Glyphosphate is poisonous, carcinogenic and makes us sick, that has to be said very clearly." The cultivation of maize, which is accompanied by particularly intensive pest control , he called "the destruction of our environment".
Johanna Fuchs (Free Voting Association), who sympathized with Großweiler's proposal, made a similar statement.
The backlash was prompt. Namely by farmers who sat in the audience and were asked by the local council to comment as well. They see each other wrongly in their sights, feel like scapegoats. "We are generally given the buck, the farmers are always the polluters", one of them exclaimed. Wanting to prevent domestic production chains because chemical agents would have to be used for this would be tantamount to declaring war on regional ideas. The only alternative could be to get the food over long transport routes. That is exactly what environmental degradation is. Do you want that? "It can't be good to tease."