Every day when the geese and donkeys storm into her vineyard, Cristina Mariño has to keep a close eye on the animals. “If you’re not careful, they push themselves against the vines, causing damage,” she says over the phone from southern Spain.
Absolutely no poison
Mariño has been using the animals for a year now to graze the weeds around her vines. Otherwise, the plants grow poorly. “It works well in itself. First the donkeys eat the large plants. Then the geese come for the leftovers,” explains Mariño. When the grapes come, the animals are kept away, otherwise they will also eat the fruit.
Mariño makes all that effort, because she absolutely does not want to use agricultural poisons. “We want to have life here. Not only from people, but also from animals,” says Mariño. Because according to her, insects and birds suffer badly from the use of pesticides by nearby winegrowers and olive farmers around the hamlet of Chucena.
Like Mariño, the rest of Europe is also looking for alternatives to agricultural poisons. The European Commission wants the use of harmful pesticides to be halved by 2030. And that is urgently needed, says Professor Emeritus of Nature Management and Plant Ecology at Wageningen University Frank Berendse. According to him, the damage to insects is very great.
Insects and animal victims
Studies show that the amount of insects has decreased enormously in Germany and the Netherlands in recent years. And agricultural poisons play an important role in this, according to Berendse. Not only insects are victims, but also animals that eat insects. Birds, mice, lizards and frogs lose their most important food source.
According to Berendse, the danger of agricultural poisons for people in the Netherlands is limited because of the strict regulations. Yet many pesticides are controversial, such as glyphosate, which the World Health Organization says is likely to cause cancer in humans.
Strict rules do not mean that little agricultural poison is used in the Netherlands. On the contrary: the Netherlands is a major consumer. But can it be done differently?
parasitic wasps
According to Berendse, this can be done, for example, by introducing natural enemies to combat pests. “Passive wasps in greenhouses are a success, but outside the greenhouses it is much more difficult,” he says. Farmers who are going to work on a smaller scale and a consumer who is willing to pay more and who is also satisfied with ‘less attractive’ vegetables or fruit, would also help reduce agricultural poisons, according to Berendse.
According to the emeritus professor, another solution is to levy a hefty tax on products grown with agricultural poisons. As a result, these products become more expensive, while products grown without agricultural poisons become cheaper. Berendse: “Just like with alcohol, tobacco or a sugar tax. Denmark is already doing this, but the Netherlands is not yet”.
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