IT IS tempting to conclude that if some members of the European Parliament entered a team in an international contest, they would want their players to have one hand tied behind their back. 

This is akin to what some MEPs are trying to do over glyphosate – the active ingredient in Roundup – and the world’s most widely used herbicide.
 
Take this away from European farming and it is difficult to see how it could remain a competitive cereal producer. The EU produces 13% of the world’s cereals, but it is one of the biggest exporters. If it became uncompetitive because of a rise in costs or a reduction in yields, then the global price of cereals would rise, to the disadvantage of countries that depend on imports. 
 
That price rise would, however, be of little benefit to European producers, who would have already lost out by being denied access to a herbicide the rest of the world would still be using. 
 
The result would be that on export markets the EU could not compete. Other countries would also take advantage of new trade agreements, now being finalised, to flood the EU with grain below the cost at which European farmers could grow it.
 
The official position on glyphosate is that the European Commission has proposed renewing its general approval and use licence for another 15 years. It is, however, struggling to get the majority it needs from member states in the scientific committee responsible for that decision. 
 
This is akin to the position on genetically modified (GM) crop approvals, where scientists on committees as representatives of member states adopt positions based around politics rather than science. 
 
The reason for opposition to glyphosate is that there are two conflicting views. One from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which advises the commission, says glyphosate is ‘unlikely to cause cancer’, based on a review of global scientific studies. However, part of the World Health Organisation, the Agency for Research on Cancer, has said there is some evidence that glyphosate could be deemed a potential carcinogen.
 
This largely academic disagreement has led MEPs on the parliament’s environment committee to call for a a delay to any decision on glyphosate. This is despite them having no formal role in the decision making process over renewing the licence. 
 
They want the commission to ask its Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) to carry out a full review of glyphosate before it presses ahead with its proposal to renew the licence. 
 
This is the precautionary principle being taken to extremes, on the basis of very slim and disputed evidence of a cancer risk. What the commission needs to do is make clear to MEPs and others that all decisions must be based around managing risk. 
 
If every product that poses a slim risk of cancer were banned, industry and agriculture would, literally, grind to a halt. 
 
Decisions like these need to be based on a risk/reward balance of the available scientific facts. That is what the commission, to its credit, is trying to do. 
 
But MEPs are grandstanding, by calling for a product to be banned, or at best kicked into touch with a review, with no real scientific evidence that this would be justified – and seemingly without any thought about the implications for agriculture of such a decision.
 
This is a call that is going to generate publicity for the MEPs involved and their parties. Even if it goes nowhere it will harm agriculture, because it creates doubt in consumers’ minds. 
 
This builds on a false belief people already have that there is a realistic alternative to agrochemicals if we are to have a secure supply of affordable food.
 
However, while this has created a row, MEPs are unlikely to alter the decision. This will go the way of many GM approvals, in that there will be no qualified majority to approve or reject, meaning the commission will impose a decision in favour. 
 
This is not a good way to take decisions, but the voting system in the EU means there is no alternative. The UK and Ireland are backing the commission, but the farming lobby cannot let down its guard. It would not take too much of a shift in member state opinion to land agriculture with a major problem when glyphosate is up for a decision in mid-May.