Toxic Dependency: How Agrochemicals Lock In Food System Vulnerability

Highlights:

Drawing on contributions from twenty-nine expert partners, including researchers, farmer movements, Indigenous organizations, and civil society networks from around the globe, this compendium:

• Maps the system: Traces how fossil fuel dependence flows through agrochemical production to commodity crop production, industrial livestock, ultra-processed foods, and biofuels—and back again—in a self-reinforcing cycle.

• Aggregates the evidence and documents the true costs: Brings together evidence on the environmental costs; the health costs; and the social costs (including farmer debt, eroded sovereignty, and chemical dependency).

• Identifies the lock-ins: Examines the corporate concentration, technology treadmill, policy and subsidy structures, and legitimising narratives that perpetuate this system despite mounting evidence of its harm.

• Charts four interconnected pathways for change: Identifies opportunities for funders and partners to align strategies that expand the evidence base and reframe narratives; align policy, regulation, and finance; rebalance power and foster accountability; and create enabling conditions for agrochemical transitions.

In this compendium, the authors explore the importance of moving toward food production practices that reduce or fully eliminate the reliance on synthetic nitrogen fertiliser and synthetic pesticides. These practices range from bringing regenerative practices to monoculture production to adopting certified organic agriculture in regions where organic is codified to using agroecological practices as defined by the 13 principles of agroecology.

Key figures on the true costs of agrochemical products