Check out the new short film introducing the Financing Agrochemical Reduction and Management (FARM) programme.

Chemicals play a crucial role in farming, with nearly 4 billion tons of pesticides and 12 billion kg of agricultural plastics used every year. But, despite their benefits for food yields, these chemicals pose significant risks to human health and the environment. As many as 11,000 people die from the toxic effects of pesticides annually, and chemical residues can degrade ecosystems, diminishing soil health and farmers’ resilience to climate change. The opening burning of agricultural plastics also contributes to an air pollution crisis that causes one in nine deaths worldwide.

The governments of Ecuador, India, Kenya, Lao PDR, Philippines, Uruguay and Viet Nam have come together to launch a $37 million initiative to combat pollution from the use of pesticides and plastics in agriculture,

The FARM programme is led by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) with financial support from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), is elaborating the business case for banks and policy-makers to reorient policy and financial resources towards farmers to help them adopt low- and non-chemical alternatives to toxic agrochemicals, and facilitate a transition towards better practices.

A new study on the links between pesticides and cancer reveals that pesticide exposure has a similar risk level as smoking cigarettes.

"The widespread use of pesticides may lead to hundreds of thousands of additional cancer cases in major corn-producing states like Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Ohio — even for Americans who don’t work on farms, according to findings published Thursday in Frontiers in Cancer Control and Society."

A suggestion that came from one of the authors for raising public awareness of the health risks of pesticides is to disclose pesticide exposure risk when buying and selling property.

Would that make an impact in your country?

The FARM Brand Book

The FARM Brand book is now available to support FARM child projects brand their events and outreach, bringing a global coherence to the Programme. The editable assets will be made available on Canva soon so that each child project can access them and produce their own branded materials.