Where glyphosate to go in China facing disturbance of carcinogenesis?
In late March 2015, the World Health Organization (WTO) announced a new resolution that glyphosate included in Monsanto’s herbicide named Roundup is likely to cause cancer. This resolution was described in Carcinogenicity of Tetrachlorvinphos, Parathion, Malathion, Diazinon, and Glyphosate, an analysis report in the Lancet Oncology, and was issued on the website of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an agency affiliated to the WTO. Based on the analyses of current studies mainly aimed at the individuals and experimental animals who are in touch with this kind of chemical, this report has aroused a great attention in many countries and many of them including the US start to reassess the characteristics of glyphosate. Suffering the disturbance of causing cancer, what the destiny of glyphosate will be in China? Glyphosate has ever been forbidden in part of countries, such as Brazil, Argentina and Sri Lanka, will it encounter the same situation and be forced to withdraw from the Chinese market consequently?
CCM believes that whether glyphosate will be banned and forced to withdraw from the Chinese market significantly depends on whether glyphosate fits for the forbidden requirements China sets for pesticides, and whether China is able to withstand the negative impact imposed by the situation where glyphosate is banned. CCM predicts that the Chinese government will be cautious about the problem of whether glyphsate can cause cancer for a long term and will not implement any policy to ban glyphosate in a short term.
Regarding the development of China’s pesticide industry, if a pesticide product meets the following four conditions in China, it may be banned.
First, the pesticide is high-risk to human body and livestock. The high risk mainly reflects in the high toxicity and its possibility to induce cancer, malformation and gene mutation. In terms of China’s pesticide development, some pesticides, forbidden totally or partly including paraquat and methamidophos, meet this condition. According to the data released by the Institute for the Control of Agrochemicals, Ministry of Agriculture of People’s Republic of China (ICAMA), glyphoaste’s acute oral LD50 is 4,320 mg/gk and its acute skin LD50 for rabbit is >5,000 mg/kg. According to China’s latest grading criteria on pesticide toxicity, glyphosate is defined as a kind of pesticide with low toxicity.\
Second, the pesticide will pollute the environment like air, water and soil. Regarding China’s pesticide development, 10% glyphosate AS is forbidden for its pollution to the environment. Actually, it is the glyphosate TK involved in the 10% glyphosate AS that pollutes the environment. At present, since there is generally no preparation for high-content glyphosate formulation, whose glyphosate content is equal to or over 30%, based on glyphosate TK in China, the glyphosate products being used in China currently will not pollute the environment.
Third, the pesticide is high-risk to the creatures living in the environment. In view of China’s pesticide development situation, fipronil is banned for this condition. Fipronil’s high toxicity to bees and aquatic organisms is the major reason why it is forbidden in China. According to the data disclosed by ICMAM, the LC50 (96 hours) of glyphosate for trouts is 86 mg/L and that for bluegills is 120 mg/L; the acute oral LD50 for bees is 0.1 mg/bee, the acute oral LD50 of industrial-used gylphosate for bobwhites is over 3,850 mg/kg and that for mallards is 590 mg/kg. The data indicates that glyphosate is relatively low-toxic to fishes and aquatic organisms, basically non-toxic to bees and birds and comparatively safe to natural enemies and helpful organisms.
Four, the pesticide can be completely or partly replaced by some products.
In the case of China’s current pesticide structure, there are only a small number of products equipped with the function of glyphosate, but glufosinate-ammonium is the typical one.
Viewing the above analyses, glyphosate meets two out of four forbidden conditions in China. However, the Chinese government will consider the possible negative impact brought by the glyphosate prohibition before taking actions to ban a certain kind of pesticide. At present, as glyphosate is China’s first major pesticide variety, its outputs, consumption volume, output value and sale value are always on the top in among all pesticide varieties. Therefore, there is no doubt that forbidding glyphosate will severely strike the pesticide industry. Due to glyphosate’s strong comprehensive cost performance, forbidding glyphosate will doubtlessly make farmers invest much more in the agricultural production.
In terms of China’s forbidden pesticide varieties, China is always prudent in dealing with this case. For instance, on the National Conference of Biopesticide Development and Application held on 27 April 2015, Tang Hongquan, director of Hubei Agricultural Pesticide Association, disclosed that some deputies to the People’s Congress ever required that China should comprehensively ban high-toxicity pesticides when submitting the Food Safety Law of the People’s Republic of China (Amendment) to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress for deliberation. However, this proposal fails to pass approval. Now, the Amendment aimed at high-toxic pesticides suggests that management in using the high-toxicity pesticides should be strengthened and the R&D and promotion of related substitutes should be accelerated even though it is not yet a mature moment to eliminate and ban all high-toxicity pesticides. Thus, the regulations in the Food Safety Law should be modified as that China should encourage and support the use of effective and low-toxicity pesticides with fewer residues so as to drive the development and application of substitute products to high-toxicity pesticides and accelerate the elimination of high-toxicity pesticides. Meanwhile, the regulation that no high-toxicity pesticides can be applied into vegetables, fruits, tea leaves and Chinese herbal medicine should be added. The Chinese government holds such cautious attitude towards the high-toxicity pesticides, let alone the low-toxicity gylphosate.
Reviewing China’s forbidden pesticide varieties, China surely will take the social assessment into account when deciding to ban a certain kind of pesticide variety. Take paraquat as an example. The fatality rate of paraquat to human may up to 90% in China. It is high-toxicity to human body even without any effective antidote and basically in China many people choose to drink paraquat in an attempt to commit suicide every year. As more and more social disputes concerning paraquat come up, related policy to ban paraquat is carried out. Reviewing the analysis report about glyphosate carcinogenesis done by overseas countries, China is still suspending on disputing the academic research of glyphosate. Although there are many domestic media reporting and following the overseas analysis report about glyphosate carcinogenesis, there is no large-scale appeal to ban glyphosate in the public. Besides, though glyphosate has been used in China for nearly 30 years, there are few reports about glyphosate able to cause cancer in China.
To sum up, if the condition of forbidding glyphosate thoroughly in China is not mature enough, it is hard to ban glyphosate in China.
About CCM
CCM has 14 years' experience in serving both domestic and global clients with precise, comprehensive and in-depth market intelligence, ranging from E-Journal, report, market data, trade analysis, company profile and a comprehensive suite of customized consulting services, which in all help you to grasp the market trends and business opportunities in your sector.
CCM has a decade’s experience in the market research of pesticide sector, and has produced more than 100 pesticide related reports, provides four real time updated E-Journals, namely Glyphosate China Monthly Report, Herbicides China News, Insecticides China News, Fungicides China News, also we track the monthly import and export situation of about 100 pesticide varieties, all of which can help you enhance your pesticide business.
Contact Myra Chen: emarket14@cnchemicals.com