‘Ban them until we know they are safe’: Dutch flower growers are urged to stop using pesticides
Flower farmer John Huiberts stands next to a flamingo made from thousands of organic pink hyacinths. During the annual Flower Parade, where decorated floats in full bloom drive through 42 kilometers of fields, his electric vehicle is a sign of changing times in the Netherlands.
“It makes you proud,” says the co-owner of Huiberts Organic Flower Bulbs, who went organic eleven years ago. “They say the chemicals are safe, but I don’t know. It took me a few years to have good and healthy bulbs, but it is reassuring not to have to use them anymore.”
Huiberts is among a growing number of Dutch flower growers who are rejecting pesticides due to concerns about the effects of conventional floriculture on biodiversity and the health of people living nearby.
In the past decade, Dutch flower growing has grown by a fifth, covering 28,000 hectares of Europe’s second most populous country. In 2022, almost seven billion flower bulbs were exported, mainly tulips and lilies, worth approximately €1 billion.
A lawsuit this week from residents of a village in Limburg aims to stop a lily bulb grower from planting because of health concerns about pesticides. Last year, a surprise ruling banned a grower from using pesticides on a lily pad in Boterveen, citing “substantial evidence” of “a link between pesticides and serious neurological disorders (such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and ALS)” – although he on appeal was allowed to use four substances.
Jonna Vernes is part of a group from Boterveen that wants to appeal to the courts to regulate future agriculture. “It’s scary,” she said. “We have been concerned about our health from the beginning.”
Experts have also sounded the alarm in the wake of court victories against pesticide use in the US and state compensation for winegrowers in France who contracted Parkinson’s disease after using glyphosate – a herbicide that recently killed another ten was licensed for use in the EU for years. A critical report from the Northern Audit Office states: “It is unclear whether intensive use of pesticides in cultivation is safe for people, water and nature.”
Prof. Bas Bloem, neurologist at Radboud University Medical Center, is leading the call for new European testing protocols. “Parkinson’s disease is the fastest growing neurological disorder in the world and there is broad consensus that it is largely an environmentally induced disease,” he said. “This also applies to pesticides, but it is not limited to pesticides. Farmers are at increased riskand that includes people who live near farmland.”
Although overall pesticide use has decreased since 2012, consumers still expect flowers to look perfect and export standards are high, says Martin van den Berg, emeritus professor of toxicology at Utrecht University. “If we compare flower fields such as lilies, the use of pesticides is generally much more extensive than when growing corn, wheat or potatoes.
“The more intensively you use the biocides, the greater the impact on biodiversity. And the legislation in the EU asks whether the substance is carcinogenic or dangerous for reproduction, but the only thing that is absolutely insufficient is the testing for effects on neurological development: these substances have not been tested sufficiently to kill humans at a specific dose to tell you not at risk – especially children and the fetus in pregnant women.”
Investigative journalists Ton van der Ham and Vincent Harmsen said they were met with resistance and hostility when investigating regulatory gaps. “Current laws do not protect Dutch citizens: a million people live within 250 meters of a field,” said Van der Ham. “We are not against the farmers: we are not activists, we are journalists.
‘You could call it tulip fever… the fever that drives us crazy… because we want to make money.’
Back at the flower parade, chairman Willem Heemskerk wanted to point out that the fair – which started in 1947 to cheer people up – is a kind of recycling. “Bulb growers allow us into their fields to pick the flowers,” he says. “This is not excessive use – it is a waste product and 100 million people will benefit from it.”
Jaap Bond, chairman of the Royal General Association of Flower Bulb Growers (KAVB), says that the sector is experimenting with methods such as weed-finding robots and smart injection techniques. “There is a huge challenge when it comes to reducing chemicals,” he says. “Everything used is a legal chemical that is strictly controlled. This is a huge, economically important economic sector, but what is often underestimated is that it is also a symbiosis: bulbs are rotated in the ground with potatoes and onions. The lily is really framed.”
However, Prof Bloem believes that flowers are a ‘luxury product’ and that precaution should be a priority. “Especially when it comes to flowers, we should ban these pesticides until we have further evidence showing they are toxic or safe,” he said.