Spring once again reveals a deeply alarming image across the Greek countryside. Agricultural land, as well as roadsides within residential areas, next to homes, organic farms, schools, military camps, and other public spaces, are being extensively sprayed with toxic chemicals, herbicides.
These toxic substances are being applied to eradicate natural vegetation and wild grasses, dismissively labeled as “weeds,” instead of using safer mechanical land-management practices such as tilling or mowing.
The products most commonly used contain toxic chemicals that are banned, or restricted in other countries due to their significant risks to public health, biodiversity, and the environment, including severe impacts on groundwater reserves and water quality.
Among the most widely used herbicides in Greece are products containing the active ingredient glyphosate, with the best-known example being “Roundup.” This hazardous substance has once again raised serious concerns regarding the immediate and long-term risks posed to public health, the environment, and the sustainability of agriculture. According to a recent scientific study by the University of Washington, exposure to glyphosate is associated with a 41% higher risk of cancer.
This is only one of many scientific studies examining the effects of widely used hazardous pesticides on human health, highlighting a deeply troubling reality: an increasing number of young people, including individuals in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, are now seeking cancer treatment.
Indicatively, a recent study by the University of Crete recorded a 45% increase in colorectal cancer cases among individuals under the age of 45, a trend associated with exposure to hazardous food contaminants and the broader environmental burden. Crete is the only region in Greece where cancer cases are systematically recorded, while it is estimated that similar rates exist throughout the rest of the country.
It is noteworthy that in the United States alone, approximately 100,000 lawsuits have already been adjudicated examining the link between exposure to ‘Roundup’ and the development of cancer. The multinational Bayer/Monsanto has already paid approximately $11 billion in compensation and out-of-court settlements, while tens of thousands of additional cases worldwide remain pending and are expected to go to trial. Yet the profitability of this specific product is so high that the company prefers to pay even multi-billion-dollar penalties rather rather than to permanently withdraw these dangerous products from the market.
The question, however, ultimately returns to all of us — both citizens and the State itself: what value do we truly place on human life, public health, and environmental protection?
At an international legislative level, the use of glyphosate (Roundup) is being increasingly restricted. Certain countries, such as Austria and Vietnam, have already moved towards a complete ban on the use of glyphosate , with other countries , such as Mexico, heading in the same direction. At the same time, strict restrictions are being implemented in several European countries, including France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
However, the current legal framework in Greece leaves citizens essentially unprotected, allowing the extensive and, in practice, uncontrolled use of glyphosate for the benefit of the pesticide industry. It is estimated that approximately 1,500 tons of glyphosate are dispersed each year across cultivated land producing food for consumption in Greece. Residues of these toxic substances inevitably find their way into groundwater, rivers, and natural ecosystems, even though the product packaging itself explicitly warns, through hazard statements, that these substances are: “Toxic to aquatic organisms, with long-lasting effects.” In other words, these are chemical substances that do not easily break down and can accumulate within ecosystems and the food chain.
Part of the problem also lies in the role of the majority of agronomists. Although educated free of charge at public universities, and being fully aware of the scientifically documented effects of toxic pesticides to public health, biodiversity, and the environment they choose to operate as distributors for these dangerous substances; instead of protecting their fellow citizens through promoting sustainable agricultural practices. In doing so, they actively contribute to the destruction of agricultural land and exposing humans and animals to toxic substances leading to serious long-term consequences, exemplifying that they are’re motivated by financial gain rather than public interest.
At the same time, a large portion of farmers consciously ignore the dangerous nature of these substances. It is characteristic that in large-scale cultivation, producers often protect themselves by avoiding direct involvement in spraying activities, assigning this hazardous work to foreign laborers hired on short-term contracts, thereby making it more difficult to document illnesses related to exposure to these toxic substances.
Thus, protecting themselves by avoiding direct exposure to dangerous chemicals, as they know through first-hand experience how many farmers of the previous generation died from diseases linked to pesticide exposure, especially in areas of intensive agriculture. The final recipients of these hazardous products, however, are unsuspecting consumers, who may ultimately suffer serious health consequences without ever learning the true cause.
We live in a country where the State itself continues to permit the use of recognized hazardous chemical substances under the questionable justification of ensuring food sufficiency, at a time when domestic production and cultivable land are dramatically declining. In many of the country’s most productive regions, from which food reaches our tables every day, toxic pesticide residues are accumulating in the soil, water, and food chain.
At the same time, imports of fruits and vegetables continue to increase significantly, even from northern European countries where, in several cases, agricultural soils have been classified as contaminated or unsuitable due to extensive chemical pollution.
The end result is exactly the opposite of what is supposedly being pursued: agricultural land is gradually degraded and loses its natural productivity, as the continuous use of toxic chemical substances poisons the soil, destroys microbial life, and disrupts the natural balance of the ecosystems upon which agricultural production itself depends on for its long-term sustainability.
As citizens of this country, we must realize that we are, to a great extent, exposed. For the State and the political system, profit appears to remain to be their priority. Which in certain cases is even linked to illness itself, particularly through the expanding commercialization of private healthcare.
Faced with this reality, indifference and appeals are no longer an option to ignorance ; they amount to complicity, with dramatic consequences for all of us and, above all, for future generations. This is not merely an abstract environmental issue, but an immediate and everyday threat that infiltrates and accumulates through the water we drink, the food we consume, and the air we breathe.
Substantial measures are urgently needed: strict oversight, the restriction and gradual elimination of hazardous chemical substances, support for sustainable cultivation practices, and genuine protection of public health.
By the time the consequences of these practices are reflected in statistical data, it will already be far too late. At that point, it will simply constitute yet another case of collective self-destruction caused by our generations, with the tolerance and participation of both the State and the citizens themselves.
For the Institute Of Marine Concervation “Archipelogos”
Thodoris Tsimpidis t.tsimpidis@archipelago.gr
