Presentation short abstract

Our research follows the rise and fall of efforts since 2015 to ban the weedkiller glyphosate. While bans have failed, there are new restrictions on non-agricultural use. Our findings suggest that bans are best understood as effects rather than drivers of political economic conditions.

Presentation long abstract

Are bans on pesticides effective at forcing change or are they signs that things have already changed? This paper examines chemical regulation through the lens of the Global Pesticide Complex by exploring this question through a study of efforts to ban or restrict the use of the herbicide glyphosate (commercialized as Roundup) between 2015-2025. Triangulating media reports and government documents, we followed efforts to ban or restrict glyphosate in 39 countries and multiple subnational jurisdictions. None of the bans loudly proclaimed during this time still exist today. Instead, we found a fractured landscape of efforts to control various aspects of production, trade, and/or use of the chemical, for different reasons, at different spatial scales, and shifting over time. Two trends are evident: bifurcation of regulatory efforts between minimal agricultural and stricter non-agricultural policies and a rise of what we identify as voluntary self-limitations, particularly among subnational jurisdictions. While corporate influence and the related politics of uncertainty are well documented as key factors in rolling back glyphosate bans, we argue that they are insufficient to understand the overall pattern. Bans also faced the headwinds of lack of chemical replacements and the expansive ways people now depend upon glyphosate under a variety of socioeconomic and ecological arrangements. Overall, our analysis suggests that bans are better understood as effects of political economic conditions, rather than drivers of them. As glyphosate’s efficacy wanes, we are likely to see more restrictions, but without clear incentives for agroecology, the cycle of chemical substitution will continue.