General Mills has bowed to activist pressure to reduce crop pesticides and announced new reduction limits this week.
The As You Sow organization is highly critical of large food companies for failing to put pressure on farmers to reduce pesticide use, but praised General Mills for taking a stand.
General Mills said it had been working with As You Sow for several years when last year 31 per cent of its shareholders voted for additional cuts to pesticides.
Now General Mills has announced “specific ways it will measure progress in its pesticide reduction goals, particularly for farmers participating in its new regenerative agriculture initiative.”
There is no mention of any scientific basis for these new requirements, nor is there any indication that harmful pesticide residues have been detected in any of the inputs General Mills uses to make its products.
It's just politics.
