by Chand Prasad, Ph.D.
Strong growth in global pesticide usage has propelled annual sales to a level of 30 billion dollars, with Asia accounting for about twenty-five percent of these expenditures. Multinationals such as Bayer, Cyanamid, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont, Novartis and Zeneca maintain that their pesticide products reduce famine by protecting crops from insect damage. This article focuses on a number of key factors influencing the costs and benefits of pesticide use.
Conditions in most developing countries make it practically impossible to guarantee appropriate pesticide use. Moreover, according to the National Academy of Sciences at least one out of seven people in the United States are significantly harmed by pesticide exposure each year [3]. Although the pesticide industry maintains that their chemicals are heavily diluted, they are still extremely dangerous in small amounts. Many pesticide ingredients are listed as inert, which allows them to be kept hidden from the public and not listed on product labels. Far from being inactive fillers, these inert compounds such as benzene and xylene, are more toxic than listed chemicals [1,2]. The listed chemicals, which include components of wartime defoliants like Agent Orange, nerve-gas type insecticides, and artificial hormones, are also extremely hazardous:
Although the Green Revolution may have been well intentioned in that it sought to avert food shortages and starvation by raising agricultural productivity, it proved to be a highly profitable, lucrative boon to the pesticide industry. After 30 years of intensive use on Asian rice farms and subsequent damage to the environment, the International Rice Research Institute recognized that "most insecticide use on rice is a waste of the farmers' time and money" [9]. Pesticides kill friendly insects, therefore helping the pests they would otherwise help control. The result is that pesticide use becomes self-perpetuating, implying that farmers become more dependent on these chemical inputs. This dependence provides a steady flow of revenues and profits for the pesticide industry.
There is little or no corporate support for safer organic alternatives to chemical pesticides, although the pesticide industry has indeed detected a growing backlash. However, instead of developing truly organic alternatives, companies sometimes label their chemical inputs as "organic", knowing that the term legally may be applied to any compound containing carbon and hydrogen. Additionally, some pesticide companies have expanded into the seed industry and genetic engineering. The industry now advertises the hazards of pesticides as part of a marketing strategy to replace insecticides with genetically modified crops.
Fortunately, farmers themselves are accurate observers that have demonstrated a willingness to experiment. For example, in Tamil Nadu, India, more than 8,000 farmers in 10 districts have been using herbal pest repellents. A Karikali-based group in Tamil Nadu, Vazhviyal Multiversity, has produced an herbal pest repellent from knowledge derived from Vriksha Ayurveda. The repellent is prepared from the leaves of five plant species not eaten by cattle. These can vary from place to place, but ideally the repellent contains neem, tulsi, and datura. The leaves are collected, cut into pieces and pounded. It is then put in an earthen pot filled with cow urine and allowed to ferment in a compost pit for 10 days. The fermented solution is filtered with a cotton cloth, and water is added. This solution can be used as an herbal spray, but it should be used before the insects appear [9].
The value of cow urine-based pesticides provides further evidence of the utility of cow protection. The objective of breeding cows is to provide a team of oxen for every family farm. Valuable by-products include milk, manure which adds nutrients to the soil, and urine which acts as both a fertilizer and pesticide. ISCOWP properly distinguishes between the objective and the by-products, and furthermore practices cow protection in a larger spiritual context based on the teachings of Srila Prabhupada.
References available upon request