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:
Many pesticides are not safe when dry. Water evaporates, but most pesticides remain and
continue to release often odorless and
invisible toxic vapors. They accumulate in
toxic smog throughout the entire season.
Pesticides and chemical fertilizers are becoming some of the worst water pollutants in America.
Some pesticides remain active for years after application. DDT is still showing up in higher rates in women's breast milk than the government permits in cow's milk [4].
Pesticides drift and settle during application. In the Antarctic ice pack alone there are 2.4 million pounds of DDT and its metabolites from years past [7].
Fat soluble pesticides accumulate over time in our bodies, then are released at potentially toxic levels when illness or stress results in our fat reserves being metabolised. A large portion of a woman's lifetime exposure to such pesticides is released in the breast milk for her firstborn child [8].
It is a violation of U.S.Federal law to claim pesticides are "safe when used as directed" since nothing can assure safety [2,3,5].
Some pesticides labeled "bio-degradable" degrade into compounds more dangerous than the original. Examples include Mancozeb, which degrades into a substance that is an EPA-classified probable carcinogen [6].
Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health have shown that individuals reporting exposure to pesticides had a 70 percent higher incidence of Parkinsons Disease than those not reporting exposure.
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
1. New York State Attorney General's Office. "The Secret Hazards Of Lawn Pesticides: Inert Ingredients." New York State Department Of Law, 1994.
2. New York State Attorney General's Office. "Pesticides In The Schools: Reducing The Risks." New York State Department Of Law, 1994.
3. American Defender Network, "Lawn Chemical Dangers." 1989.
4. Davidson, Osha Gray. "Pesticides: The Killing Fields." Woman's Day 20 September 1994.
5. The S.T.A.T.E. Foundation (Sensitive To A Toxic Environment), 4 Hazel Court, West Seneca, NY 14224.
6. Begley, Sharon & Hager, Mary. "Please Don't Eat The Daisies." Newsweek 16 May 1988.
7. Rudd, Robert C. "Pesticides." Encyclopedia Americana 1990.
8. International Joint Commission on the Great Lakes. "Selected Persistent Toxic Substances in Human Breast Milk in the Great Lakes Basin". March 1990.
9. Devinder Sharma, "Is modern science the real pest?" Wednesday, May 14, 2003, Business Line