The pesticide treadmill explained

A new study confirms what organic farmers have known all the time: that pest damage is reduced by more diverse production and that the use of pesticides creates pest problems.  

In recent decades, there has been a steady increase in the amount of pesticides marketed for argicultural use. In the European Union alone, more than 200,000 tonnes of pesticides (active ingredients) are used annually. Between 2005 and 2010, the total volume of global sales rose from US$ 31 billion to US$ 38 billion. The amount of pesticides used internationally has risen fifty-fold since 1950. China is now the country that both uses and produces the largest amounts of pesticides (PAN Germany, Pesticides and health hazards, Facts and figures).

Pests are major challenges to food security, and responses to pests can incur unintended socio-economic and environmental costs and massive damage to health.  The UNEP Cost of Inaction Report (2012) reveals that the costs of injury (lost work days, outpatient medical treatment, and inpatient hospitalization) from pesticide poisonings, in Sub-saharan Africa alone, amounted to USD $4.4 billion in 2005. Another study suggests that the major economic and environmental losses due to the use of pesticides in the United States amounted to USD $1.5 billion in pesticides resistance and USD $1.4 billion in crop losses, and USD $2.2 billion in bird losses. (Global Chemicals Outlook: Towards Sound Management of Chemicals)
 
Proponents of organic farming and agro-ecology "know" that increasing diversity in the production  system will generally decrease pest problems. This is not to say that there can't be serious pest problems also in organic farms or in other farms which have high diversity. It can, but by and large damage will be less according to my observations in some fifty countries of the world with very diverse production system.

There is, however, a poor understanding of how biodiversity  contributes to ecosystem functions and influences pest populations on farms.To address this gap, a new study examines how species diversity and the network of linkages in species’ abundances affect pest abundance on maize farms across the Northern Great Plains in the U.S. Maize (corn) currently occupies nearly 5% of the land surface of the contiguous United States and 95% of certain counties. Despite the tremendous efforts to combat pests - $3.2 billion was spent to manage maize pests in the United States during 2013 - comprehensive bioinventories of the arthropod species that occur within this habitat are scarce.
 
The study show that  "increased species diversity, community evenness, and linkage strength and network centrality within a biological network all correlate with significantly reduced pest populations. This supports the assertion that reduced biological complexity on farms is associated with increased pest populations and provides a further justification for diversification of agroecosystems to improve the profitability, safety, and sustainability of food production systems.increased species diversity, community evenness, and linkage strength and network centrality within a biological network all correlate with significantly reduced pest populations."

For example, reducing tillage, using cover crops, intercropping, crop rotations, etc. should help increase biodiversity. In line with this, the research results show that using pest management practices that reduce biodiversity and species interactions will create systems where pests will continually pose problems (i.e., the pesticide treadmill). This finding provides further justification for diversification of agroecosystems to improve the profitability, safety, and sustainability of food production systems.

The full paper is available at http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/6/e1500558
Trading biodiversity for pest problems
By Jonathan G. Lundgren, Scott W. Fausti
Science Advances31 Jul 2015 : e1500558

Mounting resistance to pesticide expansion

"PESTICIDES are like bombs being dropped in the food web creating enormous destruction," said Dr. K. L. Heong, an entomologist who once worked with the Laguna-based International Rice Research Institute.

In recent decades, there has been a steady increase in the amount of pesticides marketed for argicultural use. In the European Union alone, more than 200,000 tonnes of pesticides (active ingredients) are used annually. Between 2005 and 2010, the total volume of global sales rose from US$ 31 billion to US$ 38 billion. The amount of pesticides used internationally has risen fifty-fold since 1950. China is now the country that both uses and produces the largest amounts of pesticides (PAN Germany, Pesticides and health hazards, Facts and figures). 

Luckily there is mounting resistance to the pesticide expansion. Pesticides are not as essential as many people think, according to the  International Rice Research Institute (Irri). An Irri study on the effects of pesticides on rice productivity and health shows that farmers’ earnings from chemically-treated crops are often greatly reduced by the cost of treating pesticide-related health problems. "The value of the crops lost to pests is invariably lower than the expense of treating pesticide-caused ailments," Irri said in a statement. "When health costs are factored, the use of correct rice varieties and reliance on natural control by predators and parasites is the least expensive pest control strategy." (Sunstar 25 November).

In the UK, The Environment Secretary Owen Paterson is examining the possibility of banning the controversial nerve-agent pesticides increasingly implicated in the decline of bees and other pollinating insects (Independent 22 November). And in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Gazette reports that the ministry of agriculture recently banned 30 different agricultural pesticides after research has pointed to the dangers that these harmful chemicals pose to public health. The Ministry of Agriculture has established a center with a total expenditure of SR70 million to promote organic agricultural methods throughout the Kingdom.  

Global chemical pollution impacts on both humanity and ecosystems, and includes adverse effects from long-term exposure to low or sub-lethal concentrations of single chemicals or to mixtures of chemicals. More than 90 per cent of water and fish samples from aquatic environments are contaminated by pesticides. (Global Chemicals Outlook: Towards Sound Management of Chemicals.)  

In most countries there is no systematic follow up of pesticides in nature and in no country there is monitoring of all active substances; what is found is still frightening enough. Eighty percent of all rivers in the USA contain pesticide residues. Sixty percent of all wells have residues. The proportion contaminated wells was almost as high in urbanized areas, due to use in home gardens, gravel or stone paths, golf courses etc. In France, pesticides are found in all rivers and half of all water sources had at least traces of them. Of the fifty substances that are checked in the Netherlands, two thirds were found in ground water (OECD 2001). 20 pesticides were found in groundwater used by 3.5 million people in the Santa Ana River watershed. On the great plains in the USA researchers detected two insecticides and 27 herbicides in reservoir water. Water treatment removed from 14 to 86% of individual herbicides. Drinking water contained 3–15 herbicides (average, 6.4).

Pesticide Suicides

Because of their availability, intake of these pesticides is a frequent suicide method. Many hospital records show that a high proportion of severe acute pesticide poisonings are in fact suicides, especially in Asia. The WHO estimates that there are about 2 million pesticide suicides and suicide attempts worldwide every year. The number of suicidal deaths through pesticides was estimated as being as many as 370,000 in 2007. In Asia alone, more than 300,000 people die this way each year. The numbers reported from Sri Lanka are especially alarming. In several rural areas there, pesticide suicides are the most frequent cause of death in hospitals. (PAN Germany, Pesticides and health hazards, Facts and figures).

In 1990, the WHO assumed that one million severe cases of unintentional pesticide poisoning occurred annually. What is remarkable is another, much higher WHO estimate from the same year that is rarely cited in the relevant literature. This figure refers to 25 million unintentional poisonings annually of farm workers in developing countries alone, with on average 3% of agricultural workers in developing countries suffering an episode of pesticide poisoning per year. A recent study by PAN International assumes that currently, of the total 1.3 billion farm workers worldwide, about 41 million suffer pesticide poisoning each year, with average poisoning rates at 32%. (PAN Germany, Pesticides and health hazards, Facts and figures)

Statistics on illnesses due to chronic poisoning as a result of pesticide use or pesticide contamination of food are very limited. But there is reliable evidence that the increasing incidence of cancer, hormonal effects, and neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease is linked to the use of certain pesticides in agricultural production. (PAN Germany, Pesticides and health hazards, Facts and figures)

The damage on nature and the suffering of humans also come with costs. UNEP Cost of Inaction Report (2012) reveals that the costs of injury (lost work days, outpatient medical treatment, and inpatient hospitalization) from pesticide poisonings, in Sub-saharan Africa alone, amounted to USD $4.4 billion in 2005. This is an underestimate as it does not include the costs of lost  livelihoods and lives, environmental health effects, and effects of other chemicals. Another study suggests that the major economic and environmental losses due to the use of pesticides in the United States amounted to USD $1.5 billion in pesticides resistance and USD $1.4 billion in crop losses, and USD $2.2 billion in bird losses. (Global Chemicals Outlook: Towards Sound Management of Chemicals)

Enough is enough, It is now high time to simply ban most pesticides. There are in almost all cases good alternatives available. They might be a bit more costly for the farmers, but for society it makes economic sense to ban pesticides.

Our drinking water: a toxic brew?

Most countries don’t systematically follow drug residues in drinking water and there are also no maximum residue thresholds. In the USA, at least one contaminant was detected in seventy-five percent of the groundwater wells tested; in virtually all the streams and stream sediments tested; in about 80% of the estuarine sediments tested; in about 80% of the freshwater fish tested and in nearly all of the salt-water fish tested (H. John Heinz III Center 2008). 

N.J. water contains traces of daily life

Drink a glass of water in New Jersey and you'll likely get more than you expect: prescription drugs, preservatives, caffeine, even a by-product of nicotine. Hundreds of these compounds, the residue of our chemical-intensive society, have been found in tap water around the state. Meanwhile, epilepsy drugs, deodorants, and other compounds have been discovered in minute amounts in 30 of New Jersey's brooks and rivers. From the Peckman River in West Paterson to the Wallkill in Sussex, researchers found traces of antibiotics, flame retardants, artificial colours, and fuel additives. Carbamazepine, a painkiller; AHTN, a fragrance in consumer products; and prometon, a herbicide, were most common. Two of the sites - the Passaic and Ramapo rivers - supply water to more than 1 million customers in North Jersey. The medicines and other chemicals were discovered in such tiny concentrations that many scientists think they pose no risk. Still, researchers admit that no one knows for sure. Many of the compounds have been studied in high doses, but not at low concentrations ingested over months, years, or a lifetime. Even less understood are the chemical cocktails now forming as they mix in the environment. "The question is, 'Is this something the body deals with at low levels, metabolizes, and there's no problem? Or is this something that accumulates in the body?' We just don't know," said Brian Buckley, the Rutgers chemist who led the four-year drinking water study. "To be honest, we are just starting to deal with the question." (North Jersey News 2003).

 Of 62 big waterworks in the USA, only 28 had tested their water for drug residues by the mid 2000s. New York, Houston, Chicago and Miami had never tested their water. Those that do test find a disturbing reality. In Philadelphia 56 different drugs were found in the drinking water and 63 in the water source. In San Francisco’s drinking water there are sexual hormones, in Washington 6 different drugs (USA Today 2008). Purification of water to get rid of the drugs might cost in the range of 200 dollar per inhabitant and year (UNT 2008).

Among the human medications found in water in the USA are antidepressants, medications for high blood pressure and diabetes, anticonvulsants, steroid medications, oral contraceptives, hormone replacement therapy medications, codeine, non-prescription pain relievers, chemotherapy drugs, heart medications, and antibiotics (President’s Cancer Panel 2010). 

Our drinking water doesn't only contain prescription drugs, but pesticides as well. In most countries there is no systematic follow up of pesticides in nature and in no country there is monitoring of all active substances; what is found is still frightening enough. Eighty percent of all rivers in the USA contain pesticide residues. Sixty percent of all wells have residues. The proportion contaminated wells was almost as high in urbanized areas, due to use in home gardens, gravel or stone paths, golf courses etc. In France, pesticides are found in all rivers and half of all water sources had at least traces of them. Of the fifty substances that are checked in the Netherlands, two thirds were found in ground water (OECD 2001). 20 pesticides were found in groundwater used by 3.5 million people in the Santa Ana River watershed. On the great plains in the USA researchers detected two insecticides and 27 herbicides in reservoir water. Water treatment removed from 14 to 86% of individual herbicides. Drinking water contained 3–15 herbicides (average, 6.4).

Research Links Pesticides With ADHD In Children

CARLA K. JOHNSON, AP Medical Writer writes the 16 May 2o1o:
Children may be especially prone to the health risks of pesticides because they're still growing and they may consume more pesticide residue than adults relative to their body weight.
In the body, pesticides break down into compounds that can be measured in urine. Almost universally, the study found detectable levels: The compounds turned up in the urine of 94 percent of the children. The kids with higher levels had increased chances of having ADHD, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, a common problem that causes students to have trouble in school. The findings were published Monday in Pediatrics. "Exposure is practically ubiquitous. We're all exposed," said lead author Maryse Bouchard of the University of Montreal.

She said people can limit their exposure by eating organic produce. Frozen blueberries, strawberries and celery had more pesticide residue than other foods in one government report.
A 2008 Emory University study found that in children who switched to organically grown fruits and vegetables, urine levels of pesticide compounds dropped to undetectable or close to undetectable levels.

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