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THE PESTICIDE TREADMILL
Consumer's Union [CU], publisher of CONSUMER REPORTS magazine, last month released a new book entitled PEST MANAGEMENT AT THE CROSSROADS.[1] The book describes how we could reduce the public health hazards and environmental dangers of pesticides by at least 75% in the next 25 years, at the same time increasing our agricultural yields. The basic idea is to shift farms away from reliance on chemical pesticides toward "integrated pest management," or IPM. IPM prevents outbreaks of pests by diagnosing the source of pest problems, then employing various preventive practices and biological controls to hold pest populations within acceptable limits. CU's 288-page book shows in detail how and where IPM is being used successfully today, how the shift from chemicals to IPM could be made, what it would cost, and what kinds of public policies would be needed to make it happen. It would be difficult to overstate the importance of this book.
The main author of PEST MANAGEMENT AT THE CROSSROADS is Charles M. Benbrook, former executive director of the Board on Agriculture of the National Research Council. During Benbrook's tenure, the Board published several important studies of U.S. agriculture, including ALTERNATIVE AGRICULTURE, which presented case studies of 11 successful farms in the U.S. that don't rely on chemicals.[2]
CU's new book starts by explaining how IPM works, then explains why it is needed, making the following points:
** Despite the expenditure of more than $1 billion per year of taxpayers' funds to regulate pesticides, the public health hazards and environmental damage created by pesticides have not diminished during the past 30 years.[1,pgs.57-87]
** The nation is on a "pesticide treadmill" because pests become resistant to the effects of pesticides, requiring farms to adopt new and more potent poisons, to which pests eventually become resistant. There is no end to this toxic spiral. Resistance cannot be avoided; it is a natural part of the evolutionary process. When a group of pests is exposed to a toxic chemical, some of them survive. These hardy few reproduce and their offspring inherit genes resistant to this particular chemical. Excessive use of a pesticide speeds up the process by which pests develop resistance. More than 500 insects have now developed resistance to one or more pesticides; so have 270 species of weeds and 150 plant diseases.[1,pg.2]
** The pesticide treadmill operates in another way as well. By killing off beneficial organisms that help keep pests in check, pesticides often create the conditions under which pests can flourish. As the World Bank said recently, "Since the 1940s, pest management technology has increasingly relied on chemical pesticides. Although in some cases this use has led to significant short term alleviation of pest problems, it has not led to long term sustainable solutions. In fact, it has often led to further pest problems, putting farmers in a vicious cycle of pests and pesticides, and increasing the burden on the environment."[3]
Happily, an alternative exists: integrated pest management (IPM). CU's new book describes many examples of successful IPM programs, citing successful efforts on individual farms, and by government agencies. Compared to chemical techniques, such programs result in fewer pests, and higher crop yields, at lower costs.
In every sense, IPM is a rational approach to pest management. It relies on knowledge of the specific pests and specific crops grown in specific soils under specific climatic conditions. In essence, IPM substitutes knowledge for the "brute force" approach of toxic chemicals.
However, it is difficult to be optimistic about IPM being widely adopted until other changes have occurred in the way our society makes decisions. Unfortunately, the CU book shies away from discussing these more fundamental changes. The truth is that, at present, the pesticide corporations are simply too powerful to be influenced by rational argument or the need to protect public health and the environment. Worldwide, pesticide sales reached $29 billion in 1995[1,pg.32]--$10.4 billion in the U.S. alone.[1,pg.1] Six corporations dominate the industry, capturing 67.4 percent of total industry sales in 1995.[1,pg.31] The recent merger of Sandoz and Ciba-Geigy created Novartis, the world's largest agrichemical corporation, with annual sales of more than $4.4 billion in 1995 --almost double those of the next largest competitor, Monsanto.[1,pg.31]
In addition to exercising almost unimaginable political power, the pesticide industry is now off on a new tangent that promises to be immensely profitable by increasing the use of chemical pesticides. The new direction is genetically engineered crops.
There are two major paths being explored now by companies like Monsanto: (1) crops that are genetically engineered to withstand applications of herbicides, so that whole fields can be doused with herbicides to kill weeds. And (2), crops that are genetically engineered so that the crop itself becomes toxic to particular pests. Monsanto is leading the way in both technologies.[4] This year, Monsanto started selling soybean seeds that have been genetically altered to withstand Monsanto's herbicide, named Roundup. Roundup [glyphosate] kills just about everything green, so it must be applied to weeds with great care and in limited amounts, to avoid harming nearby crops. But now Monsanto has incorporated a petunia gene into soybeans, and the resulting soybeans are not harmed by Roundup. Now an entire field can be doused with Roundup, killing the weeds but not the soybeans. The short-term result is an increased soybean yield, and of course soils and nearby water supplies and wildlife contaminated with Roundup. Because neither the farmer nor Monsanto pays the price of ecological or public health damage from such techniques, the result is more profit for farm corporations, more profit for Monsanto, and increased costs to public health and the environment.[4]
Monsanto is also leading the way in the other new genetic engineering technology --giving whole plants the characteristics of a pesticide, by gene splicing. For example, consider Bt. BACILLUS THURINGIENSIS (Bt) is a natural bacteria that exists in the soil. Caterpillars that eat Bt develop serious stomach problems and die. The larval stages of many moths and beetles, and certain butterflies and flies, are killed by Bt. In recent years, Bt has been cultivated and manufactured into a product that can be sprayed on crops. So far as anyone knows, nothing besides the larval stages of these insects are affected by Bt. Bt is used by almost all organic farmers, and by many "conventional" farmers as well, especially on fruits and vegetables. (Organic farmers grow and market food and fiber certified as 100% free of toxic chemical residues.)
In essence, Bt is a public good --a freely-available benefit that nature has provided to us all, useful to anyone who wants to use it. Bt belongs to no one.
Now, however, Monsanto has decided to put Bt genes into cotton and other crops, for Monsanto's benefit. There are plans afoot to do the same for corn, potatoes and perhaps other crops as well. All the parts of the resulting plants become poisonous to certain pests. As a result, insect pests of many kinds will soon become resistant to Bt, and Bt will cease to be useful to farmers. No one disputes that this will happen --some say in 10 years, others say as soon as 3 years.[1,pgs.167,222] The result will be that Monsanto has destroyed this public good. Bt will be rendered ineffective as a pesticide. Those who rely on Bt will then have to substitute dangerous organophosphate and carbamate chemical pesticides.
As CU says, "The loss of Bt to resistance triggered by Bt-transgenic [genetically-engineered] plants would be a major setback for American agriculture, especially fruit and vegetable growers in the Southeast and organic producers nationwide. Insects that Bt can control include many difficult to manage pests leading to heavy reliance on insecticides in a wide range of crops--the cabbage looper, diamondback moth, major insect pests of cotton (bollworm, tobacco budworm), corn borer, the Colorado potato beetle, the beet armyworm, gypsy moth, spruce budworm, and many other tough to control pests. Bt foliar products [i.e., sprays] are the foundation of most... [high quality] IPM systems in Florida fruit and vegetable regions. Organic farmers producing certified produce are even more reliant on Bt products than their conventional neighbors because they are not able to use conventional pesticides without sacrificing their ability to market produce as organic."[1,pg.221]
If one were in the business of making chemical pesticides without a moral compass, there could be no better plan for promoting the sale of pesticides: use genetic engineering to destroy the effectiveness of the main non-chemical pesticide relied upon by the organic farming community. In a strict business sense, Monsanto has developed a winning strategic attack on its organic-farming competitors --a brilliant, almost diabolical, plan for crushing the competition. However, it is also a ruthless assault on the public, which has an inherent right to use Bt and to not have its use of Bt spoiled by one self-absorbed corporation. Monsanto's strategy --which it is presently carrying out --will inevitably lead to greater environmental damage and harm to public health from reliance on pesticidal chemical poisons.
CU recommends that EPA should become more assertive and "just say no" to "avoid draining agency resources on efforts to manage major new risks, like those posed by... the approval in 1995 and 1996 of plant varieties genetically engineered to produce... BACILLUS THURINGIENSIS (BT).... Widespread planting of BT-transgenic crops is likely to accelerate the emergence of resistance to BT, forcing farmers to switch to more toxic insecticides. This will increase risks EPA has been struggling to reduce."[1,pg.9] CU goes on: "...EPA should refuse to register new transgenic BT crop varieties and herbicide-resistant crop strains, and should revoke the registrations of any such products... shown to trigger genetic resistance among target pest populations."[1,pg.10]
Unfortunately, CU fails to come to grips with reality here. EPA --despite lip service that it pays to IPM --simply hasn't got what it takes to stand up to power like Monsanto's. And so the environment continues to deteriorate, public health is increasingly endangered, and public confidence in government diminishes further. The hope of achieving 100% IPM by the year 2020 fades as Monsanto and other giant corporations take the world in a direction that is profitable for them but destructive for virtually everyone else. Given who funds Congress and the President at re-election time, EPA's only conceivable role in this drama is to sit by, provide the necessary approvals, and give empty assurances that all is well.
This is an excellent, informative book. Everyone who cares about
pesticides, public health, and the environment should be
encouraged to read it. One can only wish that the book didn't
skirt the central issue: Can corporations be made truly
accountable to their neighbors, their compatriots, their
shareholders, their employees and their customers? If so, how?
It is THE key question. Is it asking too much to think that
Consumer's Union, the nation's premier consumer protection
organization, should speak clearly about the REAL reasons we're
on the dreadful toxic treadmill their new book describes so
convincingly?
--Peter Montague
(National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981/AFL-CIO)
[2] National Research Council, ALTERNATIVE AGRICULTURE (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1989).
[3] World Bank, INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT: STRATEGY AND POLICY OPTIONS FOR PROMOTING EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION [draft] (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, March, 1996), quoted in Benbrook (cited above in note 1), pg. 36.
[4] Peter Fritsch and Scott Kilman, "Seed Money: Huge Biotech Harvest Is a Boon for Farmers --And for Monsanto," WALL STREET JOURNAL October 24, 1996, pg. A1.
Descriptor terms: agriculture; pesticides; corporations; regulation; epa; genetic engineering; bt; bacillus thuringiensis; consumer's union; pest management at the crossroads; charles benbrook; ipm; resistance; roundup; monsanto; novartis;
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