If we use synthetic chemicals… often called ‘organic’ due to their carbon based structure, not due to their healthful nature… as herbicides and insecticides, should we assume that they will only track to the task at hand of killing a specific weed or insect? Or should we recognize that if thousands of pounds of these chemicals are sprayed into our air…to settle on crops, as well as the surrounding fields and streams… or lift up as an evaporate into the clouds to rain down onto some unsuspecting community meters or miles away?
Chemical treatment poses many interesting challenges. Our goal seems to be to eliminate one or two types of ‘pests’ that are attracted to our corps or plants (perhaps cucumbers, tomatoes, lilies, or roses), yet our method of application is often mass spraying or dusting that indiscriminately covers acres of land, including the streams and rivers that flow by and the communities in which we live.
If we look back to the point where chemists discovered these chemical weapons… for that was most often what they were developed for…to kill animals or to use on fellow man…we find that they were considered too deadly to use. Many of these chemicals were found as early as the 1870s… and were brought into full use in the first world war and used again in the second world war. It wasn’t until after World War II that corporations in Europe and the US began to create these chemicals in a form that was usable against “Pests” and not man… though many in the production and application industries were made ill and some died due to exposure.
What is amazing is that while the FDA may control what drugs and food we can use or put on our table, these herbicides and pesticides are not controlled on release… and only truly controlled if there is evidence that they cause health issues for man… say liver failure, or reproductive issues, or cancer… we actively engage these chemicals as part of our food chain…after all we are placing them into our soil or onto our food…and they spend weeks or months being taken into these plants and ultimately becoming part of them… later to become part of us… suspended in our organs, the fatty structures in our bodies, or altering the development of our bodies…and the bodies of our children… even infants who are the most susceptible to the impact that they promote.
Since the 1970s many pesticides have been banned due to demonstrated links to failing health in humans… but it may not stop with the termination of use, after all we have sprayed these chemicals for decades into our air, our water and onto our soil. It has had years to build up… compounding the problem especially where these chemicals don’t readily dissolve and break down.
Here is just one example of a chemical insecticide still in use in the USA. It is Endosulfan, which is an off-patent organochlorine insecticide and acaricide. This colorless solid has emerged as a highly controversial agrichemical due to its acute toxicity, potential for bioaccumulation, and role as an endocrine disruptor. Banned in more than 63 countries, including the European Union, Australia and New Zealand, and other Asian and West African nations, and being phased out in the United States, Brazil and Canada. It is still used extensively in many other countries including India and China. It is produced by Bayer CropScience, Makhteshim Agan, and Government-of-India–owned Hindustan Insecticides Limited among others. Because of its threats to the environment, a global ban on the use and manufacture of endosulfan is being considered under the Stockholm Convention.
In 2007, the EPA announced it was rereviewing the safety of endosulfan. The following year, Pesticide Action Network and NRDC petitioned the EPA to ban endosulfan, and a coalition of environmental and labor groups sued the EPA seeking to overturn its 2002 decision to not ban endosulfan. In June 2010, the EPA announced it was negotiating a phaseout of all uses with the sole U.S. manufacturer, Makhteshim Agan and a complete ban on the compound. As it turns out Endosulfan has the ability to persist in soil for decades…tens and tens of years… and it will continue to be taken into our bodies as we eat the wheat and corn…and all the other fields that it is used on… from the day it is removed from use in the USA…some five years from now.
The only manufacture of this pesticide for the US market is Makhteshim-Agan (mentioned above), a Global Petrochemical lab headquartered in Israel which has the largest generic distribution network in the world, comprising 43 marketing firms throughout the companies' markets in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia, Pacific, Africa and the Middle East.
Even after Endosulfan is banned in the US it will continue to be used and its airborne and waterborne toxins will continue to cover our world…and due to the nature of fluid mass distribution…it will continue to rain down on use for years to come. From a related tale...
You may or may not have
seen the story on 60 minutes (Sunday, 21st March) in regards to the use of
Carbendazim, Atrazine and Endosulfan on crops in Australia…http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/stories/1029050/poisoned .
The story was very concerning as a Fish Farmer ‘Gwen Gilson’ located in Noosa, QLD
gave her firsthand experience of the effects these chemicals, due to spray
drift, were having on her life….her neighbor is a Conventional Macadamia Nut
farmer….
These issues are not just concerns for the huge agribusinesses established and running crop production worldwide…but concerns for each of us small users as well. When you use those chemicals from Ace Depot …the ones you got yourself, or have them applied by a service company… you are often told that these pest products, when applied per the supplied rules, contain less than 0.5% active ingredient and are considered practically non-toxic at these dilutions.
The problem is that "non-toxic" isn’t necessarily true for these levels may far exceed the toxic levels for both good and bad insects alike. In fact .5% or one half of one percent would be equal to 5000 parts per million (ppm) in an industry where chemical toxicity is measured in less than 10ppm!Now you know why they put the little signs around your yard… toxic levels for your cats, dogs…and kids are near these application levels…and you are going to be effected if exposed.
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