The Pesticides Action Network North
America Regional Center (PANNA) International Conference in California, with the
intriguing title 'Alligators, Organics and You: Advancing Alternatives to
Pesticides' attracted over 130 participants from about ten countries. With an
international emphasis on Third World issues, the conference also focused on
positive alternatives.
The 'alligators' theme was presented by Dr Lou Guillette,
Professor of Zoology, University of Florida. The effects of hormone imitating
pesticides and other chemicals on alligators in Florida have strong implications
for other species, including ourselves. His work may eventually throw light on
the extraordinary increase in testicular cancer that has occurred over the past
20 years.
Nancy Evans, a breast cancer survivor and active campaigner,
described cancer as a 'national epidemic' which will be the main cause of
death in the US by the turn of the century. She stressed the need to shift from
seeking solutions to looking at prevention.
Nicanor Perlas, President of the Centre for Alternative
Development Initiatives (CADI) in the Philippines presented CADI's work at both
grassroots and advocacy levels. Faced with declining yields and the familiar
litany of pesticide-related health and environmental problems, the Philippines
government is promoting IPM programmes. NGOs involved promote pesticide
elimination rather than reduction: combining enhanced soil fertility, ecological
pest management and alternative plant breeding to create sustainable systems.
New methods are diffused through a highly participatory approach with farmers
becoming increasingly determined to take control of their livelihoods by
organising themselves.
A panel on organic cotton production and consumption drew
together perspectives from production to consumption. A Cotton Study Tour of the
Central Valley which preceded the conference compared the conventional cotton
production system with organic. Driving for hour upon hour through cotton
fields, the scale of conventional production is overwhelming. Pollution problems
are immediately recognisable in, for example, the visible air pollution. The
impact of the tour on participants was dramatic: it is a most effective way of
informing of the problems in the dominant mode of cotton production. Viewed from
the California Central Valley perspective, cotton in the US is indeed a
'gross' national product. (DM)
[This
article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 30,
December 1995, page 16]