Development of the Small Farm: From
dependency to self-reliance, second edition, Polan Lacki, FAO Regional Office
for Latin America and the Caribbean, Avda. Santa Maria 6700, Casilla 10095,
Santiago, Chile, 1993.
Papers
on ecological agriculture
A different perspective is presented in papers
from a symposium funded by the Ciba Foundation, a charity established by the
Swiss agrochemical company, Ciba-Geigy. The Foundation promotes international
co-operation in scientific research. This symposium was organised by the
Centre for Research on Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development, Madras,
India, in December 1992. The 15 papers reflect: the ecological background of
agriculture; general and economic aspects; and specific issues and case
studies. Edited discussion follows each paper. Indian agriculture is
particularly featured.
The papers emphasise a long-term view of agriculture, based
on greater recognition of farmers as decision makers and on knowledge-inputs
not chemical-inputs. This collection is written by some of the leading
supporters of sustainable agriculture. The seminar targeted controversial
issues: food crops or cash crops; yields without pesticides; insect resistance
and resurgence; the point at which chemical intervention should be used;
government subsidies for pesticide; the impact of GATT. Refreshingly, many
papers directly address women in agriculture, endorsing a slogan used in
southern Africa: ‘Meet the farmer and her husband’.
Crop Protection and Sustainable
Agriculture, Ciba Foundation Symposium 177, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester,
UK, 1993.
Cultivating
knowledge
The international debate on biodiversity has
resulted in renewed interest in the role of farmers and local communities in
the management of natural resources and crop genetic diversity. Local crops
developed by farmers have made a great contribution to plant breeding genetic
resources in the North. In recent years it has become apparent that local crop
diversity in the South is threatened by modern varieties promising higher
yields. It includes case studies from Africa, Latin America and Asia,
documenting the significance of local knowledge and new developments in the
field of conservation and the development of local crops. The authors include
plant breeders and anthropologists, international researchers and NGO
development workers: their common thread lies in placing farmers at the centre
of crop development and genetic diversity, and through their challenge to the
dominant models in formal crop research.
Cultivating Knowledge: Genetic
diversity, farmer experimentation and crop research, Walter de Boef, Kojo
Amanor and Kate Wellard, with Anthony Bebbington (editors), Intermediate
Technology, London, 1993, 224 pp, pb £8.95.
Assessment
of Danish reduction programme
The Danish government’s strict pesticide
reduction targets are not being met. It is unlikely that the main plank of the
programme, a 50% reduction (from 1986 levels) by 1997, will be achieved
without a change in tactics, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)
International. The target was set under the Ministry of Environment’s
Pesticide Reduction Plan (see PN 18 pp. 3-4). By 1993, sales of active
ingredient had reduced by 30%, but the application frequency had not declined.
WWF considers the Danish Government should adopt the following course if the
1997 targets are to be reached:
-
increase subsidies to farmers who adopt organic farming;
-
tax pesticides heavily;
-
increase fallow land area (to which pesticides are not applied);
-
re-negotiate the CAP so that food production, rather than the land used to produce food, is reduced.
The Danish government has tried to
develop an ‘environmental risk index’ and a ‘pesticide-load index’ to
incorporate differing potential adverse effects of pesticides. The combination
of environmental and health effects posed by a large array pesticides, all
with different properties, has meant that these criteria are difficult to
establish. The government has concluded that it is impossible to create an
index that can summarise all the risks posed by pesticides: nor is it
possible to set scientifically based pesticide reduction targets using a
pesticide-load index.
Government and crop advisers and over 80 farmers have
formed crop protection groups with the aim of developing and testing methods
which could be adopted further—using computer programmes, video and video
bulletins, dosage testing areas, application records and registration of pest
levels. Overall, participating farmers and advisers agreed that pesticide use
can be reduced—but the target of 50% is thought to be unrealistic.
The pesticide reduction programme in
Denmark: Update, WWF International, Christian Ege Jørgensen and Sophie
Winther (CASA), Copenhagen, 1994, pp16.
Future
of small farms
The Small Farmers’ Association has produced a
20-minute video. The central message is that small farmers could disappear,
robbing the countryside of the intimacy and diversity of small fields,
hedgerows and woods, and creating the prairie-like plains of the US and
northern France, with the attendant environmental problems, and desertion of
rural areas. The video contains both statistical data and anecdotal evidence
on the decline in the number of farms and the increased farm size. A
disproportionate share of agricultural support goes to large farms. This
encourages specialised, industrial farming with heavy capitalisation and
minimum labour. Small farms retain flexibility and maintain the local
environment, but the present subsidy structure provides little recognition of
their plight, and works against their interests. Small farmers want three
changes to CAP: a ceiling on the total subsidy any one farmer can
receive; tapering rates of subsidies; simpler and more universal
environmental payments.
Saving the Family Farm—the future of
small farmers, video £12.50, discussion paper Farming can have a Civilised
Future, Small Farmers Association, PO Box 18, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP13 0QP.
The
environmental effects of trade
The OECD’s Environment Policy Committee
established a group in April 1991 to discuss trade and environment issues and
make recommendations. The papers in this book formed the basis for
discussions on the potential environmental effects of trade in agriculture,
forestry, fisheries, endangered species and transport. The inclusion of
agriculture in the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations (GATT)
caused numerous clashes, as markets were fought over, largely between the US
and Europe, while the needs of Third World countries—many of which are
virtually dependent on agriculture—were a minor consideration.
Agriculture, trade and the environment remains a hotly
debated area, and these rather dispassionate papers are a useful contribution
to the need to properly evaluate the cost of environmental destruction, and to
clarifying to what extend trade per se plays a part in degrading the
environment. There is, however, an annoying tendency to take for granted
that market mechanisms are central to agricultural and development issues, and
it is ‘market failures’ and ‘government policies’ which are alone
responsible, and which could therefore be corrected. To say there is a
‘market failure’, implies that a market can operate free of powerful
forces: there is insufficient analysis of investment, export patterns of rich
and more powerful countries on the South, the role of transnational
corporations, imposition of World Bank and IMF structural adjustment
policies.
On the other hand, the agriculture paper is fiercely
critical of the effect of subsidised inputs which have encouraged
environmental destructive agricultural policies, and calls for the application
of the polluter pays policy to agriculture. It includes concrete examples of
trade flows in agriculture and their environmental impacts, in both developed
and developing countries.
The Environmental Effects of Trade,
OECD, Paris, France, 1994, £12.95, 206pp.
Christian
Aid presses for safer Colombian flowers
Colombian flower workers are paying dearly with
their health for the millions of blossoms they produce each year for export
according to the UK aid agency Christian Aid. Pesticide poisoning—due to the
improper use of dangerous, sometimes banned, chemicals—is affecting large
numbers of the 700,000 employees of the flower trade. Fainting, nausea,
headaches and skin irritations are common complaints. Mothers also say that
their children are born with respiratory problems which they say are due to
inhaling pesticides during pregnancy. Doctors in one regional hospital report
on average 20 cases per day of chronic pesticide-related poisoning and up to
five cases of acute poisoning. "They send us back to the greenhouses an
hour after fumigation" says one woman, "but the plants are still
wet. This is a major factor affecting our health."
Colombian Flowers: the gift of love
and poison, Sarah Stewart, Christian Aid, PO Box 100, London SE1 7RT, UK.
Drift
assessment
English Nature has produced an account of
research it commissioned to look into the effects of spray drift on the
environment. The study explains droplet and vapour drift, and factors which
govern drift. It describes experiments which measure herbicide damage to a
wide range of plant species and insecticide effects on caterpillars and
aquatic invertebrates. Results enable the calculation of buffer zones around
sites to protect sensitive organisms and habitats.
This is the most comprehensive direct investigation ever
undertaken in the UK on the effects of pesticide drift on plants and animals.
The environmental effects of pesticide
drift, A.S. Cooke, English Nature, Northminster House, PE1 1UA, UK, 1993,
£11, 93pp
Environmental
locust control
The German overseas technical aid organisation
GTZ has published an overview of the current status of research more
environmentally sensitive locust control. The use of pheromones, juvenile
hormone and micro-organisms which attack locusts have been investigated. For
many years, persistent chemicals such as dieldrin have been used. Replacement
chemicals have not proved effective and therefore the research for
alternatives has been stepped up—particularly since the late 1980s.
New Trends in locust control, GTZ,
Postfach 5180, 65726, Ecshborn, Germany, 182pp.
Access
to information
The world food standards organisation Codex
Alimentarius Commission (Codex) has produced the report of its 1994 meeting on
pesticides. In it, the Committee welcomes the general trend in Codex towards a
more constructive relationship between non-governmental organisations,
especially those representing consumers’ interests. It also welcomed the
idea of a liaison point within Codex to act as a contact point with
environmental and consumers organisations, and notes that IOCU are preparing a
paper suggesting improvements in effective relationships with Codex.
Report of the Twenty Sixth Session of
the Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues, The Hague, Netherlands 11-18 April
1994 (Ref. Alinorm 95/24). Codex Alimentarius Commission, FAO/WHO, Rome.
US
pesticide reference
This manual gives a quick reference to tank
mixes and adjuvant recommendations for pest control products in the US. The
data presented has been collected from labels and the companies.
The User’s Reference Guide to
Pesticides, WT Thomson, PO Box 9335, Fresno, CA, US, $27.95, 167pp.
Help
with hazards
The Workers Health International Newsletter (WHIN)
and the Hazards bulletin provide two excellent resources for those concerned
with workplace and community hazards—WHIN reports internationally and
Hazards mainly on the UK. Hazards is particularly oriented to the needs of
workplace safety representatives. While both deal with broad hazard issues,
there is regular coverage of pesticides, chemical exposure, biotechnology and
chemical waste.
As broad-based hazard journals, both give good coverage to
related news, resources, studies, publications and conferences as well as
alerting to changes in legislation or regulations which will affect workers or
communities exposed to hazards. Explanations are clear, and practically
oriented.
Recent coverage in WHIN includes, for example:
biotechnology hazards; US recognition of the chemical-related illness multiple
chemical sensitivity (MCS); workplace epidemics; ILO report on chemical risk;
the implications of free trade on workers rights. Recent articles in Hazards
include increase in asthma in both workers and communities; impact of
deregulation on health and safety; making complaints to the ombudsman on
pesticide exposure.
Hazards includes a regular guide to recent Health and
Safety Executive Publications.
Hazards, Information for Safety Reps
and WHIN four issues per year, institutional annual subscription to each is
£18 (Europe), £24 (outside Europe); for a joint subscription add £10. PO
Box 199, Sheffield, S1 1FQ.