Small doses 

War on pesticide adverts  
The mayor of one of the biggest vegetable-producing towns in Benguet, Northern Luzon, Philippines, vowed to dismantle all billboards advertising chemical pesticides and fertilisers to promote biological alternatives in fighting agricultural pests.  
    Mayor Johnny Uy of Atok town said he will no longer allow these advertisements in his town. He said dismantling billboards and tearing down posters of commercial pesticides and fertilisers will force farmers seriously to consider using the government's integrated pest management (IPM) programme.
Interest in pesticide-free farming here began in 1992 when the vegetable industry almost collapsed after some cabbages were found to have residues of cyanide. Losses from that incident, called 'green tide', amounted to at least 15 million Pesos  (US$600,000).

Frank Cimatu, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Manila, 16 November 1997.

IPM defined  
IPM is a tricky concept to pin down because of its all-inclusive properties. The Hazards magazine provides a refreshingly clear definition as "bug-eat-bug and other green approaches." Compare this with a lofty and convoluted definition: "IPM is a system that utilises all suitable techniques either to reduce pest populations and maintain them at levels below those causing economic injury or to so manipulate the populations that they are prevented from causing such injury."

Hazards, October 1997; Principles & Philosophy of IPM.

OPs in protest  
Animal rights activists who fell ill after protesting outside a cat-breeding farm may have been poisoned by an organophosphate (OP) spray. Environmental health officers have found substantial amounts of the OP dimethoate on the roadside verge where protesters stand outside the Oxfordshire farm that breeds cats for medical experiments.

Independent on Sunday, 21 September 1997.

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 38, December 1997, page 21]