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Editorial - Pesticides News 41
The might of agrochemical industry research could be expected to investigate products for safe and sustainable agricultural systems. But industry has turned instead to genetic engineering, marketing products which sell farmers ‘designer’ seeds locked into the use of particular pesticides. Monsanto, a leader in the field, has launched a series of advertisements to win support for its strategies. But genetically engineered crops are proving deeply unpopular with the public and viewed with caution by many scientists and professionals. This issue of Pesticides News carries an ad calling for the continuation of ‘nature’s harvest’. African representatives at the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations mounted a strong attack on developments: the seeds used in corporate research have almost all originated in developing countries, and have been bred over centuries by Third World farmers, whose skills go unrecognised and unrewarded.
Now Monsanto—concerned that patent rights cannot be protected in developing countries—is proposing marketing a seed which will not reproduce. Pesticides News provides background on the problems and a profile of glyphosate, the herbicide to which many crops are engineered for resistance. An extensive review of a new publication, Bugs in the System, provides some further insight into corporate thinking as companies seek to move beyond older, discredited pesticides, while retaining profits from the agricultural sector.
Problems from older pesticides continue to blight the environment. A recent meeting in Spain held near the site of a lindane production plant brought together scientists, technicians and policy makers from 24 countries to discuss how to rid the planet of the legacy of persistent pesticides. Lindane is perhaps the last of the old organochlorine pesticides still widely used and a letter, reproduced on page 7, to the European Commission from concerned European non-governmental organisations called for a European ban on this pesticide.
The letter is the second written to the European Commission by non-government organisations recently—the other expressed concern about changes in water policies. It follows a meeting in June of the Pesticides Action Network (PAN) Europe seeking to strengthen the co-ordinated approach to pesticide problems in Europe.