Catalogue of
pesticide dangers
As part of its Safe Food
Campaign for 1999, the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) in Asia and the
Pacific produced a handbook on endocrine disrupters, with a particular
emphasis on pesticides. Under the title ‘Warning: Pesticides Are Dangerous
To Your Health’, the book is a collection of articles highlighting the
inadequate testing of pesticides, chemical residues in food, the influence
of big agrochemical companies on world trade and the links between
exposure to chemicals and disease.
In his foreword,
Dr Romeo Quijano, a toxicologist and campaigner, says that lowered sperm
count and reduced fertility, genital deformities and other congenital
abnormalities, immune system dysfunction, altered foetal development,
abnormal mental, physical and psychological development in infants and
children, degenerative disorders, cancer and other health problems ‘… are
increasingly being associated with exposure to a growing list of
chemicals, most of which enter the body through the ingestion of food.’
Only a people’s movement can strike at the root causes of endocrine
disruption and ‘... bring our stolen future back,’ said Dr
Quijano.
As well as highlighting the dangers
from pesticides, the book commends sensible policies for the future: the
search for safe, non-chemical alternatives to endocrine disrupting
pesticides and chemicals; and the need to replace the old idea that
chemicals are harmless until they are proven otherwise with a
precautionary principle.
But there is a
warning that despite all these strategies – the use of pesticides in
agriculture is still very popular. If sustainable policies are to mean
anything, says Sarojeni V. Rengam, executive director of PAN Asia and the
Pacific, farmers in Asia need decent livelihoods, and better living
conditions for the rural poor can only be achieved by paying good prices
to producers.
Warning: Pesticides Are Dangerous To Your Health! Stop Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Asia and the Pacific, P.O. Box 1170, 10850 Penang, Malaysia, Tel +604 657 0271 / 656 0381.
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The Bhopal
Legacy
Greenpeace Research Laboratories
have analysed samples of solid wastes, soils and groundwater in and around
the site of the former Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal. Closed
since the disastrous leak of methyl isocyanate in 1984, the government of
India is now calling for tenders to turn the site into a technical park,
craft village and tourist centre.
The
Greenpeace report on contamination lends scientific weight to the victims
outrage that this opportunistic venture yet again fails to recognise the
extent of the damage caused by this factory. Bhopal victims have received
no decent compensation or health treatment from the State. Victims’
organisations want the site to become a memorial to the plight of victims
of industrial pollution. The government added further insult by promoting
the development as an ‘amusement park’.
Meticulous
scientific tests carried out by the Greenpeace Laboratories show that the
85-acre site which produced carbaryl and aldicarb for use on cotton
remains seriously contaminated with organochlorines and mercury. Levels of
the latter were found in the study to be 20,000 times above normal. A
ditch near the carbaryl plant contained a complex mixture of
organochlorines, including isomers of benzene hexachloride (BHC) and DDT.
Sampling revealed substantial and in some locations severe contamination
of land and drinking water both within and around the
site.
The Bhopal Legacy provides descriptions
of the 31 samples and testing procedures. It draws attention to the need
for a more extensive survey and an inventory of contamination.
Labunska, I, A Stephenson, K Brigden, R Stringer, D Santillo, PA Johnston. The Bhopal Legacy: toxic contaminants at the former Union Carbide factory site, Bhopal, India. Greenpeace Research Laboratories, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Exeter, UK. ISBN 90 73361 591. 1999, anjela.wilkes@ams.greenpeace.org (price on application); also available on the website: http://www.greenpeace.org/~toxics/toxfreeasia/
Pesticides in
peri-urban areas
Urban and peri-urban
projects are a focus of development strategies in poor countries. An
excellent new publication from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
illustrates how changes to the physical and social environment, including
agriculture and fisheries, can have significant positive or negative
effects on public health. The book is primarily directed at natural
resource specialists planning to change the peri-urban environment of
cities in developing countries.
The authors
estimated that between 25%-100% of urban food demand is met through urban
horticulture, aquaculture and livestock production. In particular,
perishable foods such as fruit and vegetables come from more local
sources. Between 25% and 80% of urban families may be engaged in some form
of urban agriculture. Vegetable production supplying the urban population
can carry high pesticide residues, while run off or spray drift from
pesticide application further pollutes the environment, particularly
water. Most peri-urban farmers are poor and farm on land which they do not
own. Development agencies recognize that improving production and income
in these areas can potentially provide an important contribution to food
security and nutrition.
Martin Birley and Karen Lock, The Health Impacts of Peri-urban Natural Resource Development, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK mhb@liv.ac.uk. ISBN 0 9533566 1 2, 1999. Order direct from Amazon.
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Order
direct
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Stolen
Harvest
Vandana Shiva’s new book charts the
impacts of corporate agriculture on small-scale farmers, the environment,
and the quality of food we eat. Looking at new pressures of globalisation,
it ranges over genetically engineered seeds, patents on life, shrimp
farming and other major food issues. A radical and refreshing
environmental thinker, the author has closely studied the food system over
two decades and the book charts how many aspects of the mechanisms of
development, defined as ‘growth’ are based on theft from both nature and
people, privatising and patenting seeds and intellectual property
developed by farmers and indigenous people. Her concern, in tune with many
non-government and people’s organisations, is that trade liberalisation is
institutionalising and legalising corporate growth and control of
agricultural systems. This book provides a record of recent history in the
fight to save harvests.
Vandana Shiva, Stolen Harvest: the hijacking of the global food supply, South End Press (www.lbbs.org/sep/sep.htm), Cambridge, MA, US, 2000. ISBN 0-89608-607-0 146pp. Order direct from Amazon. Order the new edition (April 2001, 140 pages) direct from Amazon.co.uk
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Order
direct
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Safe use of
pesticides in developing countries
The
agrochemical industry recognises the problems of pesticide use in
developing countries, and over the last decade has instituted a number of
safe use projects to assist farmers in developing countries to use crop
protection products safely and effectively. This book reports on a study
sponsored by the Novartis Foundation for Sustainable Development. The book
provides details of the three project countries: India, Mexico and
Zimbabwe: countries with similar economic development but disparate
sociocultural environments and agricultural practices. In India, a major
conclusion was that in a situation of economic deprivation, economic gains
take precedence over health and safety. Only when farmers feel
economically secure will they value their health sufficiently to spend
money on protective gear. In Zimbabwe the study found improved farmers’
knowledge of and attitude to safety, but less improvement in their
practices.
This provides an interesting insight into
farmers’ constraints on the ground. What is not assessed is the cost of
ensuring the safety measures advocated in these projects was available to
all farmers.
J. Atkin and K.M. Leisinger (eds), Safe and Effective Use of Crop Protection Products in Developing Countries, CABI Publishing (cabi@cabi.org), Oxford, UK, 2000. ISBN 0 85199 4717, 163 pp. Order direct from Amazon.
E-ssentials
BCPC has recently republished three essential reference works for
users and researchers.
The Pesticide Manual,
the authoritative reference work on pesticide active ingredients, is now
in its 11th Edition, and also appears in CD format as the e-Pesticide
Manual. The CD version contains information on 15 extra active
ingredients, together with an extra 2,500 trade names and 2,000 mixture
names. It is fully searchable and contains website
links.
The annual guide to crops and pests, The
UK Pesticide Guide 2000, is also available as an electronic version –
the e-UK Pesticide Guide 2000. Both versions contain details of 550
active ingredients, over 1,450 products and over 120 adjuvants. The disk
is fully searchable. Demonstration diskettes can be requested from the
publisher, or a trial version can be downloaded from the web
site.
Also out recently is BCPC’s booklet Using
Pesticides – A complete guide to safe effective spraying. This is wire
bound and a convenient and well-produced users guide.
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Using Pesticides:
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UK Pesticide Guide: Order the latest edition (600 pages, 31 January, 2002) direct from Amazon.co.uk |
Something in the
air
This volume contains 12 technical
essays on the transport, fate and modelling of pesticides in the
atmosphere and represents the proceedings of the international workshop.
Included is a table showing the number of active ingredients found in rain
in Europe (89). The rain in Spain contains lindane, and Italy often has
2,4-D. For most current use pesticides the atmospheric lifetime is not
known. Distances suggests that distances between sampling sites and the
nearest possible source area can range between 10 km and 1000 km. This
highlights the urgent need to phase out the Persistent Organic Pollutants
and illustrates the difficulties on a farm scale of preventing the
contamination of water courses.
Fate of Pesticides in the Atmosphere: Implications for Environmental Risk Assessment. (Reprinted from Water, Air & Soil Pollution Vol 115 Nos 1-4, 1999). Ed. H. F.G. van Dijk, W.A.J. van Pul and P. de Voogt, Kluwer Academic Publishers, London. 276 pp. ISBN 0-7923-5994-1. Order direct from Amazon.
[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 47, March 2000, pages 22-23]