Book reviews - Pesticides News No 59

Fatal Harvest
Comprising sixty essays, and over a hundred photographs, this huge volume took over four years to put together and involved around a hundred participants. The brainchild of Douglas Tompkins of the Foundation for Deep Ecology in the USA, and Andrew Kimbrell of the Center for Food Safety in Washington, the book breaks new ground in its efforts to convey to readers the reality of industrial agriculture and its profoundly destructive effects on soil, water, the wider environment, health and wildlife. 
    Innovative illustrative techniques are used throughout and the reader is exhorted to ‘See what you are looking at’, comparing ‘the industrial eye’ with ‘the agrarian eye’. Not only are the outer manifestations of industrial agriculture illustrated with numerous shocking photographs, but the inner meaning and origins of such a world view are presented. In ‘Monocultures of the mind’, Vandana Shiva describes how this compulsion shuts out alternative ways of knowing and creating. ‘Sustainability demands that we move out of the economic trap that is leaving no space for other species and creatures … to a system based on abundance and sharing, diversity and decentralisation, and respect and dignity for all beings.’
    An extraordinary community of intellectual talent, mainly American, has been drawn together in this project. The philosophical writer Wendell Berry revives the concept of agrarianism as the opposite paradigm of industrial agriculture. ‘Agrarianism is primarily a practice, a set of attitudes, a loyalty and a passion; it is an idea only secondarily … whereas industrialism is a way of thought based on monetary capital and technology, agrarianism is a way of thought based on land.’ And he warns that progress cannot be made in re-establishing our relationship with nature, the farmer and the land ‘if we remain consumers. The word ‘consume’ means to destroy (as in a consuming fire or waste …) This book urges each of us to be creators, not consumers.
    The renowned organic chef and food campaigner Alice Waters contributes an impassioned plea for reconnection with food production. ‘We have raised a generation of kids, far too many of whom have never participated in the growing of food or the preparation of meals … Is it any wonder that many kids are greedy, violent and nihilistic?’
    The destruction wrought by industrial agriculture is explored from almost every angle. Diminishment of crop diversity is memorably illustrated with photographs of the dozens of varieties we can no longer buy. A powerful essay by Monica Moore of PAN North America demands: ‘Why is the public so unaware of the unavoidable exposures to pesticides they endure daily through their food, water, air, workplaces and living environments?’ Her short disturbing summaries of the health effects of pesticides juxtapose background data with key studies, such as: ‘Overall incidence of childhood leukaemia in the USA increased by 27% between 1973 and 1990. One National Cancer Institute study found that in homes where pesticides were used even just once a week, children’s risk of leukaemia increased 400 per cent.’
    A broad panorama of issues are explored, and if there is an overlap between some of the contributions which discourage reading the book in one sitting, the fine writing and memorable insights which appear on almost every page mitigates the repetition. Bjorn Lomborg, in his notorious book The Skeptical Environmentalist, coined the term ‘The Litany’ to describe a stream of exaggerated and tedious negatives which characterise many environmental texts. Disappointingly Fatal Harvest fails to reference many of the broad facts cited, and so parts of it cannot escape the epitaph. For example, Wes Jackson states in his essay that in the last forty years one third of arable land globally is lost to erosion, and that 90% of cultivated land in the USA is losing soil above replacement rates. These claims suggest an imminent catastrophe but are neither qualified nor attributed. 
    Although a vast array of issues are discussed, including conservation, biodiversity, world hunger, population concern, pesticides, fertilisers, soil erosion, environmental contamination, genetic engineering, the corporatisation of food production and even the potential dangers of commercial organic production, there is no coverage of possibly the most important system of all: micro-organisms in soil, about which we know so little, and on whose existence we will not know we depend until the web is destroyed.

Fatal Harvest – the tragedy of industrial agriculture, Edited by Andrew Kimbrell, Published by the Foundation for Deep Ecology by arrangement with Island Press, 2002. Order direct from Amazon.co.uk: hardback 396 pages, ISBN: 1559639407, £47.69 / paperback 395 pages, ISBN: 1559639415, £25.75.

International map of food
Food is vital for our health and welfare, and its production critically affects the environment as well as the wealth of nations. Despite a rapid increase in trade, hundreds of millions of people remain hungry, while chronic obesity is increasing worldwide.
    Vividly presented through the creative use of maps and graphics, this atlas provides clear, authoritative and comprehensive accounts of the food chain, from plough to plate, and reveals how it affects the lives and livelihoods of us all, farmers and suburban shoppers alike.
    One of the global maps in the book highlights the amounts of pesticides used per unit area across the world. The text goes on to remind the reader that pesticides are aggressively promoted worldwide, in particular in Asia and Latin America. But although they appear to provide a short-term increase in productivity, estimates of their value to agriculture rarely take into account their true costs. This includes damage to the environment and to human health, the development of pesticide-resistant pests, and the expense of testing for residues and disposing of unwanted chemicals. 

Erik Millstone and Tim Lang, The Atlas of Food, Earthscan, 120 Pentonville Road, London N1 9JN, UK, 2002. Order direct from Amazon: paperback - 128 pages, ISBN: 1853839655, £11.99.

Arthropod pest control
Arthropod pests (insects and mites) are responsible for huge annual losses in global agriculture and for transmitting a number of infectious diseases. The control of such pests is therefore of the utmost importance. An Introduction to Arthropod Pest Control provides an up-to-date, detailed overview of current approaches to pest control, including chemical pest control, the use of biological biorational agents, and biotechnology.
    The book specifically emphasises the techniques available for controlling pests using examples of crop pests, animal pests and pests that transmit disease, from a wide range of countries. The book is intended as a standard introductory text for students and employees in the fields of pest control, entomology, agricultural and environmental sciences and crop protection. 

JRM Thacker, An Introduction to Arthropod Pest Control, Cambridge University Press, www.cambridge.org, 2002. Order direct from Amazon.co.uk: hardback 360 pages, ISBN: 052156106X, £50.00 / paperback 360 pages,  ISBN: 0521567874, £19.95.

Agriculture and the environment
There is currently great concern among the public in general, and consumers in particular, about the quality of the environment in relation to agriculture. Such concerns focus on issues such as pollution from agriculture, the quality of landscapes, animal welfare and food safety. As a result, many countries have developed a range of standards, codes of good practice and other policy measures.
    The book reviews these issues and relates them to agricultural trade and competition. Features includes chapters on world trade and trade liberalisation as well as individual chapters on the situation in the European Union, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and developing countries. The book will appeal to those researching and working in agricultural economics, policy and development.

F Brouwer and DE Ervin, (Eds) Public Concerns, Environmental Standards and Agricultural Trade, CABI Publishing, www.cabi-publishing.org, 2002. Order direct from Amazon.co.uk: hardback 384 pages, ISBN: 0851995861, £49.95.

Globalisation and developing countries
The globalisation process and the internal policy reforms that developing countries have implemented during the past decade have changed the relative prices of practically all their inputs and outputs. Agricultural producers have therefore been forced to change the structure and methods of their production.
    This book reviews the impact of globalisation by examining, for example, how changes in global trading barriers, and the elimination of many country-specific and commodity-specific agreements affect the economies of developing countries. In particular, it studies the effect of these factors on the agricultural sectors of these countries. The book will be useful for specialists in the fields of agricultural and development economics.

David Bigman, Globalisation and the Developing Countries, emerging strategies for rural development, CABI Publishing, www.cabi-publishing.org, 2002. Order direct from Amazon.co.uk: paperback - 384 pages, ISBN: 0851995756, £25.00.

Local food
Bringing the Food Economy Home is the latest publication from ISEC (the International Society for Ecology and Culture). Its authors offer a succinct yet thorough analysis of the current global economic model and present a compelling case for local alternatives to global agri-businesses. 
    Their issue is with the hidden costs of the food industry (food that is ‘neither very flavourful nor nutritious’) and large-scale agricultural practice, and they focus particularly on food miles, depleted soil, poisoned air and water, jeopardised food security, and the destruction of communities & rural livelihoods in both North and South. 
    The book is studded to good effect with boxed text. Each box goes into greater detail about either the detrimental effect of a current practice, particularly in the US, or an idea, already in practice, that is regenerating a local food economy. The latter include organic farming systems, farmers markets, local food co-ops, community banks and less restrictive two-tier food regulations, to avoid over-burdening small businesses. 
    The authors are keen to stress that they are not proposing the end of all food trade. Rather, that a substantial portion of current trade is completely unnecessary. We are now in a situation where a typical plate of food in the US has accumulated some 1500 miles from source to table and countries import vast amounts of food they can produce themselves. In 1996 the UK imported almost exactly the amount of milk that it exported, whilst according to the FAO 61% of Indian children are malnourished, yet India is one of the top food exporters in the South. 
    The FAO also say that approximately 75% of the worlds agricultural diversity has been lost over the last century. The book argues convincingly that our over-reliance on a single model of food production, dangerously lacking in diversity, is jeopardising food security worldwide, and that allowing our food to become concentrated within large corporations has led to farmers becoming little more than ‘serfs in a corporate feudal system.’ 
    It makes interesting points about agribusinesses and food corporations ‘diluting’ the organic food industry. It also describes the erosion of communities in both North and South; the absurdity of many food safety regulations; and the distortion of figures for agricultural efficiency to favour industrialised farms – using skewed subsidies, calculations based on total output rather than yields, and on labour efficiency rather than land efficiency.
    The book covers a wide amount of ground, touching on local adaptation vs genetic engineering, food & health scares, and pesticide usage. It quotes a recent survey by the US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) that found that 80% of adults and 90% of children in the US have measurable concentrations of chlorpyrifos in their urine.
    This is a relatively small book on a large subject but its arguments are compelling, and inclusive. It offers both an excellent overview of the issues at stake, and a selection of valuable tools for shifting the emphasis back to local food economies.

Bringing the Food Economy Home, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Todd Merrifield and Steven Gorelick, published for ISEC by Zed Books, London, 2002, Order direct from Amazon.co.uk: paperback - 176 pages, 1842772333, £13.95, hardback - 176 pages, ISBN: 1842772325, £39.95.

New publications from PAN UK 

Dependency syndrome
This latest report in PAN UK’s Pesticides, Poverty and Livelihoods series describes the findings from case study and desk research carried out with African partners in 2001. It examines cotton and vegetable systems in Benin and Senegal; pineapple in Ghana and Benin; cereals and legumes in Ethiopia; and cowpea in Ghana. Country chapters give an overview of agricultural and pesticide policy in the context of food security and poverty alleviation and an assessment of pesticide use and problems from stakeholders in agricultural research and extension, health and environmental agencies, the private sector and development agencies. The main part of these chapters provides information on the pesticide use trends, costs, income, food security and changes in farming livelihoods, as reported by over 400 women and men smallholders during participatory group analysis methods and individual interviews. Opportunities and obstacles to reducing pesticide reliance are identified for each country.
    Further chapters document and analyse the findings on: pesticide poisoning and human health; pesticide impact on the environment and agroecosystem productivity; export horticulture and pesticide requirements in European markets; regulation, control, promotion and supply of pesticides; the factors driving pesticide dependency and experiences in alternative methods of pest management. Suggestions for action at policy and operational levels in pesticide regulation, health protection and pest management are outlined which address the key issues raised.

Stephanie Williamson, The Dependency Syndrome: Pesticide use by African smallholders, Pesticide Action Network UK, February 2003, 126pp, £16.00, ISBN: 0-9521656-8-6. This can be ordered direct from PAN UK.

Pesticide exposure and health 
There is now a comprehensive new UK resource which will empower everybody who is exposed to pesticides, or concerned about pesticides and health. Comprising six sections, with further titles in development, the PEX briefings tell you what to do if you are exposed to pesticides, how to report it, how to reduce your risks, how to ensure the incident is properly recorded and responded to, and how to negotiate for help and treatment with doctors and other professionals. There are analyses of National Health Service (NHS) and regulatory resources and policies on pesticide exposure, and the briefings are designed to be of practical help also: they include a unique listing of medical professionals, and toxicological and legal resources. PAN UK would like to thank the Chapman Trust whose support has made the project possible.

Alison Craig, Pesticide exposure and health: the PEX briefings, Nos. 1-6, March 2003, £15 for the set. They can be ordered direct from PAN UK.

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 59, March 2003, pages 22-23]