Smallholder agriculture
The book provides a synthesis of the author’s work over three decades with smallholder farmers. It is not specific to any one country, but rather summarises experiences from Asia, Africa and the Middle East. This book is a good review of the realities of smallholder farmers and specifically addresses hypotheses on which assistance to smallholders has been based. It emphasises the importance of measures to encourage village-level micro-enterprises as an effective means of support. The author’s outlook is pragmatic and he has included vivid examples and photographic illustrations. References are provided at the end of each chapter facilitating further reading. The author’s concern is genuine and his approach in presenting the problems feels authentic. Chapter six offers questions and answers about the sustainability of smallholder agriculture. The book can be a valuable source of first-hand information to those at any level concerned about smallholder agriculture in developing countries especially with a global outlook.
Developing Smallholder Agriculture: a global perspective, Richard L. Tinsley, AgBe Publishing, Brussels, 2004, 438pp $49.
The Bugman on Bugs
Richard Fagerlund is an entomologist with many years of experiencing identifying and advising on household pest control. His new book, co-written with Johanna Strange, is a follow-up to a previous book Ask the Bugman. The Bugman on Bugs provides clear and compelling arguments for avoiding pesticides documenting some of the bad practices of ‘trained’ pest control operators and health effects experienced by those exposed to the chemicals they have sprayed. This book is a highly readable and knowledgeable account. The insect pests described are those found in the US and the account provides good common-sense advice on how to counter household pests with minimal or zero pesticide use.
The Bugman on Bugs: Understanding Household Pests and the Environment, Richard Fagerlund, Johanna Strange, University of New Mexico Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8263-3363-X, 131pp, $14.95.
Industry hives off its testing function
According to Agrow, Contract Research Organisations (CROs) are now playing an essential role in the functioning of the agrochemical industry, and an increasing proportion of what the industry used to regard as a core competency is being outsourced. This is due to pressures on the industry created by the European review of pesticides and stagnating sales.
Thirty international contract research organisations, (including a number with bases in the UK) were surveyed by Agrow. In the view of the majority of these companies, development work on new actives in the EU will involve testing fewer substances, but in more depth. However, UK consultants Phillips McDougall AgriService have concluded that opportunities exist for the development of replacement pesticides for those taken off the market in the EU review, with a potential sales value of $610 million. The policy of comparative assessment, advocated by PAN
UK, in which less hazardous products replace more dangerous ones, favours the adoption of non-chemical pest control as the first option, not the replacement of one chemical by another.
Agrow’s Top 30 CROs by Arthur Dewar, DS239, PJB Publications, February 2004,
agrowreports@pjbpubs.com
New information available on pesticide use
If you have ever wanted to know how many hectares of set-aside are treated with glyphosate, or how often strawberry crops are sprayed with chlorpyrifos, this is the database for you.
Central Science Laboratory’s Pesticide Usage Survey Group (PUSG) has launched an electronic version of the meticulous reports they produce, based on representative sample surveys of up to 2000 farms annually in the UK. The data, from 1990 to 2003, can be viewed in three different formats: tables, graphs and times treated. It is very simple to use and the outputs provide at-a-glance information on trends of usage.
In the table format, for example, you can find out that an estimated 45,458 hectares of cereals in the Eastern region of Great Britain was treated with carbendazim in 2003. Aldicarb was used on 20,973 hectares of potatoes in the same year. The graphs show clearly that, whereas in 1993, 21,944 hectares of peas and beans in Great Britain were treated with benomyl (implicated in the recent legal victory by a mother whose son was born with a serious eye disorder after her exposure when out walking during pregnancy), 1,016 hectares were treated with the substance ten years later.
It would be useful to identify the actual geographical area. This would be relevant for exposure assessments: for example, of walkers. The PUSG team plans in the future to add a mapping search to give intensity of use for each active by county.
The trend towards increasing spray rounds is evident in the ‘times treated’ part of the database. In 1990, 1.34 per cent of the area of the strawberry crop grown was treated three times with chlorpyrifos. By 2003, 2.11 per cent of the area was treated three times, and now 0.47 per cent of the area is treated four times.
There are some key weaknesses in this resource. Firstly, the list of crops is not sufficiently specific: for example, top fruit is listed but apples and orchard fruit are not. The regions are not specified in a map, though you can look them up in the Meta Data definitions section, where counties in each region are clearly defined.
Search results give data for all years, and all crops, which are extrapolated from the nearest previous year in which the crop was surveyed. The data should therefore be treated as the best estimate of usage on any crop in a given year as surveys are only carried out every two years (for arable crops) and four years (for other crops).
Most surprisingly, there is no information at all about the approval (legal) status of any of the pesticides listed, and the drop-downs include long-banned substances, for example, aldrin. Research into the historical use of these hazards is now possible: for example, in 1990, vinclozolin was used on 1,526 hectares of lettuce and other leafy salads, and this had dropped to 101 hectares by 1994. Although theoretically, usage ceased after this date, residue surveys have regularly indicated illegal use since then. PAN
UK urges PUSG to indicate which substances were banned, or withdrawn for use on that crop, and the date of the ban.
PAN UK believes that a national statutory scheme of pesticide usage reporting, rather than a sample, would create a more scientifically reliable resource which could be used to trace the health and environmental effects of pesticides.
Central Science Laboratory Pesticide Usage Survey Group http://pusstats.csl.gov.uk/, All the recent PUSG survey reports are available as pdf documents at:
http://www.csl.gov.uk/science/organ/pvm/puskm/pusg.cfm
PAN community video
A new video from the Pesticide Action Network UK Exposed describes the impacts of pesticides on health and environment with additional sections on the toxic origin of pesticides and how to phase them out. This video, the first of its kind for community groups, is available FREE on loan from PAN
UK. Accompanying information provides helpful suggestions for finding safer alternatives. Interested community groups, gardening groups, or anyone else should contact Roslyn McKendry
<roslynmckendry@pan-uk.org> for more information.
Exposed: rethinking pesticides in our homes, gardens and communities.
[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 66, December 2004, page 23]