(Beyond Pesticides, July 26, 2024) Beyond Pesticides released the latest issue of Pesticides and You this week, a compendium of scientific research on pesticide threats to human and environmental health. The issue is a breathtaking warning from the science community that environmental, health, and labor laws are not protecting the public. Beyond Pesticides says in its introduction that a shift away from toxic pesticide use is urgently needed. Included in this issue are scientific reviews of research reported by Beyond Pesticides in 2023, providing a critique of the independent peer-reviewed literature with a shocking range of adverse effects, including cancer, neurotoxicity, brain effects, reproductive impacts, diabetes and obesity, chronic kidney and liver disease, Parkinson’s, respiratory illness and asthma, learning and behavioral abnormalities, and more, as well as disproportionate harm to people of color. In addition, the science documents pesticides’ catastrophic harm to the ecosystems that sustain life. In total, these dramatic findings call for an end to the use of toxic pesticides, incompatible with respect for living organisms and, to environmental, health, and labor advocates, unconscionable given the availability of viable, cost-effective organic practices. This issue adds to the body of knowledge from two previous issues of Pesticides and You (Transformative Change: […]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 25, 2024) On July 10, the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) does not preempt pesticide exposure victims’ state law claims against pesticide manufacturers, based on reporting from The New Lede. This decision builds on years of judicial precedent from the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) that protects individuals’ right to use failure-to-warn claims against producers of toxic pesticides, including Bayer-Monsanto. The importance of judicial review is critical to protecting the public against public health impacts of toxic pesticide use in the context of last month’s SCOTUS decision ending Chevron Doctrine, and with it the end of deferring to federal regulatory agencies on ambiguities in statutory mandates. A growing coalition of environmental and public health advocates, organic farmers, trial attorneys, farmworkers, and physicians are united in pushing back against a concerted effort by industry and its allies to attack victims’ ability to sue under “failure-to-warn” through the Farm Bill, state legislatures, and the proposed federal budget for Fiscal Year 2025. Oregon Court of Appeals In 2022, a local trial court in Oregon ruled in favor of Monsanto on a lawsuit initiated by Jackson County residents Larry and […]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 24, 2024) The Center for Food Safety—joined by environmental, farm, and grassroots organizations including Beyond Pesticides—submitted a groundbreaking petition yesterday to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), urging immediate action to address the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in pesticides and pesticide containers. Numerous studies have shown that the broad use of PFAS chemicals, and the resulting environmental contamination, has devastating impacts on public health, wildlife, and pollinators. Despite acknowledging PFAS as an urgent public health and environmental issue, EPA has upheld hundreds of registrations of pesticide ingredients that fall into the PFAS category. Furthermore, EPA has allowed the ongoing use of fluorinated pesticide storage containers, despite the agency itself finding that these containers leach PFAS chemicals into pesticide products.   PFAS, known as “forever chemicals” due to their ability to persist in the environment, are endocrine disruptors, which are linked to developmental issues, cancers, and organ damage. Crops can uptake PFAS from soil, resulting in dietary exposure for both the public and wildlife, while PFAS ingredients in pesticides can also leach into groundwater, contributing to widespread PFAS drinking water contamination. In recent years, EPA has acknowledged this critical issue and committed to addressing PFAS contamination outside […]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 17, 2024) National election results in the United Kingdom (UK) and France in recent weeks have shocked the world amidst concerns of a rising tide of right-wing authoritarianism on the eve of European Parliament election results—trending toward what was initially perceived as a conservative majority earlier in June. With new leadership in some of the biggest economies and policy leaders across the Atlantic, environmental and health advocates are hopeful that this will signal a new momentum to advance the mission of transitioning to a fully organic land management and food system that replaces the status quo reliant on toxic petrochemical-based pesticides and fertilizers that exacerbate the climate crisis, biodiversity collapse, and public health fragility. Citizens of the United Kingdom overwhelmingly voted for the center-left Labour Party, which won an unprecedented margin of 291 seats, winning 412 seats out of the 650 total seats up for grabs. The Conservative Party won just 121 seats, a clear rejection of their nearly fifteen-year leadership position in UK politics. UK-based advocates welcome the news given the Labour Party platform to “ban neonicotinoid pesticides imidacloprid, clothianidin, and thiamethoxam due to their impact on bees,” according to reporting by Politico. Neonicotinoids have long […]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 16, 2024) Yet another study in the August 2024 journal Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety has found that exposure to organophosphorus pesticides (OPPs) is correlated with increased suicidal thoughts in some people. This study is just the latest in a long line of studies from around the world that have linked pesticide exposure to mental health conditions, including sleep disorders, depression, and suicidal ideation (SI). As the rate of suicide increased by 30% between 2000 and 2020, there is an urgent public health need to investigate and address all potential contributing factors. A 2019 study, covered in Daily News, found that teens and adolescents living in agricultural areas and exposed to organophosphate (OP) insecticides are at higher risk of depression, In July and January this year, other studies link farmer psychiatric episodes to pesticide exposure, adding to the body of science. Exposure to household pesticides is also linked to depression in a 2020 study.   Study and Methodology  The study entitled “Association between exposure to organophosphorus pesticide and suicidal ideation among U.S. adults: A population-based study,” analyzes information on the mental and physical health of over 5,000 individuals aged 20 and up in the United States. The study aims […]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 15, 2024) It is hot. Really hot. A serious response to this climate emergency requires, according to environmental advocates, a dramatic transformation in land management and an end to the use of petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers. Beyond the real-world adverse effects of the climate crisis— more intense and frequent fires, floods, hurricanes and hail storms, as well as the harm to health and biodiversity—the rising insurance premiums imposed by the insurance industry speaks to the need for an urgent systemic response. According to the paper, Pricing of Climate Risk Insurance: Regulation and Cross-Subsidies, “The unprecedented rise in natural disasters has led to catastrophic losses of more than $600 billion in the United States over the last two decades, roughly twice the losses of the previous 40 years combined.” While the events associated with climate are more accurately described as “human-made” rather than “natural” disasters, a 2023 Washington Post article reports that, “U.S. insurers have paid out $295.8 billion in natural disaster losses from 2020 to 2022, a record for a three-year period.” This has led to dramatic changes in the cost of insurance coverage and the decision of many carriers to deny coverage. The Washington Post writes, “At least […]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 12, 2024) No one can deny that the dominant agricultural system developed in the 20th century is unsustainable, and indeed is in escalating crisis from the combined effects of pesticide resistance, climate change and resource overexploitation. The frontline members of this system are farmers, who must juggle numerous considerations to maintain their livelihoods. Any proposal for improvement that threatens their bottom lines is likely to encounter resistance, and any proposal that promises to improve the bottom line is more likely to be implemented. Thus there is a powerful incentive to accept suggestions from “crop advisors”—usually known as agronomists—a category that includes government extension agents, independent consultants usually paid directly by farmers, and those who work for agribusiness, particularly chemical companies. A study published in the Journal of Rural Studies in April by Iowa State University sociologist Katherine Dentzman, PhD examines the relationships among agronomists, farmers and farming communities. Dr. Denzman conducted focus groups with agronomists in in Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Northwest, and Southwest states to determine what pressures limit the types of advice they give farmers. When it comes to pesticides and resistance to them, the advice provided by typical agronomists has generally led to more pesticide use, despite […]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 11, 2024) Can the health of pollinator hives serve as a nature-based indicator for pesticide residue drift? Researchers in a study published in Science of the Total Environment in June find this to be the case. Through the BeeNet Project, led by the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty, and Forestry (MAFSF), researchers detected the presence of 63 different pesticide residues in hives across northern Italy. Of these residues, 15 are not approved for use under European Union (EU) law. Environmental advocates observe the mounting scientific literature on pollinator decline, in part due to the inadequate regulation of toxic petrochemical-based pesticides, as a call to action to push forward land management, agricultural, and climate policy that aligns with organic principles centering on soil health, biodiversity, public health, worker protections, and economic security. Methodology The study is cowritten by a cohort of ten researchers working in the Research Center for Agriculture and Environment in Bologna, Italy—a research institution within the Council for Agricultural Research and Agricultural Economics Analysis (CREA) at MAFSF. Supported by the BeeNet Project (funded by Italian National Fund), BeeNet is a national monitoring project that tracks the health of honey bee and wild bee populations […]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 10, 2024) An article last month in Entomology Today, a publication of the Entomological Society of America, highlights the important findings of a study published earlier this year in the Journal of Insect Science. While there has been debate on whether neonicotinoid (neonic) insecticides or Varroa mites (Varroa destructor) are more detrimental to the survival of bees, evidence suggests that neonicotinoids are not only harmful individually but can increase vulnerability to parasitism from mites in western honey bees (Apis mellifera). The Entomology Today article reads: “Some researchers and organizations have pointed to neonics as directly harming bees. Others have pointed to other issues, like Varroa mite infestation, as more hazardous to honey bee populations.” There is scientific evidence supporting each claim, as both cause stress to bee species that can lead to population decline. The study in the Journal of Science, however, is “the first experimental field demonstration of how neonicotinoid exposure can increase V. destructor populations in honey bees and also demonstrates that colony genetic diversity cannot mitigate the effects of neonicotinoid pesticides.”  As the article states, “The researchers were not looking for impacts on Varroa mites at first. Instead, they were looking to understand how […]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 5, 2024) After years of advocacy against corporate interference in global pesticide policy, the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) has ended its “strategic partnership” with petrochemical pesticide and fertilizer trade association CropLife International. This decision, which allows the expiration of a 2020 Letter of Intent (LoI), was announced in a June press release by a coalition of international public interest, environmental, and trade groups. The organizations objected to the partnership from the inception of the agreement and has issued objections, including in 2022 and covered by Daily News. The signatories to the release last month believe that this severing of ties with the chemical industry will contribute to building momentum from frontline communities for “sustainable, resilient and equitable production systems under the agroecological paradigm.” The groups say, however, “We remain concerned about the FAO’s continuing informal engagements with CropLife and call for greater transparency and accountability in this regard.” Beyond Pesticides has urged that models for change, whether advanced by FAO or other international or national institutions, must embrace clear definitions and standards that are certified and enforceable in order to reverse the existential threats to health, biodiversity, and climate from petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers. […]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 4, 2024) In reflecting on recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that reduce federal government powers to restrict hazardous chemicals, including pesticides (see Clean Water Act decision and federal restrictions of toxic hazards under the reversal of Chevron decision), two remaining authorities in state and local governments and in the courts have become the next battleground to protect health and the environment. What is at stake are two major backstops to weak federal controls and chemical company disregard for safety: the critical importance of state and local governments’ exercise of authority to restrict toxic chemicals, and the ability of people to sue corporations for their failure to warn about their products’ hazards.  The attack on state and local authority in the Farm Bill The Farm Bill in the U.S. House of Representatives: Prohibits the rights of states and local governments to restrict pesticides and protect public health and the environment. The language says the Farm Bill will “prohibit any State, instrumentality or political subdivision thereof… from directly or indirectly imposing or continuing in effect any requirements for, or penalize or hold liable any entity for failing to comply with requirements with respect to, labeling or packaging that is in […]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 28, 2024) Most people don’t like bugs, but the fact is that insects form the foundation of human flourishing, both for their ecosystems services, like pollination of food crops, and for their aesthetic joys. But insect populations globally are declining two to four percent a year, with total losses over 20 years of 30-50 percent, according to a new study of the interacting effects of pesticides, climate, and land use changes on insects’ status in the Midwest. Teasing out the relative influence of these stressors has been a major obstacle in determining the causes of the declines and ways to mitigate them. The icon of insect beauty in the U.S. is the monarch butterfly, whose vibrant coloring, elegant form, and spectacular migrations inspire everyone. Beyond Pesticides has covered the distressing decline of these creatures, most recently in the June 24 Daily News. Monarchs prefer milkweed plants, but also visit many other flowers. Milkweed often grows along the margins of fields, so monarchs are widely exposed to pesticides and habitat disturbances associated with agriculture. The new study was published in PLoS One by a team of scientists from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Michigan State University, […]

Image: Globetrotter19, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons (Beyond Pesticides, June 26, 2024) The Hungarian city of Törökbálint (featured above) is one of several dozen towns to join the European Pesticide Free Towns Network, an initiative of Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe, based on a recent blog post welcoming the city into its Network. With elections coming up in European Union Parliament and EU member state nations across the continent, advocates believe in the importance of proactive actions local governments and towns launch to address the cascading crises of climate change, biodiversity deterioration, and public health fragility. In the U.S., Beyond Pesticides is working with communities nationwide, providing hands-on technical assistance in the adoption of organic land management practices. “In recent years, our municipality has begun to explore the possibility of tackling an increasing number of city management problems with environmentally friendly solutions,” says Sándor Elek, mayor of Törökbálint in a public statement announcing the city’s membership. “We are phasing out chemical treatments in public areas and working on the continuous information and awareness-raising of the public. We are also working to promote the public acceptance of environmentally friendly mosquito control.” In joining the European Pesticide Free Towns Network, each […]

(Beyond Pesticides, June 25, 2024) It has been a couple of weeks since U.S. Senator John Boozman (R-AR), ranking GOP member on the Senate Agriculture Committee, released the Republican framework vision without statutory language for a Senate Farm Bill that would renew the law’s commitment to chemical-intensive agriculture and undermines efforts to curtail pesticide use and hold chemical company polluters accountable. In his press statement, Sen. Boozman issues an approach that largely mirrors the House-side text, passed by the House Agriculture Committee earlier this month in a 33-21 vote. On the same day that Sen. Boozman announced the framework, the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee approved the federal food and agriculture budget for Fiscal Year 2025 with a $355 million cut from last year’s budget, affecting specific programs that support pollinator health, ecosystem health, and public health related to pesticide use and organic agriculture. The full House Appropriations Committee will vote on this budget on July 10 before moving to the House floor. Advocates are adamant in their resolve to demand more – not less – support from Congress to address the climate emergency, insect apocalypse, and public health implications borne from reliance on toxic petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers. The Senate […]

(Beyond Pesticides, June 24, 2024) National Pollinator Week ended last week, but the crisis associated with pollinator decline and biodiversity collapse continues. If there were not enough data to prove that regulators are woefully behind the curve in protecting pollinators, yet another study was published during Pollinator Week that reminded regulators, elected officials, farmers, gardeners, all eaters, and lovers of nature that federal, state, and local environmental laws in place have been an abject and unconscionable failure in protecting the biodiversity that supports all life. The study, “Insecticides, more than herbicides, land use, and climate, are associated with declines in butterfly species richness and abundance in the American Midwest,” published in PLOS ONE, cries out as a further warning that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) “mitigation measures,” which tinker with limited pesticide restrictions, represent a catastrophic disregard for the scientifically documented facts, according to environmental advocates. Daily News will cover this study in more detail in a later piece, however, the abstract of the journal piece is worth reprinting here in reflecting on Pollinator Week: “Mounting evidence shows overall insect abundances are in decline globally. Habitat loss, climate change, and pesticides have all been implicated, but their relative effects […]

(Beyond Pesticides, June 21, 2024) A recent review of the scientific literature, published in Science of The Total Environment, analyzes multiple species of bees on a molecular level to better understand the poisoning mechanisms that could, as the authors see it, inform chemical risk assessments with more precision. The mechanisms “implicated in the tolerance of bees to specific pesticides, and thus as determinants of insecticide sensitivity, … include metabolic detoxification, insecticide target proteins, the insect cuticle and bee gut microbiota,” the authors write. This review references more than 90 studies performed over the last 30+ years, with most being published in the last 5-10 years, as the understanding and importance of molecular determinants of bee sensitivity has emerged. Pollinators, such as bees, provide crucial ecosystem services by pollinating both wild plants and essential crops. The exposure these insects are subjected to threatens their existence, which occurs through pesticide contamination that can lead to impacts on growth and development or even colony collapse.    “While bees have only been exposed to human-made pesticides over the recent past (last 80 years) they have co-evolved with plants and fungi which produce a range of xenobiotics, including plant allelochemicals and mycotoxins,” the authors state. […]

(Beyond Pesticides, June 17, 2024) Every year, Beyond Pesticides announces National Pollinator Week—this year beginning today, June 17—to remind eaters of food, gardeners, farmers, communities (including park districts to school districts), civic organizations, responsible corporations, policy makers, and legislators that there are actions that can be taken that are transformative. All the opportunities for action to protect pollinators, and the ecosystems that are critical to their survival, can collectively be transformational in eliminating toxic pesticides that are major contributors to the collapse of biodiversity. This is why Beyond Pesticides starts most discussions and strategic actions for meaningful pollinator and biodiversity protection with the transition to practicing and supporting organic. In launching National Pollinator Week, Beyond Pesticides makes suggestions for individual actions to increase efforts to think and act holistically to protect the environment that supports pollinators. The impact that people have starts with grocery store purchases and the management of gardens, parks, playing fields, and pubic lands. The introduction of pesticides into our food supply and our managed lands has contributed to a downward spiral that is unsustainable. The good news is that it is now proven that we do not need toxic pesticides to grow food productively and profitably […]

(Beyond Pesticides, June 14, 2024) The influence of the chemical industry over public policy and regulation, especially in agriculture, is glaringly obvious and has little popular support, yet no one can seem to do anything about it. Numerous analyses have detailed the ways this influence is applied—through lobbying and political donations including dark money; industry experts named to regulatory agency scientific advisory boards; and the massive public relations machines that create and sustain public uncertainty using the tobacco industry playbook revealed by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway in their 2010 book Merchants of Doubt. A more insidious tendril of industry influence is explained in U.S. Right to Know’s (USRTK) report, released this month, on pesticide manufacturers’ infiltration of the Entomological Society of America (ESA). The report, “Anatomy of a science meeting: How controversial pesticide research all but vanished from a major conference,” examines the ESA’s 2023 annual meeting—its program, sponsorships, presentations, panelists, poster sessions, meet-and-greets, budget, revenue sources, and other aspects of the event. What is revealed is a systematic and comprehensive industry presence throughout the society and its meeting. A direct consequence is the near-elimination of any scientific presentations addressing the effects of neonicotinoid pesticides on insects, particularly bees. […]

(Beyond Pesticides, June 13, 2024) A study published in Conservation Letters, a journal of the Society for Conservation Biology, exposes critical shortcomings in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ecological risk assessment (ERA) process for modeling the risks that pesticides pose to bees and other pollinators. For the study, “Risk assessments underestimate threat of pesticides to wild bees,” researchers conducted a meta-analysis of toxicity data in EPA’s ECOTOX knowledgebase (ECOTOX), an EPA-hosted, publicly available resource with information on adverse effects of single chemical stressors to certain aquatic and terrestrial species. The meta-analysis found that the agency’s approach, which relies heavily on honey bee data from controlled laboratory studies, drastically underestimates the real-world threats from neonicotinoid insecticides (and likely other pesticides) to native bees and other pollinators. The study “challenges the reliability of surrogate species as predictors when extrapolating pesticide toxicity data to wild pollinators and recommends solutions to address the (a)biotic interactions occurring in nature that make such extrapolations unreliable in the ERA process.” Beyond Pesticides executive director Jay Feldman remarked, “EPA’s ecological risk assessment process is fundamentally flawed and puts thousands of bee species at risk of pesticide-caused population declines and extinctions.” Mr. Feldman continued, “This underscores the urgent […]

(Beyond Pesticides, June 7, 2024) This week, climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City Claudia Sheinbaum shattered a proverbial glass ceiling, emerging as the first woman president of Mexico.   The election of a woman with a background in environmental protection— who signed an accord promising Mexican farmers to uphold the ban on transgenic corn and replace glyphosate with safer alternatives this past April—did not happen in a vacuum. According to an article by CBS News, President-elect Sheinbaum shared the following wisdom in the middle of a downtown hotel as her polling lead became definitive:  “I do not make it alone. We’ve all made it, with our heroines who gave us our homeland, with our mothers, our daughters, and our granddaughters.” As the new president-elect steps into the leadership of a country grappling with the ravages of the climate crisis, we reflect on the leadership of women in advancing Beyond Pesticides’ mission to end the use of petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers.  Leading the Fight for Farmworker Justice—Dolores Huerta    Earlier this year, Acting Governor Eleni Kounalakis of California honored the lifelong efforts of 94-year-old social justice activist Dolores Huerta, joining Washington State in recognizing Huerta’s decades of leadership in the […]

(Beyond Pesticides, June 3, 2024) Environmental advocates continue to raise concerns about the Farm Bill (H.R.8467—Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024) that emerged from the House Agriculture Committee on May 23 with provisions they say will allow the escalation of environmental threats and then insure big agriculture commodity producers for losses attributable to those environmental disasters through an expansion of USDA’s crop insurance program. Through this taxpayer supported program, USDA covers farm revenue losses due to “natural causes such as drought, excessive moisture [e.g., floods], hail, wind, frost, insects, and disease. . .” Petrochemical pesticide and fertilizer use in chemical-intensive land management and agricultural production contributes to the climate emergency and associated weather, insect, and plant disease threats. Advocates point out that the House Agriculture Committee Farm Bill reduces environmental protections by (i) preempting local and state government authority to allow more restrictive standards at the municipal level, (ii) taking away the right to sue pesticide manufacturers and allied companies for a failure to fully disclose adverse effects of the products they produce or use, and (iii) weakening the regulatory process intended to protect endangered species and biodiversity from pesticides.   Tell Your U.S. Representative and Senators To Support […]

(Beyond Pesticides, May 30, 2024) The House Agriculture Committee voted 33-21 on May 23 to move the Farm, Food, and National Security Act out of committee after a contentious markup and onslaught of amendments that undermine water health, soil health, and local democratic authority to protect people and the environment from toxic pesticide exposure. One of nearly sixty amendments introduced in the markup last week included the continuation of a decade-long attack on National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit via Clean Water Act (CWA) for pesticide discharge. What was most illuminating however was not the passage of the bill itself, but Big Agriculture’s raucous approval. Advocates see pesticide industry and its allies’ support for what it is—the reliance on petrochemical-based pesticides leading to economic instability, ecosystem collapse, and the degradation of democratic institutions. With support for entrenched dependency on petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers, the committee’s bill requires taxpayers to pay through the government’s crop insurance program for escalating losses caused by chemical-intensive farming practices, contributing to yield losses that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) says are “natural causes such as drought, excessive moisture [e.g., floods], hail, wind, frost, insects, and disease. . .” However, the frequency of these […]

(Beyond Pesticides, May 28, 2024) Public comments are due May 29, 2024. With 40 percent of all vegetables grown in the U.S. coming from the state of California, the current state level process to define “regenerative agriculture” could have major impact on land management practices that address the current climate, biodiversity, and health crises. That is, according to advocates, if the process, directed by the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) departs from a history of poorly defined and unenforceable terms like Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and Sustainable Agriculture. Virtually all consumers of food have a stake in the outcome of the definition of “regenerative,” so the current public comment period, which closes tomorrow, May 29, 2024, can help influence the outcome. As Beyond Pesticides has reported previously, the term “regenerative” is now increasingly being advanced as a loosely defined alternative to the organic standard and label, which is transparent, defined, certified, enforced, and subject to public input. The  publication AgFunderNews (AFN) in February published its updated “2024 list of agrifood corporates making regenerative agriculture commitments,” a who’s who of the largest food and agribusiness corporations worldwide. The list includes companies such as ADM, Cargill, Danone, General Mills, Tyson, Unilever, Walmart, and more with commitments […]