(Beyond Pesticides, March 21, 2023) Placing honey bee hives in agricultural areas creates stress that leads to microbial imbalances, according to research published in Scientific Reports by Croatian scientists this month. The research highlights the fragility and absurdity of chemical-driven agricultural systems dependent upon both pollinators and products that harm or kill off these sensitive species. While regulators in the United States continue to prop up unsustainable practices, more and more consumers are seeking out and engaging with the key alternative to this system by supporting organic farms and foodstuffs at their farmers market and grocery store. Scientists began by creating 33 colonies from three apiaries within an agricultural region in Croatia, utilizing four brood frames, two honey frames, and mated queens. Of these 33 newly created hives, 22 were relocated to a separate agricultural region, and 11 were placed roughly six miles away from a nature preserve and considered a semi-natural area. A separate group of 10 hives that had been established on a small island (Unije, Croatia) in the Adriatic Sea were included in the study in order to represent a completely natural location. After roughly two weeks of colony formation, scientists collected samples to represent the multiple […]

(Beyond Pesticides, March 7, 2023) Exposure to glyphosate (Roundup) and its breakdown products is associated with an increased risk of liver and metabolic disorders in children and young adults, according to research published in Environmental Health Perspectives earlier this month. While glyphosate has developed a well-deserved reputation as a carcinogen, research is finding that cancer is one of a myriad of chronic diseases associated with the notorious chemical. As this body of literature grows, growing awareness by the public is increasing pressure on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to cancel its allowed uses. Researchers began their investigation concerned about the rise of liver disorders and metabolic syndrome among young people. This trend has been pronounced among populations of color. The worrying increase has led many to consider synthetic chemical exposure as a contributing factor, as lack of diet and exercise is unlikely to account for the entirety of the increase. To better understand these impacts, researchers enrolled existing participants in the CHAMACOS (Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas) study, a long running cohort of mothers and their children born between the years 2000 and 2002 in the Salinas Valley of California. Enrolled participants consistent mostly […]

(Beyond Pesticides, March 6, 2023) After the Trump EPA was blocked from weakening the application exclusion zone (AEZ) provisions for protecting farmworkers, the rules reverted to the Obama era rules. Now, EPA proposes to reaffirm part of that rule, while accepting some of the weakening amendments from the Trump administration. Tell EPA to strengthen pesticide rules to protect farmworkers. Tell President Biden to sign the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.    EPA’s Worker Protection Standards (WPS) are rules that govern labor safety standards within federal pesticide law (the Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, or FIFRA). Farmworkers are not covered for toxic chemical exposure by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and WPS have long been criticized by farmworker, labor, and health advocates for providing insufficient protections for farmworkers, their children and communities. Under the WPS, AEZs are buffer zones where people are not allowed to enter during the course of a pesticide application. Like all buffer zones, they are designed to allow application of toxic pesticides while providing a nominal degree of protection. Pesticides drift long distances when being applied and they […]

(Beyond Pesticides, March 2, 2023) On February 22, a group of 65 nonprofit organizations (including Beyond Pesticides) filed a citizen petition with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that asks the agency to close a gaping — and well exploited — regulatory loophole by revoking a 1984 regulation that waived efficacy data requirements in pesticide evaluations. This means that EPA has, for 39 years, registered pesticides without demonstrated proof of efficacy and benefits. The petition is aimed primarily at the widespread use of neonicotinoid insecticides (neonics), which are so harmful to hundreds of species — and to bees, other pollinators, and birds, in particular — that many advocates have insisted they should be banned altogether. Beyond Pesticides has advocated for a neonics ban because of their extensive harms to pollinators, multiple other organisms (including humans), ecosystems, and natural resources. The Center for Food Safety, Pesticide Action Network North America, Center for Biological Diversity, Beyond Pesticides, and other advocates have filed lawsuits in recent years to get EPA to act protectively on neonics and other pesticides. The coalition of groups in the subject case seeks to rein in a plethora of harmful impacts of neonics, given EPA’s overall lack of protective action. (For […]

(Beyond Pesticides, March 1, 2023) Fungicides sprayed on chemically farmed strawberries reduce their flavor quality, according to research published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry this week. This explanation is a major insight for frustrated consumers who may remember when the strawberries sold at retail contained deeper, more complex flavors. As the agrichemical industry claims that dangerous pesticides are needed to grow food to feed the world, it is evident these practices health and environmental hazards, but also affect the quality of the food grown. As savvy shoppers and gardeners already know, buying and growing organic addresses this range of issues, improving flavor while protecting wildlife and public health. Scientists developed their study to better understand the mechanisms leading to flavor deterioration by growing strawberry plants in a greenhouse with chemical-intensive practices, including the use of synthetic fertilizers. One group was treated with the fungicide boscalid, another with the fungicide difenconazole, and a control group received no spray. Fruits were sprayed beginning at the green, small fruit stage, a total of two times, and collections from each group were taken at the white, turning, and red fruit stage (zero, three, and seven days after the second pesticide application). […]

(Beyond Pesticides, February 27, 2023) California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) is asking for comments on its “Sustainable Pest Management (SPM) Roadmap” by 5 pm (PST) March 13, 2023. While recognizing problems inherent in traditional integrated pest management (IPM), DPR’s roadmap is directing us to a destination that includes another generation of exposure to the worst of the worst pesticides—while failing to embrace the elimination of farm inputs harmful to ecosystems and the capacity of soil biology to cycle nutrients and draw down the maximum amount of atmospheric carbon. The Roadmap’s off-handed rejection of organic practices, rather than building on organic systems, creates a lost opportunity for adopting a holistic and serious solution to the current crises of health threats from pesticides, biodiversity collapse, and the climate emergency. Tell DPR to revise its destination to immediately eliminate the worst pesticides and implement wide scale transition to organic practices. DPR’s Roadmap states these goals: By 2050, eliminate the use of Priority Pesticides by transitioning to SPM. By 2050, SPM will be adopted as the de facto pest management system in California. DPR says “The criteria for classifying pesticides as “Priority Pesticides” include, but are not limited to, hazard and risk classifications, […]

(Beyond Pesticides, February 15, 2023) Glyphosate use in grassland pastures reduces crop yield and impedes climate change mitigation, finds two studies (1,2) published this month from the University of Turku, Finland. While massive public relations campaigns by the agrichemical industry have poured in millions of dollars to convince politicians and the public that pesticides are necessary to ‘feed the world’ and address the climate crisis, the data does not support these claims. “Only in recent years, we have started to realise that intensive agriculture and agrochemical pollution in fact contribute to a reversal of the intended purpose. Soils are polluted with pesticides and at the same time, extreme weather events erode soil nutrients,” says study coauthor Benjamin Fuchs, PhD. Researchers approached their investigation through two separate experiments on the grass Festuca pratensis, an important forage crop grown for grazing animals throughout the world. The first experiment was conducted in an enclosed greenhouse, while the second took place in a field setting. For both experiments, plots were separated between glyphosate-sprayed and unsprayed controls. All plots received three different approaches to cutting the grass: one group that was intensely cut to two inches (5cm), the second group cut to six inches (15cm), […]

(Beyond Pesticides, February 3, 2023) On January 26, California’s Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA), Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR), and Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) announced a new “roadmap” for sustainable pest management (SPM). The plan is promoted by the agencies as an accelerator of the state’s commitment to transitioning away from “high-risk pesticides” and toward “adoption of safer, sustainable pest control practices,” and to eliminating “priority [high-risk] pesticides” by 2050. Although Sustainable Pest Management: A Roadmap for California obviously recognizes the state (and federal) failure of current pesticide policies and land management practices to restrict pesticides sufficiently, advocates say that even this plan does not “meet the moment.” Its relative ambition (compared to what most states are doing), still does not, according to those advancing transformative change, adequately address the current existential health, biodiversity, and climate crises.  With these crises being especially urgent, advocates identify meaningful change as the adoption of approaches predicated on ensuring healthy soil biology. This calls for the deployment of a plan for the wholesale transition to organic systems that eliminate all materials/inputs that are harmful to soil health, ecosystems, natural resources, and the health of humans and all living organisms. The California roadmap was […]

(Beyond Pesticides, January 31, 2023) Glyphosate exposure induces oxidative stress in the body, a key biomarker known to heighten an individual’s risk of cancer, according to research published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute by a team of scientists from the National Institutes of Health. The findings, which tracked study participants’ past use of glyphosate and exposure levels through urine, are particularly concerning in light of recent data showing that four out of five (81.6%) U.S. residents have detectable levels of glyphosate in their bodies. Despite these concerning data, evidence of widespread exposure to a carcinogen has so far failed to sway regulators at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, necessitating meaningful change by elected officials to reform pesticide regulation. Scientists began with the determination from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) that there is epidemiological evidence associating glyphosate with blood cancers like non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and strong evidence of carcinogenicity in laboratory animal research brought on by genotoxicity (DNA damage) and oxidative stress. “Oxidative stress occurs when the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and other free radicals exceeds the body’s antioxidant defense mechanisms, causing damage to DNA, proteins, and lipids,” the study explains. This process can […]

(Beyond Pesticides, January 30, 2023) Because antibiotics and fungicides are widely used in agriculture (except organic), they contribute significantly to the increasing efficacy problems with antimicrobial (antibiotic and antifungal medicines) use in health care, contributing to a growing crisis. According to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, World Health Organization Director-General, “Antimicrobial resistance undermines modern medicine and puts millions of lives at risk.”  Microorganisms—including bacteria, fungi, and viruses—are notoriously quick to evolve resistance to antimicrobial medicines. We know that selection for resistance is directly related to the frequency and intensity of antimicrobial use, so medical practitioners try to avoid using those medicines unless they are necessary. Tell EPA to cancel all uses of a pesticide when resistance is discovered or predicted to occur. Tell Congress to ensure that EPA protects public health from deadly antifungal and antibiotic resistance. Unfortunately, the medical profession lacks complete control over the use of antimicrobials. Many of the same chemicals used in human medicine are also used in agriculture. These may show up in or on treated food, but can also spread antimicrobial resistance through horizontal gene transfer. So, in addition to ingesting antibiotics in our food, the movement of resistant bacteria and fungi in the environment […]

(Beyond Pesticides, January 25, 2023) Populations of the western bumblebee are in free fall, with 57% declines across the species’ historical range, finds new research led by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey. These data are in line with trends for other once common bumblebees in the United States, like the rusty patched and American, of which the former is now listed as endangered and the latter is under consideration. Most critically, the study authors did not simply generalize the most likely and common reasons, but instead establish the contribution that pesticide use, climate change, and land use changes have on western bumblebee declines. As the study shows, both the drivers and solutions to pollinators declines are in human hands, necessitating a broad rethinking of the nation’s approach to energy use and food production. The western bumblebee has been under considerable stress for decades. In the 1990s, there were attempts to commercialize the species as a greenhouse pollinator. This industrial approach resulted in the spread of a fungal disease called Vairimorpha bombi, and captive rearing of the western bumblebee was eventually halted and deemed untenable. These dislocations resulted in local declines of the species in certain regions of U.S. Northwest […]

(Beyond Pesticides, January 24, 2023) Oral arguments begin this week in a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) approval of the antibiotic streptomycin as a pesticide on citrus crops. Brought forth by a coalition of farmworker, health, and environmental groups, the lawsuit aims to stop the use of a critical medical treatment for agricultural purposes. “Humanity’s dwindling supply of medically effective antibiotics is not worth sacrificing for an industry that has safer alternatives available,” said Drew Toher, community resource and policy director at Beyond Pesticides. “Despite the challenges, we know from the elimination of this material in organic production that we don’t need antibiotics in order to produce a glass of orange juice.”  In 2020, the Lancet published an article that identifies several of the multiple and interacting crises the U.S. and world face, with a focus on another “looming potential pandemic . . . [a] rise in multidrug-resistant bacterial infections that are undetected, undiagnosed, and increasingly untreatable, [whose rise] threatens the health of people in the USA and globally.” It calls on leaders in the U.S. and beyond, asking that even as they address the current coronavirus pandemic, they also attend to the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) problem, […]

(Beyond Pesticides, January 23, 2023) There is no doubt that the climate crisis is upon us. And the consequences are undeniably grave. So, we must incorporate our understanding of the grave health and environmental effects into the deliberations on all policy decisions regarding petrochemical pesticide registrations and synthetic fertilizer use in agriculture and nonagricultural land management. Of critical importance, in this context, is the effect of policy decisions on soil health—in particular, soil organic carbon, which sequesters atmospheric carbon and reduces its damaging atmospheric effects. Tell USDA, EPA, and Congress to incorporate in ALL its policy decisions an analysis of impact on the climate crisis, with particular attention to the protection of soil health. Although the soil is commonly recognized as a sink for atmospheric carbon, there is a false narrative that says carbon can be sequestered in the soil through chemical-intensive no-till agriculture. Now the Rodale Institute’s 40-Year Report on their “Farming Systems Trial” should end the myth of the toxic, petrochemical-based, GMO-herbicide, no-till systems. Rodale’s scientific trials clearly show that these degenerative no-till systems are inferior to Regenerative Organic Agriculture on every key criterion. The highest yields of corn in the tilled organic manure system and the best increases […]

(Beyond Pesticides, January 16, 2023) Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke about individual greatness on February 4, 1968 to his congregation at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta two months before he was assassinated. We take this day—Monday, January 16— to commemorate the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr. as an inspiration for taking on the challenges of justice, equity, and safety as a central part of all our work for a sustainable future. It will take the recognition of the greatness that all individuals have within to raise our voices in our communities to stop the toxic petrochemical assault and advance viable solutions that effect a transformation to organic practices and products. In so doing, we will address those who suffer the most harm from petrochemicals—in their production, transportation, use, and disposal. Whether determining our community’s management of public lands, playing fields, and parks, or choosing food grown without toxic chemicals, or creating habitat for biodiversity, we as individuals and collectively are the instruments for effecting meaningful change. This is true whether focused on an individual chemical exposure or in taking on the existential health, biodiversity, and climate crises of our day. Dr. King’s complete quote from which the […]

(Beyond Pesticides, January 13, 2023) The pastoral image that “farming” may still conjure for many will suffer a shock as Beyond Pesticides reports, in this Daily News Blog, about developments in the agricultural universe, including massive consolidation in the industries that supply seeds and agrochemicals to conventional farmers. A January 2023 report from Philip H. Howard, PhD updates previous work of his (see here and here) on these trends during the past couple of decades, and focuses on the most-recent (2018–2022) developments. The net conclusion is that the four largest agrochemical companies — Bayer (Monsanto), BASF, Corteva, and Sinochem (which recently subsumed ChemChina/Syngenta) — are exerting increasing leverage over an agricultural system that concentrates power and wealth, while threatening health, the environment, and access to food. The machinations of these industries for profit, power, market penetration, and privatization of aspects of the natural world are hardly new. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) summarizes some aspects of the situation in saying, “Land and seed once belonged to no one and were shared by all, replicating the giving essence of the natural world. Today, these precious resources are tightly controlled and commoditized inputs. The modern U.S. food and agriculture system is designed to […]

(Beyond Pesticides, January 11, 2022) Neonicotinoid insecticides can have detrimental effects on liver health, according to research published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. While this is the first study to investigate how these chemicals harm the liver, there is increasing evidence that neonicotinoids, otherwise notorious for their effects on pollinators and aquatic life, can cause direct harm to human health. As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to protect the pesticide industry from any measure of meaningful regulation around these hazardous products, the job falls to advocates to place pressure on elected officials to make the changes necessary to safeguard long-term health and well-being. Scientists postulated that neonicotinoids are neither metabolized by the liver nor excreted by urine. To test that hypothesis, 201 individuals from a hospital in China were enrolled into a study. Of the enrolled,  81 were cancer patients, and 120 were not. These individuals underwent a procedure called endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography whereby samples of their bile, a fluid produced in the liver, were retrieved and analyzed. Researchers also performed a series of blood tests, measuring a range of biomarkers, including cholesterol, bilirubin, bile acids, white blood cells, platelets, and others. Lastly, scientists determined the amount […]

(Beyond Pesticides, January 10, 2023) Pollinator losses are responsible for reducing the global production of nuts, fruits, and vegetables by 3-5%, and this loss of healthy, nutrient-dense food is resulting in over 425,000 excess deaths each year, according to research published late last year in Environmental Health Perspectives. While the connection between pollination, food production and health is intuitive, the study’s ability to trace how these impacts are directly harming the well-being of people living right now is shocking, and is a clear sign that pollinator losses must be taken seriously and addressed through meaningful action. To those who consider the decline of pollinators to be some vague, amorphous future threat, let this study end that myth. According to researchers, “Today’s estimated health impacts of insufficient pollination would be comparable to other major global risk factors: those attributable to substance use disorders, interpersonal violence, or prostate cancer. Per a United Nations report, 75 percent of the world’s food crops depend at least in part on pollination, with pollinators contributing an estimated $235 to $577 billion to global crop production annually. Pollinator declines are already adversely impacting food production. A 2016 paper by many of the scientists in the current study […]

(Beyond Pesticides, January 3, 2023) The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) announced new rules that remove existing limits on the use of 1,3-dichloropropene (1,3-D or Telone), allowing Californians to breathe much more 1,3-D than state toxicologists in the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) say is safe and highlighting the dangers to which farmworkers are routinely exposed. It is outrageous that the state of California and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would allow farmworkers—whose labor was judged “essential” during the pandemic—to be routinely exposed to highly toxic pesticides, which could be replaced by organic practices. While the state of California describes its action as increasing protection, advocates point to continued use, unacceptable harm, and the availability of alternative organic agricultural production methods that eliminate the use of 1,3-D. Since over a third of the country’s vegetables and three-quarters of the country’s fruits and nuts are grown in California, most people who buy their food in a grocery store have a stake in how food is grown in the state and the impact that it has on those who live and work there. Tell the state of California, U.S. EPA, an the U.S. Congress to cancel the registration […]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 21, 2022) Imagine plucking a flower and being able to find out every insect that recently visited that plant. Utilizing cutting-edge metabarcoding techniques, a team of Danish researchers has made that possibility a reality. By evaluating the environmental DNA (eDNA) left behind by insect pollinators alongside visual assessment surveys, a new study is providing an innovative way for farmers to improve pollination and protect on-farm biodiversity. Ultimately, study author Lene Sigsgaard, PhD, of the University of Copenhagen believes that, “With more knowledge of the pollinators in apples and other crops, we can begin to provide tailor-made flower mixes for individual crops, and improve our knowledge on the value of the surrounding landscape for wild pollinators.” Scientists focused on four different apple orchards throughout Denmark, three of which utilize pesticides (though only one sprayed during the study period), and another following organic practices. For each orchard, five apple flowers were collected from four separate rows. These flowers were then brought to the laboratory from DNA extraction. Scientists also conducted visual monitoring, whereby an observer stood between two orchard rows and recorded all flower visitors within roughly eight feet of themselves. The two methods of observation provide somewhat differing, […]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 15, 2022) Industrial agriculture has both created and amplified the spread of the now highly problematic waterhemp (Amaranthus tuberculatus) plant, according to research published this month in the journal Science. Over the last 80 years, the push to increase monoculture plantings, expand cropland, and utilize chemical fertilizers and pesticides has changed waterhemp from a tame riparian wild plant into an aggressive, weedy intruder able to compete with row crops like corn and soybean. “The genetic variants that help the plant do well in modern agricultural settings have risen to high frequencies remarkably quickly since agricultural intensification in the 1960s,” said study author Julia Kreiner, PhD with the University of British Columbia’s Department of Botany. “The types of changes we’re imposing in agricultural environments are so strong that they have consequences in neighbouring habitats that we’d usually think were natural.” To better understand how this plant went from a waterside obscurity to North America’s most notorious “weed,” researchers tracked the shifts occurring within the plants genome. Using data from herbarium samples first collected in 1828 until 2011, scientists sought out alleles (genetic mutations) that corresponded with agricultural intensification and analyzed the frequency of their occurrence over the nearly […]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 9, 2022) Representatives from more than 195 countries have descended on Montreal for the December 7 start of COP15 — the United Nation’s (UN’s) Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The UN Development Programme sets out the context for this summit: “Despite ongoing efforts, biodiversity is deteriorating worldwide, and this decline is projected to worsen with business-as-usual. The loss of biodiversity comes at a great cost for human well-being and the global economy.” Beyond Pesticides has documented many aspects of this decline in biodiversity, and the implications for ecosystem, human, and planetary health. In this COP15 context, the data points to the importance of broad adoption of organic regenerative / agroecological systems, which can very significantly address the interactive health, biodiversity, and climate crises. Close on the heels of November’s UN COP27 summit on climate, COP15 has commenced, with the goal of adopting a post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (CBF) to provide “a strategic vision and a global roadmap for the conservation, protection, restoration, and sustainable management of biodiversity and ecosystems for the next decade.” The first such summit was called the Convention on Biological Diversity and was held in 1993. Out of […]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 8, 2022) Children with higher levels of certain pesticide metabolites are more likely to go through early puberty, according to research published recently in Environmental Pollution. The findings by a team of Spanish researchers speak to a need for greater protections for children from toxic pesticide exposure. Children are much more sensitive to pesticide exposure than adults as they take in greater amounts of toxics relative to their body weight and have developing organ systems. Managing homes and yards without chemicals and purchasing organic food whenever possible can significantly reduce childhood pesticide exposure.   Researchers began their investigation with children aged 7-11 participating in the Spanish state’s Environment and Childhood multicenter birth cohort stud, an ongoing project aimed at understanding the effect of environmental exposures on pregnancy, fetal, and childhood development in the country. Out of over 3,000 children enrolled in the project, 1,539 had their urine sampled for the presence of pesticide metabolites. Scientists focused on four insecticides breakdown products—a chlorpyrifos metabolite ‘TCPy’, a metabolite of the organochlorine diazinon ‘IMPy’, a general organophosphate metabolite ‘DETP’, the pyrethroid metabolite ‘3-PBA’, and a metabolite of ethylene-bis-dithiocarbamate fungicides ‘ETU’. Urinary levels of these pesticide metabolites were then compared against […]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 7, 2022) A recent study from Australian researchers has investigated pesticide use through an unusual lens — by quantifying the environmental footprints of pesticide use in 82 countries and territories (and eight regions), and then concluding that international trade drives significant pesticide use. The researchers identify the U.S., Brazil, and Spain as the biggest exporters of the “pesticide hazard load” associated with those environmental footprints, and China, the United Kingdom, and Germany as the top three importers. They lay responsibility for this hazard load at the feet of the unsustainable intensification of chemical-intensive agriculture (via synthetic pesticide and fertilizer use during the past 50 years), and ratcheting consumer demand for goods and services. Indeed, they conclude that the latter, in “developed” countries, is responsible for a substantial portion of the pesticide pollution in other countries. The study authors note that previous “efforts to quantify the environmental footprints of global production and consumption have covered a wide range of indicators, including greenhouse gas emissions, water scarcity, biodiversity, nitrogen pollution, acidification, land use, and others, but they have largely missed . . . represent[ing] the environmental pressures exerted by pesticide use.” The researchers set themselves the task of quantifying […]