(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 22, 2022) International health and environmental groups submitted an urgent letter to  the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) late last month demanding “greater transparency and accountability” through termination of the agency’s two-year-old partnership with CropLife International (CLI), a global trade association representing the world’s biggest pesticide manufacturers. Addressed to FAO Deputy Director Beth Bechdol ahead of FAO Council 171 session in Rome and COP15, the letter outlines a unique opportunity for the organization to lead the phaseout of fossil-fuel based food systems and use of agrochemicals while upholding the agency’s responsibility to act in response to conflicts of interest and human rights violations.   The original Letter of Intent (LOI), signed between CLI President and CEO Guilia Di Tommaso and FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu in October 2020, framed the partnership as a means to ensure humanity’s freedom from hunger while advancing Sustainable Development Goals. However, according to PAN Europe Policy Officer Manon Rouby, “While the private sector has been working with FAO for years, this official agreement with CropLife directly threatens FAO’s work on supporting farmers in the transition towards agroecology, while reducing the harms of synthetic pesticides worldwide. With CropLife members being the largest agrichemical […]

(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 19, 2022) As the new 118th Congress convenes on January 3, 2023, one of the key issues on the agenda led by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives is preemption of local authority to restrict pesticide use—undercutting the local democratic process to protect public health and safety. In the 117th Congress, H.R. 7266 was introduced to prohibit local governments from adopting pesticide laws that are more protective than federal and state rules. If H.R. 7266 were to pass or be incorporated into the 2023 Farm Bill, as the pesticide industry and proponents of the legislation plan to do, this bill would overturn decades of precedent as well as prevent local governments from protecting their residents from hazardous chemicals in their environment.   This is a direct assault on nearly 200 communities across the country that have passed their own policies to restrict the use of toxic pesticides. Communities must maintain the right to restrict pesticides linked to cancer, water-contamination, and the decline of pollinators to protect their resident’s health and unique local ecosystems.   Take action today and tell your U.S. Representative and Senators to support communities by opposing H.R. 7266 (and successor legislation in the new Congress) […]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 16, 2022) A report released last week — Merchants of Poison: How Monsanto Sold the World on a Toxic Pesticide — exposes not only Bayer/Monsanto malfeasance in its “promotion” of its glyphosate-based herbicide products, including the notorious Roundup®, but also, the broader landscape of corporate efforts to white- or green-wash products that companies know are harmful to people and the environment. The report was issued by U.S. Right to Know (USRTK, a nonprofit investigative research group focused on promoting transparency for public health), Friends of the Earth (FOE), and Real Food Media. It carries the pithy subtitle, “A case study in disinformation, corrupted science, and manufactured doubt about glyphosate,” a description cited by the Friends of the Earth press release as “at the core of the pesticide industry’s public relations playbook.” Beyond Pesticides welcomes this report, which comports with much of our previous coverage of the pesticide industry’s egregious misbehavior, and of glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide. FOE calls the report the “first comprehensive review” of the Bayer/Monsanto “defense strategy” employed in attempts to deny science, manufacture doubt, and discredit critics who have researched, reported on, and/or advocated against the company’s flagship glyphosate products because […]

(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 14, 2022) Ultraviolet (UV-C) light has the potential to successfully manage mite (Tetranychus urticae) populations without reducing yields or resorting to toxic pesticides, according to research published by scientists at University of Florida. “Since very few miticides (sprays) are currently effective in suppressing twospotted spider mites in strawberries, the use of UV light provides an effective physical control method that can be used in fields and in high-tunnel strawberry production systems,” says study author Sriyanka Lahiri, PhD. The findings provide an encouraging technique for farmers, but further investigation is needed to observe the success of this approach in other cropping systems.   Researchers compared the efficacy of four treatment approaches, including use of the insecticide spinetoram, a low powered application of UV-C light twice a week, a high-powered application of UV-C light twice a week, and an untreated control. Researchers also looked closely at mite egg hatchability by rearing eggs in the laboratory and then transferring them out to the field for treatment with UV-C light. Results were not consistent across the two-year trial as researchers indicate that in most of the field trials, no effect was seen due to low levels of natural infestation. However, during […]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 12, 2022) It is time for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to follow through on its duty to assess individual “inert” ingredients used in organic production. In creating the original regulations for the National Organic Program (NOP), USDA—based on the recommendation of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB)—decided to postpone the evaluation of so-called “inert” ingredients until active materials had been reviewed for the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances. In this context, “inert” is a misleading legal term since the ingredient may be chemically or biologically active, but not included for purposes of attacking a target organism. The first regulation and all subsequent revisions have allowed the use of “inert” ingredients on EPA’s former Lists 4A (“minimal risk inert ingredients”) and 4B (“other ingredients for which EPA has sufficient information to reasonably conclude that the current use pattern in pesticide products will not adversely affect public health or the environment”). A limited number on List 3 (“inerts of unknown toxicity”) were allowed in pheromone products. [This action requires a submission at Regulations.gov. You can copy and paste from the suggested comment below. Comments are due December 31, 2022.] Tell USDA that the National Organic Program […]

(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 […]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 6, 2022) Persistent organic pollutants (POPs)—including banned pesticides—present a health risk to humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae), according to a study published in Environmental Pollution. Regarding female humpback whales, levels of POPs in blubber are higher in juveniles and subadults than in adults, primarily from the transference of contaminants from the mother to her calf.  Organochlorine compounds (OCs), such as organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), are well-known persistent organic pollutants. The international Stockholm Convention treaty (signed by 152 countries, but not the U.S.) banned these primary pollutants of concern (UNEP, 2009) in 2001 (taking effect in 2004) because of their persistence, toxicity, and adverse effects on environmental and biological health. These pollutants have a global distribution, with evaporation and precipitation facilitating long-range atmospheric transport, deposition, and bioaccumulation of hazardous chemicals in the environment. However, these chemicals can remain in the environment for decades and interact with various current-use pesticides, including organophosphates, neonicotinoids, and pyrethroids. Although various studies demonstrate the volatile, toxic nature of POPs, much less research evaluates the impact POPs have on maternal offloading or transfer of contaminates to offspring and respective health consequences. The globe is currently going through the Holocene Extinction, Earth’s 6th mass extinction, with one […]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 5, 2022) A petition filed last week with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) urges increased protections for the West Indian manatee after dramatic declines in its population over recent years. In 2017, USFWS downgraded the classification of the manatee from endangered—a category that broadly protects against “take,” defined as “to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct”—to threatened, for which an “acceptable” level of “take” is allowed. Following the downlisting of the species, manatee populations have declined dramatically. Tell the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to upgrade the Florida manatee to endangered and require protection from chemical pollution. Tell your Congressional Representative to cosponsor H.R. 4946 and your Senators to introduce identical legislation. Tell Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to protect manatees. Florida manatees, a subspecies of the West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus), can live as long as 60 years, weigh up to 1,200 lbs, and have no natural predators. The biggest threat to these peaceful marine mammals is human activity. Humans harm manatees directly through boat strikes and encounters with fishing equipment, canal locks, and other flood control structures, but the largest threat […]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 2, 2022) The longest-running — four-decade — investigation comparing organic and conventional grain-cropping approaches in North America is reporting impressive results for organic. Recently announced in the Rodale Institute’s Farming Systems Trial — 40-Year Report are these outcomes: (1) organic systems achieve 3–6 times the profit of conventional production; (2) yields for the organic approach are competitive with those of conventional systems (after a five-year transition period); (3) organic yields during stressful drought periods are 40% higher than conventional yields; (4, 5, and 6) organic systems leach no toxic compounds into nearby waterways (unlike pesticide-intensive conventional farming), use 45% less energy than conventional, and emit 40% less carbon into the atmosphere. Beyond Pesticides reported in 2019 on similar results, from the institute’s 30-year project mark, which have been borne out by another three years of the trials. The current report builds on results from the FST that were shared in the RI’s 2020 white paper, Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change: A Down-to-Earth Solution to Global Warming,” which integrated the newest research data and offered action steps for consumers, policymakers, farmers, and others. That report asserted that a global switch to a regenerative food system could not […]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 1, 2022) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must put measures in place to protect endangered species from the hazardous insecticide cyantraniliprole before September 2023. The requirements stems from a recent federal appeals court ruling that found EPA in violation of its statutory obligations under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The agency originally lost its legal case on this chemical in 2017, but has since done nothing to fulfill the initial court order, necessitating further litigation by conservation groups. “It’s outrageous that the EPA is thumbing its nose at a federal court order even as cyantraniliprole wreaks havoc on our most endangered wildlife,” said Jonathan Evans, environmental health legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The EPA has acknowledged that this pesticide is incredibly toxic to bees and other invertebrates, but the agency is so accustomed to putting the profits of the pesticide industry ahead of its duty to protect human health and our environment that for years it simply ignored a direct court order.” Cyantraniliprole is a systemic insecticide registered for use in 2014. It presents similar risks to pollinators and wildlife as other widely used systemics, such as the neonicotinoid class of chemicals. Its […]

(Beyond Pesticides, November, 30, 2022) A petition filed last week with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) urges increased protections for the West Indian manatee after dramatic declines in its population over the last several years. In 2017, the USFWS downgraded protections for the manatee, a move that was widely criticized by conservation groups as premature. That sentiment has become a reality, with nearly 2,000 manatees dying over the last two years from a range of preventable factors. West Indian manatees, a species of manatee that includes the Florida and Antillean Manatee subspecies, were first listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1973, at a time when there were less than 1,000 individual animals in the United States. By 2017, the number of manatees had increased to over 6,000, leading then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to downlist (downgrade) the animals from endangered to threatened under ESA. ESA works to protect species by listing them as either threatened or endangered. A species classified as endangered is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant a portion of its range and a threatened classification means the species is likely to be endangered within the foreseeable future.  Endangered species are given […]

(Beyond Pesticides, November 29, 2022) Based on new international research adding weight to previous research on falling sperm counts, it is critical that environmental agencies address this and other problems related to endocrine disruption. The study by Levine et al. finds that the drop in sperm count—a drop of 51.6% from 1973 through 2018—is global and that the rate of decline is accelerating. Tell EPA and Congress that pesticide use cannot continue without findings of no endocrine disruption.  The documented (average) drop in sperm counts is approaching the level at which the ability to cause a pregnancy begins to plummet dramatically. The reduction in male fertility may have profound psychological and social impacts, including anxiety, low self-esteem, and depression. These psychological problems have health impacts of their own. Equally serious are connections of anxiety and depression with violent behavior and suicide. Compounding the problem is the fact that men are unlikely to seek fertility-related social support. The drop in sperm counts is just one example of endocrine disruption largely due to exposure to toxic chemicals. The endocrine system consists of a set of glands (thyroid, gonads, adrenal and pituitary) and the hormones they produce (thyroxine, estrogen, testosterone, and adrenaline), which […]

(Beyond Pesticides, November 27, 2022) On Tuesday, November 29 (at 1:00-2:30pmEST), two preeminent researchers will present their research and worldwide collaborative work to fully characterize the effects of the climate crisis and the viable solutions associated with land management. The Forum headliners are (i) Rachel Bezner Kerr, PhD, Cornell University professor just back from COP 27 [27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] and co-author of the definitive United Nations (UN) report on climate and food production and (ii) Andrew Smith, PhD, chief operating officer of the Rodale Institute and coauthor of several landmark reports on soil biology and carbon sequestration, including the just released Farming Systems Trial—40-Year Report. With livability of the planet on the brink, the speakers at the upcoming Forum make the case to immediately reverse the increase of greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane to stop the changes on the horizon that destroy life—from floods, fires, and associated climate-induced hazards to food production. The good news, according to the scientists, is that there are solutions available now in the agricultural and land management sectors that can reverse the threat if dramatic changes are made. Dr. Bezner Kerr, […]

(Beyond Pesticides, November 24, 2021) On Thanksgiving, thank you for being a part of Beyond Pesticides and sharing and contributing to the vision necessary to protect the web and the fragility of life. We believe that there is no time like Thanksgiving to think about how we can more effectively join together as families and communities across divisions and different points of view to find a common purpose in protecting the health of the environment and all that inhabit it. Unfortunately, a host of pesticides, genetically engineered materials, and others in conventional Thanksgiving foods impact human health and threaten the environment. With far too many adverse health and ecological effects associated with toxic chemicals, organic practices are viable solutions to mitigate pesticide contamination and subsequent exposure. Read on as we consider the range of challenges we must confront and the solutions that can bring us all together. Additionally, you can help Beyond Pesticides in educating and building a movement that will bring long-needed protection to humans, animals, and the entire environment by attending the third seminar on November 29 on Climate during the 2022 National Forum Series, Health, Biodiversity, and Climate: A Path for a Livable Future. The National Forum […]

(Beyond Pesticides, November 23, 2022) A new study throws into question the value of the pest management concept of setting action levels around pest infestations. In the course of watermelon production over a span of two years, pollination, not pest levels, was the key determining factor for yield. “These data advocate for a reprioritization of management, to conserve and protect wild bee pollination, which could be more critical than avoiding pest damage for ensuring high yields,” the study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, indicates. Action levels are considered an important aspect of an integrated pest management (IPM) approach in agriculture, whereby a pest infestation reaches levels considered economically unacceptable, leading to a decision to engage in pest control. The concept of IPM however has been influenced by the chemical industry over the decades since its original definition and recent data indicates that it has failed to stop toxic pesticide use. The original intent of IPM was the adoption of preventive practices and utilization of nonchemical tools, placing pesticide use as a last resort when pest control is warranted. However, farms that self-identify as IPM operations use pesticides, sometimes as the first line of defense, while attempting to […]

(Beyond Pesticides, November 22, 2022) Fungus that survive a fungicide application may be able to multiply and thrive, putting plant yields at risk. This finding comes from research recently published by scientists at University of Illinois, focusing on the impact of fungicide use on soybean yields and the disease Septoria brown spot, caused by the fungus Septoria glycines. The research underlines the danger of preventive chemical applications in an attempt to protect yield and shows how precarious pesticide use can be when subject to the complexity seen in field conditions. Scientists began with the intent of analyzing the soybean’s phyllosphere mycobiome, the fungal microbial make-up of the outside of the plant, including all its surfaces above-ground. A field trial was established near Urbana, Illinois, and soybeans plants were separated into four different plots according to their treatment. One group was inoculated with Septoria glycines, another inoculated and sprayed with a fungicide, a third not inoculated yet sprayed with a fungicide, and a final control group neither inoculated nor treated with a fungicide. A range of different analyses were conducted to view changes in the disease development and mycobiome composition over time. Soybean plants that had been inoculated with Septoria showed […]

(Beyond Pesticides, November 21, 2022) Once again, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has registered a new pesticide without performing a thorough review of its impacts on biodiversity as well as threatened and endangered species. Inpyrfluxam was registered in 2020 and only after being sued by the Center for Biological Diversity for failure to comply with the Endangered Species Act (ESA) did EPA commit to completing draft effects determinations by Fall 2022. Once again, EPA’s draft biological evaluation is incomplete and inadequate. EPA is accepting comments on its draft biological evaluation at Regulations.gov.  Tell EPA and Congress that Pesticide Registrations Require Complete Science. The Review of Inpyrfluxam is Incomplete and Inadequate.  The agency’s draft effects assessment is flawed and incomplete. We share the details because it shows that EPA is out of step with the science and its regulatory responsibility when it comes a thorough review for ecosystem effects of pesticides.   The agency used fish early life stage (ELS) tests to estimate chronic fish toxicity. This is inappropriate. The fish ELS is a sub-chronic test of sensitive life stages. Although it is often used as a surrogate or predictor of chronic toxicity, it does not adequately address potential adverse effects on reproduction or transfer of the test chemical to eggs/offspring […]

(Beyond Pesticides, November 18, 2022) A new meta-analysis, from researchers at Mount Sinai Medical Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the University of Copenhagen, among others, finds that the drop in global sperm count is accelerating and the problem has become global. The study shows that sperm count (until this study measured largely in North America, Europe, and Australia) has dropped by 51.6% from 1973 through 2018, and that the rate of decline is gaining speed worldwide.  A primary culprit, among a plexus of factors, is widespread exposure to toxic chemicals, including pesticides, in the environment. Beyond the implications for individuals and families, this global decline in sperm counts has the potential for population-level impacts and, according to Dr. Shanna Swan, an expert environmental–reproductive epidemiologist, could mean that “in the coming decades, large swaths of the global population of men could be subfertile or infertile.” Beyond Pesticides has long highlighted the relationship between reproductive anomalies and toxic pesticides, particularly the role of endocrine-disrupting (ED) compounds. Most recently, we covered a meta-study on pesticides and fertility that “finds exposure associated with lower semen quality, DNA fragmentation, and chromosomal abnormalities.” The new study is covered in Environmental Health News (EHN). From 1972 […]