(Beyond Pesticides, April 28, 2023) A study published in Science of The Total Environment finds agricultural communities encounter chronic and measurable pesticide exposure regardless of seasonal pesticide applications. Several biomonitoring studies demonstrate people living adjacent to or within agricultural areas often experience elevated levels of organophosphate (OP) insecticides, even while not working directly with OPs. Six dialkyl phosphate (DAP) metabolites (breakdown products) of OPs persist in urine during the spraying and non-spraying seasons. Despite 75 percent of OPs metabolizing into one or more of the six DAPs and excreting within six to 24 hours after exposure, the consistent levels of DAPs in urine highlight continuous exposure beyond regular seasonal pesticide applications.

OP compounds have a global distribution, with evaporation and precipitation facilitating long-range atmospheric transport, deposition, and bioaccumulation of hazardous chemicals in the environment. OPs are highly toxic and, as this study shows, residues are consistently present in human and animal urine, as well as blood, tissues, and milk. Considering 90 percent of Americans have at least one pesticide compound in their body, primarily stemming from dietary exposure, including food and drinking water, advocates maintain that current restrictions on their use must adequately detect and assess total chemical contaminants. The study notes, “We suggest that among agricultural communities that experience chronic exposure to nearby pesticide applications, OPs may persist in indoor and outdoor environments. The results of the current analysis provide additional evidence to suggest that residents of agricultural communities experience OP exposure even when [a] recent application has not occurred.”

Researchers gathered data from agricultural community members in the Central Valley of California to determine important factors associated with urinary DAPs levels among these high-exposure communities. The cohort included 80 children and adults who lived within 61 m (200 ft) of agricultural fields in the Central Valley of California in January (pesticide non-spraying season) and June (pesticide spraying season) 2019. The researchers collected one urine sample per participant during each visit to measure DAP metabolites. Additionally, researchers gathered supplementary data with in-person surveys to identify health, household, sociodemographic, pesticide exposure, and occupational risk factors. Using a data-driven, best-subsets regression approach, researchers identified key factors that influence urinary DAP levels.

The results find those with seasonal employment, likely to be in agriculture, have higher DAPs concentration in urine than those who do not work seasonally. However, the subset regression identifies numerous individual- and household-level factors that influence total DAPs: “the number of years spent living at the current address, household use of chemical products to control mice/rodents, and seasonal employment status.” Among adults, those with education on pesticide exposure mitigation and age are significant factors associated with total DAPs in urine. Among adults only, the study identifies educational attainment (for total DAPs) and age category (for EDM) as significant factors.

Numerous occupational hazards are associated with chemical exposure, especially among individuals with occupations that involve regular exposure to xenobiotic (foreign substance) compounds. The agricultural sector has a long-standing history of synthetic chemical use, which disproportionally affects farmworkers‘ health. Furthermore, farmworkers’ children are at greater risk as their immune system response is immature and especially vulnerable to stressors from pesticide exposure. Synthetic chemicals in pesticides can accumulate in bodies, causing an amalgamation of health effects. These effects can range from heightened risks of various cancers (e.g., prostate, hepatic, liver, etc.) and endocrine disruption to mental health problems (e.g., depression), respiratory illnesses (asthma), and many other pesticide-induced diseases. However, pesticide exposure is ubiquitous and not confined to where it is applied. Pesticides and other toxic chemicals can enter homes from the workplace via clothes, shoes, and home-based personal protective equipment (PPE) and accumulate residues on laundry, on carpets, and in art/house dust. Some cases demonstrate that levels of chemicals transported into the house can be high enough to cause an adverse health effect in a resident child or spouse. Although pesticide exposure through the skin or inhalation is most prevalent among individuals working around these toxic chemicals, the general population also experiences pesticide exposure through residues in food and water resources. Many of these chemical compounds remain in soils, water (solid and liquid), and the surrounding air at levels exceeding U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards. The increasing ubiquity of pesticides concerns public health advocates as current measures safeguarding against pesticide use do not adequately detect and assess total environmental chemical contaminants. Therefore, individuals will continuously encounter varying concentrations of pesticides and other toxic chemicals, adding to the body’s burden of current-use chemicals.

Organophosphate (OP) insecticide use is widespread, while the industry promotes the chemicals as having greater efficiency and lesser environmental persistence. However, OPs are a class of insecticides known to have adverse effects on the nervous system, having the same mode of action as nerve agents for chemical warfare. OPs originate from the same compounds as World War II nerve agents, adversely affecting the nervous system. Chemical exposure can cause a buildup of acetylcholine (a chemical neurotransmitter responsible for brain and muscle function) and lead to acute impacts, such as uncontrolled, rapid twitching of some muscles, paralyzed breathing, convulsions, and, in extreme cases, death. The compromise of nerve impulse transmission can have broad systemic impacts on the function of multiple body systems. In addition to being highly toxic to terrestrial and aquatic organisms, human exposure to organophosphates can induce endocrine disruption, reproductive dysfunction, fetal defects, neurotoxic damage, and kidney/liver damage. Exposure can increase vulnerability to deadly diseases, including COVID-19. Furthermore, OPs are one of the leading causes of intentional poisoning globally, as pesticide toxicity makes them potentially lethal substances.

Urinary OP biomarker levels did not vary, and the risk was the same throughout all seasons. OP metabolites are typically excreted in the urine within a 6- to 24-hour period, so the study concludes that participants who had detectable levels of urinary DAPs had a recent exposure to OPs, regardless of seasonal spraying. There are other more prominent sources of OP contamination. For instance, diet accounts for a considerable proportion of people’s exposures to pesticides in the U.S.; 2016 data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) show that 47% of domestically produced foods and 49% of imported foods had detectable pesticide residues. A number of studies point to organics as protective as studies confirm that urinary DAP levels reduce after a week-long shift to an organic diet; a 2015 study that found that adults who consumed organic produce had lower urinary levels of organophosphate residues (as detected via levels of DAPs); and another in 2015 that concluded that a switch to an organic diet reduced the body burden of pesticides in children, especially in low-income urban, marginalized, and agricultural communities. Considering this study finds urinary OP metabolites among children and household dust OP levels increase as residential distance to orchards decreases, the study identifies important factors that influence pesticide exposure among agricultural communities. Given proximity to applications, take-home exposure from occupational workers, and residual environmental exposures, a majority of pesticide exposure disproportionately burdens Hispanic/Latino(a) communities, which contain most of the population in the study area. However, the study suggests future research establishes exposure routes that put agricultural communities, and others at risk.

The study concludes, “We suggest that future research should explore more refined exposure assessment methods to evaluate unique routes of exposure (i.e., inhalation, ingestion, or dermal contact). These efforts will support strong epidemiologic research to identify health impacts of OPs. Findings may also support community education about effective and personalized exposure mitigation strategies for agricultural community members to promote environmental justice.”

Although most OP uses in the U.S. are now agricultural, toxicity experts recommend banning all OPs for agricultural use. EPA and the World Health Organization (WHO) consider over 40 OPs that are moderately or highly hazardous to human health. EPA classifies as probable carcinogens some commonly used OPs like malathion, a popular mosquito control, and tetrachlorvinphos, a common flea and tick killer in pet collars and shampoos. States, including Hawaii, California, New York, and Maryland, had already adopted plans to phase out uses of the OP chlorpyrifos, to different degrees, in agriculture following evidence of neurotoxic effects on children. EPA announced the cancellation of all chlorpyrifos food production uses in the U.S., as chemical contamination among the general population remained considerable even after implementing residential use restrictions over two decades ago. However, even with the agency announcement of agricultural use cancellations, chlorpyrifos will still remain available for golf courses and as mosquito adulticide.

The pesticide marketplaces still contain many chemicals that cause similar endocrine-disrupting, cancer-causing, neurotoxic health effects. Additionally, imported goods can still contain chemical residues as chlorpyrifos residues do not disappear immediately after end-use and will persist in our environment for quite some time.

Therefore, policies should enforce stricter pesticide regulations and increase research on the long-term impacts of pesticide exposure. Beyond Pesticides tracks the most recent studies related to pesticide exposure through our Pesticide Induced Diseases Database (PIDD). This database supports the clear need for strategic action to shift away from pesticide dependency. For more information on the many harms of pesticides on health, see PIDD pages on body burdens (urine and other compartments), endocrine disruption, cancer, and other diseases. Learn more about how inadequate pesticide use regulations, including organophosphates, can adversely affect human and environmental health; see Beyond Pesticides,’ Pesticides and You article “Highly Destructive Pesticide Effects Unregulated.”

Beyond Pesticides advocates a precautionary approach to pest management in land management and agriculture by transiting to organic. Buying, growing, and supporting organic can help eliminate the extensive use of pesticides in the environment and from your diet. For more information on how organic is the right choice for consumers and the farmworkers who grow our food, see the Beyond Pesticides’ webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture. 

Spring is here, so grow your spring garden the organic way by Springing Into Action, pledging to eliminate toxic pesticide use.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: Science of The Total Environment

(Beyond Pesticides, April 27, 2023) The Nevada Assembly, by unanimous vote, took the state one step closer to banning the use of neonicotinoid insecticides used on plants, with a waiver for commercial agricultural purposes. Despite dramatic declines in bee populations linked to neonicotinoid pesticides and other toxic pesticides, the U.S. Environmental Protection (EPA) and state regulatory authorities have for the most part ignored beekeepers and the independent scientific literature by allowing widespread toxic pesticide use—forcing elected officials to take protective action. Portions of the bill would take effect upon passage or no later than January 1, 2024. Maine and New Jersey have adopted similar legislation.

The failure to adequately regulate pesticides under federal law, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), and EPA inaction is viewed by environmentalists as the shocking disregard for the importance of biodiversity to sustaining life. The inadequate restriction of pesticides and slower than necessary transition to organic land management practices are viewed as major contributors to the “insect apocalypse.” The legislation (A.B. 162), led by Assemblywoman Michelle Gorelow and a group of nine other Assemblymembers, illustrates a growing trend of local and state legislative bodies asserting their authority to protect against health, biodiversity, and climate crises, linked to petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers, that are escalating out-of-control to devastating levels—with the U.S. Congress and federal agencies standing silent.

“We applaud the Nevada Assembly’s initiative to protect pollinators and urge elected officials nationwide to see the pending biodiversity collapse as reason for broader action to eliminate petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers with organic systems that are effective and cost competitive,” said Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides.

A systematic review of insect population studies worldwide in Biological Conservation magazine (2019) reports on “the dreadful state of insect biodiversity in the world, as almost half of the species are rapidly declining and a third are being threatened with extinction.” The study concludes with the dire prediction that insects as a whole will go extinct in the next few decades if patterns of pesticide use and other factors continue. Many systemic pesticides, like neonicotinoids are taken up by the vascular system of the plant and expressed through pollen, nectar, and guttation droplets, causing indiscriminate poisoning and death to pollinating and foraging insects, including bees, butterflies, and birds. The chemicals also move through soil, killing terrestrial and aquatic organisms.

The complexity of pesticide hazards is captured in a statement by biology professor Matthew Forister, PhD, University of Nevada (Reno), who told the Natural Resources Nevada Assembly Committee: “[T]he extreme and prolonged droughts of recent decades are reducing the densities of beneficial insects in . . .open lands. This new reality elevates the importance of all decisions that we make about managed lands, and chief among these decisions is the use of pesticides.”

As is typical, pesticides often cause a mixture of environmental and public health effects. According to Drew Toher, community resource and policy director, Beyond Pesticides, “Emerging data shows neonicotinoids can act as hormone disruptors, increasing the risk of breast cancer; they can readily transfer from mother to fetus through the placenta, increasing risk of birth defects; they are associated with liver damage, and neurological impacts like memory loss.”

The Toiyabe Chapter of the Sierra Club said, “The good news is that there are many safe alternatives to using neonicotinoid pesticides. If we switch to these safer methods, we could save the pollinators, other animals, and improve human health.”

The New York State Assembly passed a similar bill (A03226), the Birds and Bees Protection Act. The Act bans neonicotinoid use on outdoor ornamental plants and turf, with a general exemption for agriculture except for treated seed. The bill, opposed by the New York Farm Bureau, contains a ban on seeds treated with neonicotinoids, but includes an “emergency” override by the State Commissioner of Agriculture, based on a written determination that (i) a valid environmental emergency exists; (ii) the pesticide would be effective in addressing the environmental emergency; and (iii) no other, less harmful pesticide or pest management practice would be effective in addressing the environmental emergency. The bill would immediately ban chlothianidin or dinotefuran, leaving the most widely used neonicotinoid imidachloprid, as well as thiamethoxam or acetamiprid, on the market until July 1, 2025.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Sources: A.B. 162; Beyond Pesticides’ Nevada testimony; statement of Dr. Forister; Statement of Toiyabe Chapter of the Sierra Cub; Birds and Bees Protection Act..

(Beyond Pesticides, April 26, 2023) Organic methods of honey bee management are just as or more effective than conventional, chemical-intensive management systems, according to research published this month in the journal Scientific Reports by a team of Penn State scientists. This finding is important as managed pollinators continue to be under stress primarily from pesticide exposure, but also other factors, such as disease, pests, climate change, and habitat loss. In this context, beekeeping management practices can mean the difference between a colony thriving, surviving, or declining.

“Beekeeping management is a key aspect of honey bee health because it can help mitigate some of the negative effects caused by these stressors,” said study co-author Robyn Underwood, PhD, of Penn State Extension. “For example, supplemental feeding can mitigate a lack of flowering plants nearby for foraging, and beekeepers can manage pests such as Varroa mites with cultural, mechanical and chemical control practices.”

Scientists developed protocols to test different beekeeping management systems through participatory science. Thirty beekeepers were invited to work with scientists using protocols on experimental design, applying three different management approaches: i) conventional chemical; ii) organic; and iii) management without inputs. “We wanted to replicate what beekeepers were doing in their bee yards,” study coauthor Margarita López-Uribe, PhD, said. “It wasn’t scientists just telling beekeepers how to do things—it was beekeepers telling us how they do things, and then we collected data over multiple years comparing the different systems.”

The experiment worked with eight certified organic farms in the Pennsylvania and West Virginia region, establishing 288 different colonies, with each farm housing 36 colonies. All colonies were established from packaged bees. Scientists worked to homogenize the genetic background of the colonies by requeening all colonies with grafted sister queens from a colony located near Utica, NY that had not received varroa treatments for seven years or more.

Management approaches differed based on the approach. Conventionally managed colonies had screened bottom boards, and were treated each fall with the miticide Apivar, containing the conventional chemical amitraz. They were given candy boards over winter in January.

Organic colonies contained solid bottom boards, and were treated with a rotation of organic-approved materials. Combs designed specifically to rear drones (and subsequently be removed to address Varroa) were employed, and over winter rations included granulated sucrose provided in January.

Colonies without inputs utilized a smaller cell foundation than the other two colonies (4.9mm vs 5.4 mm), used solid bottom boards, a cotton cloth inner cover, and were not treated for mites or given over winter food unless there was evidence of hive starvation.

Colonies were inspected every two weeks in 2018 and 2019, and every three weeks in 2020 due to the pandemic. Pests and pathogens were counted in October of each year, screening for a range of honey bee diseases. Scientists also looked at gene biomarkers corresponding to honey bee health.

Beekeeping methods without inputs were unable to maintain strong colonies over the course of the experiment. Out of the 96 colonies assigned to each management system, only 1 single colony remained by the end of the study. While conventional chemically managed colonies had 29 survive, the organic system enabled the greatest survival, with 38 colonies at the end of the experiment.

In addition to survival, organic and conventional methods provided for more total honey production than the no-input system. Both organic and conventional systems also adequately addressed pests and diseases. Mites were found in 92% of hives, and organic was able to effectively match chemical management in reductions – by 72% in organic to 78% in conventional, relative to the chemical-free system. Chemical-free colonies consistently had the highest level of varroa, averaging 4.5 mites per 100 bees. This trend held with other diseases, such as deformed wing virus and Nosema. Despite the overall success of systems that treated bees, input-free management did result in higher gene expressions corresponding to honey bee health.  

In sum, given the similarities in outcomes between conventional chemical and organic approaches to beekeeping, the authors conclude that organic represents an effective, sustainable method that improves colony health. “Taken altogether, these results suggest that not only is the organic system suitable for a sustainable beekeeping industry but that the use of threshold-based criteria for the application of organic miticides can have positive effects on colony health,” the study reads.

The failure of input-free system appears to be a result of heavy pest pressure experienced with beekeeping in the modern era, and it is evident that more research and development is needed to adequately manage the scourge of varroa with completely non-pesticidal interventions.  

Despite the success of organic methods, beekeepers utilizing these techniques are unable to label their honey as organic certified. Organic certified honey, under current USDA regulations, must be able to maintain a guaranteed 3km (1.8 mile) radius around colonies where no pesticide spray is used. Currently, this is only possible in remote locations, and why many organic consumers can only find certified organic honey from foreign countries like Brazil. “Our future research about the landscape and foraging should help us to inform changes in the standards for certification to decrease the required radius of ‘clean’ forage, assuming our hypotheses are supported,” said Dr. Underwood. For more information on organic beekeeping methods, see Penn State’s publication “An Organic Management System for Honey Bees.”

With honey bees and other pollinators under constant stress from pesticides, parasites, pathogens, climate change, and habitat destruction, it is critical that we all take what actions we can to protect these critical species. See Beyond Pesticides recent Earth Day 2023 post for activities you can take to proactively benefit pollinators and other wildlife.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source:Penn State, Scientific Reports

(Beyond Pesticides, April 25, 2023) Today, Beyond Pesticides released a special issue, Transformative Change: Informed by Science, Policy, and Action of its journal, Pesticides and You, with a compendium of “shocking scientific findings that compel us to act in our communities, states, and as a nation and world community.” The 168-page issue documents the last year of scientific, peer-reviewed articles, policy deficiencies, and action for change that intersect not only with petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers, but with existential health crises, biodiversity collapse, and the climate emergency.

Included in the issue of reviews of published articles spanning three categories—health, biodiversity, and climate. They include:

Human Health Threats: Children’s health—Motor skill deficiency; Respiratory disease; Prenatal exposure and ear infections; Oxidative stress, DNA damage, and cancer; Pediatric cancer; Childhood diabetes; Developmental delays; Biomonitoring of pregnant women; Kidney cancer; Early onset puberty; Autism; Gut microbiome—Disinfectant/antimicrobial and inflammatory bowel disease; Metabolic distress; General—Parkinson’s disease; Farm exposure and effects; Multigenerational effects and cancer; Environmental injustice: Disproportionate exposure and impacts; Post-hurricane water contamination; Global pesticide hazard footprint; Military exposure hazard: Gulf War illness; Male infertility; Alzheimer’s/Neurodegenerative disease; Thyroid cancer; Endocrine disruption; Hazardous inert ingredients underregulated; Covid: Elevated disinfectant hazards.

Biodiversity: Insect decline; Biodiversity collapse; Bee gut microbiome; Honey bee susceptibility to pathogens; Pollination disturbed; International warning; Ecosystem services; Benefits of nature; Inerts harm pollinators; Multigenerational effects to birds; Aquatic ecosystem threatened; Contaminated sediment; Weed killer destroys soil life; Tree spraying destroys biological control; Antibiotic/Antifungal resistance; Glyphosate induces antibiotic resistance; Monarchs threatened by store-bought plants; Greenhouse gas from house fumigation; Chemical no-till contributes to climate crisis; Soil management, carbon sequestration, organic.

Climate: Greenhouse gas from house fumigation; Chemical no-till contributes to climate crisis; Sulfuryl fluoride ban petitioned; Soil management carbon sequestration, and organic. [The pieces cited in this issue are supplemented by the Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database.]

Failed policies reviewed in this publication include: widespread PFAS contamination; subsidies drive environmental collapse; continued use of neurotoxic organophosphate insecticides and deadly wood preservatives; and efforts in Congress to further weaken federal pesticide law and codify a prohibition of local authority to restrict pesticides more stringently than state and federal law.

In addition, this issue cites current actions in communities that chart a course for a livable future, including: local ordinances that ban toxic pesticides and fertilizers; European Union (EU) bans park pesticides; compost outperforms fertilizers; organic food in schools; and state laws that increase protections for pollinators.                  

Beyond Pesticides cites this collection of pieces in Transformative Change as foundational in demonstrating the vital need for a transformation to land and building management systems that align with nature and, at the same time, are more effective and efficient at producing food while contributing to quality of life.

Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides, writes in the publication’s introduction, “The transformative solution is a partnership with nature, practices that have been adopted in organic systems. With this approach, we honor all organisms who play a role in ecological systems on which life depends and we seek the rapid adoption of those practices and materials that are already available to us or can be incentivized to become widely available quickly.”

An electronic version of the issue with links to citations can be found at bp-dc.org/transformativechange.

(Beyond Pesticides, April 24, 2023) It is well-known that trees and other plants help fight climate change by sequestering carbon in their wood and roots—especially when they are allowed to grow continuously. However, plants help in other ways as well. 

Plants—especially trees—also moderate the climate through their participation in the water cycle. And when the weather is hot and dry, they hold the soil, preventing dust bowl conditions. In the 1930’s, the U.S. Forest Service, Civilian Conservation Corps, and the Works Progress Administration, together with local farmers, planted more than 220 million trees, developing 18,000 miles of windbreaks on the Great Plains. Unfortunately, those windbreaks are now endangered by the same economic impetus that helped create the Dust Bowl—making more room for economically valuable crops. 

Tell your U.S. Representative and Senators to address climate change in the Farm Bill by incorporating a large-scale, national transition to certified organic agriculture and restoration and resilience strategies that prohibit the use of petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers. Tell Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack to implement the NOSB recommendation to remove incentives to convert native ecosystems to organic farms.   

Organic farming helps resist climate change in several ways. Regenerative organic farming sequesters carbon in the soil. Organic farming does not rely on synthetic fertilizers that release nitrous oxide, which is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. Finally, organic producers are required to conserve biodiversity, which involves preserving elements of natural ecosystems. Unfortunately, however, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has yet to implement the recommendation of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) to remove incentives to convert native ecosystems to organic farms. 

Dating back to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s, which addressed threats posed by the Great Depression and drought, the Farm Bill is an omnibus bill passed every five years. It is designed to secure a sufficient food supply, establish fair food prices for both farmers and consumers, and protect the soil and other natural resources on which farmers depend. Although the Farm Bill now covers many areas—ranging from the supplemental nutritional assistance program (SNAP) to trade—over its history, conservation has been a major concern addressed in the bill. This year, incorporating climate-friendly provisions is more urgent than ever. 

Moving forward: 

• Congress must incorporate into the Farm Bill support for a national transition to organic farming, incentives to build soil health and eliminate dependence on petrochemical inputs, disincentives for removing trees and native vegetation, and incentives to plant hedgerows and shelterbelts.
• USDA must implement the NOSB recommendation to remove incentives to convert native ecosystems to organic farms. Currently, organic farmers transitioning from nonorganic practices must wait three years before selling products as organic, while farmers who bulldoze forests can sell organic products immediately. 

U.S. Representatives and Senators are developing bills for incorporation in the Farm Bill. So far, the Agriculture Resilience Act (ARA) includes the provisions and investments to ensure the long-term viability of our farms and food system, and the Protect the West Act calls for a $60 billion investment in the region’s forests, grasslands, and watersheds, with the aim of preventing another Dust Bowl. These bills are not perfect—the ARA avoids mentioning organic agriculture, and the Protect the West Act advances “restoration and resilience,” but contains unqualified support for control of invasive species without mandating restrictions on petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers.

Needless to say, without these critical restrictions, we will see ongoing and increasing dependency on toxic chemicals that contribute to health threats, biodiversity collapse, and the climate emergency. We must advocate with those ready to consider a Farm Bill that addresses climate change clear stipulations to eliminate use of fossil fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers.

Tell your U.S. Representative and Senators to address climate change in the Farm Bill by incorporating a large-scale, national transition to certified organic agriculture and restoration and resilience strategies that prohibit the use of petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers. Tell Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack to implement the NOSB recommendation to remove incentives to convert native ecosystems to organic farms. 

Action targets are the U.S. Congress and the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Letter to U.S. Representative and Senators:

Agriculture both contributes to climate change and suffers from its impacts. As the 2023 Farm Bill is developed, it is important that it contain provisions to mitigate climate change and adopt restoration and resilience strategies prohibiting the use of petrochemicals—with dramatically increased support for conversion to organic land management and strict protection of native ecosystems.

Although trees and other plants help fight climate change by sequestering carbon in their tissues, they help in other ways as well.

Plants—especially trees—also moderate the climate through their participation in the water cycle. And when the weather is hot and dry, they hold the soil, preventing dust bowl conditions. In the 1930’s, 18,000 miles of windbreaks were planted on the Great Plains. Unfortunately, those windbreaks are now endangered by the same economic impetus that helped create the Dust Bowl—making more room for economically valuable crops.

Organic farming helps resist climate change by sequestering carbon in the soil;, eliminating reliance on synthetic fertilizers that release nitrous oxide (300 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas); and conserving biodiversity and natural ecosystems. Unfortunately, however, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has yet to implement the recommendation of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) to remove incentives to convert native ecosystems to organic farms. Currently, organic farmers transitioning from nonorganic practices must wait three years before selling products as organic, while farmers who bulldoze forests can sell organic products immediately.

Dating back to the New Deal of the 1930s, which addressed threats posed by the Great Depression and drought, the Farm Bill is an omnibus bill passed every five years. It now covers many areas—ranging from the supplemental nutritional assistance program (SNAP) to trade—but conservation has always been a of major importance in the bill. This year, incorporating climate-friendly provisions is more urgent than ever.

Congress must incorporate into the Farm Bill support for a national transition to organic farming, incentives to build soil health and reduce farm use of petrochemical inputs, disincentives for removing trees and native vegetation, and incentives to plant hedgerows and shelterbelts.

Some bills developed for incorporation in the Farm Bill address issues affecting climate. The Agriculture Resilience Act (ARA) includes provisions and investments to ensure the long-term viability of our farms and food system; the Protect the West Act calls for a $60 billion investment in the region’s forests, grasslands, and watersheds, with the aim of preventing another Dust Bowl. These bills are not perfect—the ARA avoids mentioning organic agriculture, and the Protect the West Act advances “restoration and resilience,” but contains unqualified support for control of invasive species without mandating restrictions on petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers that are critical to reduce dependency on toxic chemicals that contribute to health threats, biodiversity collapse, and the climate emergency.

As you consider a Farm Bill that addresses climate change, please establish clear requirements to eliminate use of fossil fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers in any provisions advancing important restoration and resilience practices.

Please advocate for a Farm Bill that promotes a large-scale, national transition to certified organic farming (which contains incentives to build soil health and eliminates dependence on petrochemical inputs) and includes disincentives for removing trees and native vegetation and incentives to plant hedgerows and shelterbelts.

Please tell USDA to implement the NOSB recommendation to remove incentives to convert native ecosystems to organic farms.

Thank you.

Letter to Secretary Vilsack:

In 2018, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) voted nearly unanimously to protect native ecosystems. It sought to change the current perverse regulation that incentivizes the immediate destruction of native ecosystems and conversion to organic production as a cheaper and faster option than transitioning existing conventional farmland over a three-year period. It is now time for the National Organic Program (NOP) to take action to protect the integrity of the seal and help reverse the biodiversity crisis and reduce global warming.

Protecting native ecosystems slows climate change, something the Biden Administration and organic consumers care deeply about, but NOP regulations will continue to contribute to the problem until the NOP makes this regulatory change. Native ecosystems store carbon in woody plants, in the soil’s duff layer and its deeper horizons. Native grassland and forest soils contain 20 to 50 tons of organic carbon per acre in about the top three feet of soil. When land is converted from a natural ecosystem to cropland, 30 to 50 percent of soil carbon is lost to the atmosphere over a 50-year period. Conversion of forests causes larger losses of carbon from woody biomass, especially if the land is burned before being cropped—up to 75 percent of organic carbon is lost in 25 years when a tropical forest is cleared. It also causes disruption of the water cycle that exacerbates climate change.

Destroying native ecosystems is more than a national issue; it is international. We are in the middle of a 6^th mass extinction. In the last 50 years, animal populations worldwide have declined by almost 70%. With this proposed regulation, the NOP can address biodiversity loss and climate change, while maximizing co-benefits. Ecosystems help regulate floods, enhance water quality, reduce soil erosion, and ensure pollination and pest control. Overexploitation of natural resources has led to changes in climate and the biodiversity crisis, and the NOP needs to now be part of the solution.

The NOSB recommended that the National Organic Program (NOP) add the following definition to §205.200:

Native Ecosystems: Native ecosystems can be recognized in the field as retaining both dominant and characteristic plant species as described by established classifications of natural vegetation. These will tend to be on lands that have not been previously cultivated, cleared, drained or otherwise irrevocably altered. However, they could include areas that have recovered expected plant species and structure.

It also recommended that the NOP add the following language to §205.200 General:

(a) A site supporting a native ecosystem cannot be certified for organic production as provided for under this regulation for a period of 10 years from the date of conversion.

The recommended regulations allow native ecosystems to be used in organic production, including low-impact grazing, mushrooms, maple syrup production, and other kinds of wild crop harvesting.

Organic consumers are distressed to learn that the NOP rules incentivize native ecosystem destruction. Organic farmers do not think it is fair that this loophole allows immediate certification, when many have complied with a three-year requirement to transition conventional land. 

The Organic Farming Production Act (OFPA) states that the NOP must ensure standards are consistent throughout. NOP claims that it “conserve(s) biodiversity” and “ecological balance” over 300 different times on its website, while it incentivizes the conversion of native ecosystems to organic production. The NOP is charged with making sure the organic market stays strong, but it is undermining consumer confidence with its inaction.

Please immediately initiate rulemaking to remove the incentive to convert native ecosystems to organic farms.

Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, April 21, 2023) Into the annals of “entropic methods of agricultural pest control” arrives recent research showing that pests are, unsurprisingly, developing resistance to a genetically engineered (GE) biopesticide used for more than 90% of U.S. corn, cotton, and soybeans. Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) is a naturally occurring bacterium; the versions deployed in conventional agriculture are engineered into Plant Incorporated Protectants (PIPs) — GE ingredients “inserted” into seeds for multiple kinds of crop plants. These PIPs target multiple crop-destructive insect species, including (in larval form) the corn rootworm and cotton bollworm, in particular. Beyond Pesticides continues to warn that “controls,” whether synthetic chemical pesticides or GE “biological” agents (such as GE Bt) that target living things (e.g., pests and weeds) are not sustainable over time because — in addition to the harms they cause — the issue of resistance will ultimately thwart their efficacy.

There are two basic categories of genetic engineering employed in conventional agriculture. One technology transfers genetic material into seed to make plants tolerant of specific herbicide compounds that will be applied after planting (for example, the infamous “Roundup Ready,” glyphosate-tolerant seeds and plants). The other comprises plant-incorporated protectants (PIPs), in which the genetic material introduced causes endogenous production of proteins harmful to particular insect pests. (See much more on Bt through the Beyond Pesticides Bt archive.)

As U.S. Right to Know (USRTK) explains in its coverage of a 2016 independent research study on the subject, “Crops engineered with Bt genes express specific proteins (known as Cry proteins) that make the crops toxic to specific insects — the plants effectively provide their own insecticide — [theoretically] reducing the need for chemical applications. . . . Th[is] research adds to evidence that after 20 years of use of crops engineered to tolerate herbicides and resist certain harmful insects, both technologies are losing effectiveness.”

Corn seed engineered with Bt was developed in 2003 by Monsanto and deployed to deal with the Western corn rootworm. EPA stepped in early on to require that producers using Bt products create so-called “refuge” areas — fields of specific size and proximity (to the Bt fields) that are planted without PIPs. These “refuge” areas aimed to ensure that breeding would occur between nonresistant rootworms from the untreated corn and resistant individuals that would emerge from the areas planted with Bt varieties. The theory is that such breeding would dilute the frequency of the genes that encode resistance and inhibit their inheritance in subsequent generations of rootworms.

This refuge tweak has largely failed, in part because of noncompliance. PIP manufacturers responded to that issue by creating a farmer-friendlier “refuge in a bag” system that allowed farmers to avoid setting aside some of their field areas as free of the Bt trait. How? By encouraging the spreading of uneven low doses of the Bt toxin to feeding insects throughout all their fields. Monsanto “‘touted refuge-in-a-bag’ as fast and convenient for farmers, allowing them to plant the specialized seed ‘fence row to fence row.’” In reality, the tactic catalyzed resistance in the insects over time. Progressive Farmer warned of this in 2012.

In addition, critics of EPA’s introduction of the “refuge” tactic noted that to be at all effective, the refuge areas needed to be much bigger than EPA required. In 2012, a study concluded that, “EPA should more than double the percentage of corn acres planted to mandated refuges to delay insect resistance.” (One investigator and co-author of that study was the same Bruce Tabashnik, PhD who was lead author on the subject study cited above.)

The increasing recognition of developing resistance to GE-Bt-as-PIP underscores several problems:

(1) all pesticides are ultimately doomed to fail because of the all-but-inevitable development of resistance in organisms (including weeds)

(2) the response of industry and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to resistance continues to be, respectively, doubling down on chemical approaches, and/or tweaking use parameters to try to rein in problematic impacts

(3) there are many Bt strains, some of which are permitted for pest management purposes in organic agriculture (in addition to the many GE insecticide versions); the increasing use of Bt in GE-plus-chemical agriculture — and the resulting uptick in resistance — represent a real threat to this useful tool for the organic sector

EPA acknowledges the resistance issue: “Like [with] most pesticides, insects are capable of developing resistance to Bt proteins. In Bt PIPs, this risk may be heightened by the fact that: 

• Bt proteins are expressed at high levels in most or all plant tissues
• the proteins are produced by the plant continually during the growing season (i.e., throughout the lifespan of the plant)
• some of the major target pests, such as European corn borer, corn rootworm, and pink bollworm, feed almost exclusively on corn or cotton

These factors can increase insect exposure to the controlling toxins (Bt protein) and hence, increase selection pressure for resistance. That means that if the toxin kills susceptible insects, those that survive and reproduce are more likely to be resistant to the toxin.”

The issue of resistance to Bt began to be noticed in 2008 in cotton bollworms — a mere five years after initial deployment of Bt products. The industry claim that genetic manipulation of plants would result in reduced pesticide use began to be exposed as false a decade ago. In 2013, The Wall Street Journal noted that, as resistance to Bt products began to ratchet up and corn rootworm damage surged, farmers returned with a vengeance to chemical insecticides — unraveling a central argument for the GE Bt strategy. (Beyond Pesticides wrote about typical industry response to resistance in 2019: “Manufacturer response is often either to find a new chemical, or to “double down” with combined-ingredient products that may be effective until the next wave of resistance develops.”)

A 2013 study published in PNAS (the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) concluded that, “The widespread planting of crops genetically engineered to produce insecticidal toxins derived from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) places intense selective pressure on pest populations to evolve resistance. . . . These [early] cases of resistance by western corn rootworm highlight the vulnerability of Bt maize to further evolution of resistance from this pest and, more broadly, point to the potential of insects to develop resistance rapidly.”

In 2020, EPA issued a draft proposal for ways to “improve” the problem of pest resistance for Bt PIPs in corn and cotton crops. The agency’s goal was to “prolong the durability of Bt PIPs from pests.” Zeroing in on the lack of meaningful changes in the proposal, Beyond Pesticides, led a group of nine other advocate organizations, commented on it: “The agency is proposing changes to three aspects of . . . insect resistance management that consist of new resistance definitions, increased resistance monitoring and mitigation efforts, and modified annual reporting to the agency. These changes do not address or impact the biology of pest populations developing resistance, but only the recognition and identification of such resistance [emphasis by Beyond Pesticides]. In addition to the above proposed framework changes, the agency is considering options to . . . increase percent of refuge in seed blend products, and change . . . refuge compliance measures. These options at best will only delay the development of more prevalent pest resistance to Bt toxins. . . . [W]e find that the proposed new resistance management framework . . . will do little to curb the trajectory in the increasing resistance.” (See draft comment here.)

In that same year, EPA also began considering a proposal to reduce, gradually, the use of some Bt corn and cotton products in an attempt to combat pest resistance. One tactic was a three-year “phasedown” to some unspecified “minimal acreage cap” of Bt products for corn. The agency also considered (again) increasing the ratio of non-Bt corn seeds in blends used in “refuge” areas, the aim being to slow resistance by allowing nonresistant insects to mate with resistant insects. The proposal received significant pushback from grower groups and the crop protection industry. The former is very accustomed to use of Bt PIPs and considers them still useful despite evidence that efficacy is time limited, given galloping resistance. The latter is looking to Hoover up profits from this technology for as long as it can.

The very human, and very unwise, tendency to think short term is on full display throughout the agrochemical and agro-biotech sectors, as well as at EPA. In 2020, Beyond Pesticides wrote: “Resistance to pesticides is nearly inevitable. Development of resistance is an entirely normal, adaptive phenomenon: organisms evolve, ‘exploiting’ beneficial genetic mutations that give them survival advantage. For nearly a century, human response to this has been primarily a chemical ‘chasing’ of such evolutionary changes — developing a compound that kills the offending organism (whether pest or weed or bacterium or fungus) for a while. Organisms nearly inevitably change to become resistant to that particular chemical assault, whereupon people — the chemical industry, researchers, applicators, farmers, public health workers, clinicians, et al. — have typically moved on to the next chemical ‘solution.’” To the “chemical” critique, “biotechnical” approaches can now readily be added.

Last year, Beyond Pesticides coverage of a study on emerging Crispr technology quoted Ethan Bier, PhD on that new technology. His comment is equally relevant in this Bt context, and underscores Beyond Pesticides’ perspective: “This is no silver bullet. You never win when you try to play the evolutionary game with insects.” We would add, “or with other living organisms.” Industry focus on, and EPA collusion with, the search for “silver bullets” without precautionary forethought to the issue of resistance is the Achilles heel of pesticide — and now biotech — dependence in conventional agriculture. These are eventually doomed to failure, and meanwhile, EPA continues to power the pesticide and GE treadmills.

Beyond Pesticides believes that consideration of (1) the incorporation into food crops of genes from a natural bacterium, such as Bt, (2) the development of herbicide-tolerant crops and their paired use with herbicides, such as Roundup Ready soybeans and glyphosate, and (3) the ongoing planetary assault by thousands of synthetic pesticide compounds leads to the conclusion that these GE and chemical approaches to agriculture and pest management are short sighted and dangerous, and as noted above, entropic by their very nature. At broad scale, they generate adverse environmental, human health, biodiversity, climate, and economic consequences; they also are undermining the use of Bt as a biological pest management tool in organic production. Regenerative organic approaches are the only genuinely sustainable practices, and are the linchpin of a thoughtful, future-conscious route forward for humankind.

Source: https://entomologytoday.org/2023/04/18/insect-resistance-transgenic-bt-crops-bacillus-thuringiensis/

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

(Beyond Pesticides, April 20, 2023) This Earth Day (Saturday, April 22, 2023), Beyond Pesticides urges individuals to spread awareness of the toxic pesticides that poison people and the environment and the safe alternatives that are available to safeguard communities and the surrounding environment. On Earth Day, reflecting on the beauty and wonder of the natural world highlights the importance of restoration and preservation to maintain the planet’s intricate web of life. However, the natural world on which life depends is under dire threat as the dependence on toxic chemicals (e.g., pesticides) enables ongoing environmental contamination.

Mechanized and industrial human activity perpetuates ongoing toxic chemical contamination, resulting in massive die-offs of beneficial organisms, increased rates of autoimmune diseases, endocrine disrupting and transgenerational chemical effects, and widespread pollution of our air and waterways. Beyond Pesticides, has the tools needed to increase environmental awareness in your community. Therefore, this Earth Day, Beyond Pesticides continues to advocate for the adoption of organic practices and policies that alleviate threats to ecosystems and enhance biodiversity. Michigan State University professor Thomas Dietz, Ph.D. highlights, “Continuing the successes of environmentalism—an integration of science, a concern with human well-being and justice, and a recognition of the need to consider facts, values, and uncertainty—is crucial for dealing with climate and other global environmental challenges.”

Share information about the chemicals entering our communities in the United States and around the world. Pesticides are pervasive in all ecosystems, soils, water (solid and liquid), and air, frequently at levels exceeding U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards. However, many people do not know what pesticides they encounter and the associated negative effects. It is critically important to make people aware of both the hazards associated with cosmetic lawn care pesticides and the availability of alternative practices and products. Of the 40 most commonly used lawn pesticides, 26 are possible and/or known carcinogens, 24 have the potential to disrupt the endocrine (hormonal) system, 29 are linked to reproductive effects and sexual dysfunction, 21 have been linked to birth defects, 24 are neurotoxic, 32 can cause kidney or liver damage, and 33 are sensitizers and/or irritants. Of those same 40 lawn pesticides, 21 are detected in groundwater, 24 have the ability to leach into drinking water sources, 39 are toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms vital to our ecosystem, 33 are toxic to bees, 18 are toxic to mammals, and 28 are toxic to birds. [Check out the Beyond Pesticides Infographic!]

Importantly, Beyond Pesticides’ Gateway on Pesticide Hazards and Safe Pest Management provides information on the health and environmental effects of nearly 400 registered pesticide active ingredients. It is searchable by chemical name, product name, or health and environmental effects. The database is designed to provide decision and policymakers, practitioners, and activists with easier access to current and historical information on pesticide hazards and safe pest management, drawing on and linking to numerous sources and organizations that include information related to pesticide science, policy, and activism. As decision-makers and the community become educated, let us know of chemicals you think should be added to the Gateway to [email protected]  or the Story Submission page.

Discover how environmental exposure impacts human health. Ninty percent of Americans have at least one pesticide biomarker (including parent compound and breakdown products) in their body. The presence of pesticides in the body has implications for human health, especially during vulnerable life stages like childhood, puberty, pregnancy, and old age. The scientific literature demonstrates pesticides’ long history of severe adverse human health effects (i.e., endocrine disruption, cancer, reproductive/birth abnormalities, neurotoxicity) and effects. Beyond Pesticides capture the scientific literature through the Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database, documenting elevated rates of chronic diseases among people exposed to pesticides, with increased numbers of studies associated with both specific illnesses and a range of diseases. Currently, the database is searchable for 1,300 scientific references relating to brain and nervous system disorders (e.g., Alzheimer’s, ALS, Parkinson’s), birth defects, cancer, endocrine dysfunction, learning and developmental disabilities, and sexual reproductive dysfunction, among others. With consistent updating, the database is a vital resource for individuals, organizations, and other institutions can refer to when discussing pesticide’s impact on human health. As you become educated, consider sending studies you think should be added to the database to [email protected] or the Story Submission page.

How Pesticides Impact Crucial Pollinator Species and Other Wildlife. The globe is currently going through the Holocene Extinction, Earth’s 6th mass extinction, with one million species of plants and animals at risk. The impacts of pesticides on wildlife are extensive and expose animals in urban, suburban, and rural areas to unnecessary risks. Pesticides can affect animals through direct application or indirectly through drift, secondary poisoning, and runoff. Some animals could encounter direct spraying, while others may consume plants or prey contaminated with pesticides. However, the climate crisis adds another level of concern, especially regarding passive pesticide and microbial exposure from snowmelt. With the increasing rate of biodiversity loss, it is essential for government agencies around the globe to research how previous and ongoing use of pesticides can impact present-day species. Therefore, animals can act as sentinel species for chemical contamination, detecting risk to humans by exhibiting signs of environmental threat sooner than humans in the same environment. Unless more is done to address chemical pollution, humans will also continue to see similar declines in general health, fitness, and well-being. Learn more about how pesticides threaten wildlife and what you can do through Beyond Pesticides’ wildlife program page.

Exposure to pesticides can alter an organism’s behavior, impacting its ability to survive, reproduce, and provide necessary ecosystem services (e.g., pollination, soil fertility, population control, etc.). For instance, the United Nations states that 80 percent of the 115 top global food crops depend on insect pollination, with one-third of all U.S. crops depending on pollinators, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). However, research finds that many insect populations are in decline, including managed and wild pollinators. Monarchs are near extinction, and commercial beekeepers continue to experience declines that are putting them out of business. The continued loss of mayflies and fireflies disrupts the foundation of many food chains. Additionally, the decline in many bird species has links to insect declines. Since the 1970s, three billion birds have vanished.

However, a decade ago, Earth Day 2013 saw the launch of the BEE Protective campaign spearheaded by Beyond Pesticides and our friends at Center for Food Safety. This campaign continuously generates a tremendous outpouring of support through local action, social media, and information requests to Beyond Pesticides. New backyard beekeepers and gardeners are fostering local pollinator resilience and creating bee-friendly habitat that brings communities together and fuels the campaign to BEE Protective of pollinators. Pesticides pose an imminent threat to all aspects of biodiversity, including pollinators and numerous other beneficial species.

As we appreciate the Earth and all it provides on this Earth Day, we hope you will use our resources, take action, and educate others on the ways toxic chemicals jeopardize the complex natural processes on which we rely. Through the promotion and adoption of alternative systems like organic, we can work with the Earth’s natural systems to produce a safer, healthier world for all living species.

• Least-Toxic Control of Pests in and Around the Home and Garden.
  • ManageSafe
• Learn how to:
  • Maintain landscapes without toxic pesticides, 
  • Protect honeybees, and other pollinators from neonicotinoids and other insecticides, 
  • Protect aquatic species from pesticide run off, including endocrine disrupting chemicals,
  • Protect streams, lakes, and rivers we all depend on from the widespread use of harmful synthetic pesticides and fertilizers.

Consider a food system that enhances, not harms, human and environmental health. Multiple studies have found that eating a conventional (nonorganic) diet will increase the presence of pesticides and their metabolites in an individual’s urine, including higher pesticide body burden from eating conventional foods. Additionally, children carry higher levels of the weed killer glyphosate and other toxic pesticides in their body. Many studies show that many common pesticides result in developmental problems in children, such as higher rates of ADHD. There is also strong evidence that organophosphate insecticides, still widely used on fruits and vegetables in the United States, are dropping children’s IQs on a national and global scale, costing billions to the economy in the form of lost brain power.

That’s why switching from a conventional to organic diet will drastically reduce the levels of pesticide in one’s body, with one week on organic food showing a 70% reduction in glyphosate in the body, according to one study. Socioeconomic factors play a large role in access to heathy organic foods, and the ability to provide the sort of environment that allows a child’s brain to flourish. But eating organic should not be a choice to make – all food should be grown with high quality standards that reject the use of brain-damaging pesticides and protect the wider environment. 

Beyond Pesticides’ Eating with a Conscience database is designed to help explain the urgent need for a major shift to organic food consumption. Those foods that are often referenced as “clean” commodities may be grown with hazardous pesticides that get into waterways and groundwater, contaminate nearby communities, poison farmworkers, and kill wildlife, while not all showing up at detectable or elevated levels on our food. Database users select an individual crop that will bring up a page that lists all of the pesticides that have registered tolerance (legal residue) allowances on that specific crop, from which we extrapolate use patterns. The database lists the human health (acute, and chronic effects) and environmental (surface water contaminant, ground water contaminant, wildlife poison, bee poison, long-range transport) effects linked to each pesticide.

• Affordable Organic: Buying and Growing Organic Produce.
  • Beyond Pesticides article on The Real Story on the Affordability of Organic Food.

Join Beyond Pesticides as the organization continues to push for that reality. See Beyond Pesticides’ Resources and sign up for our Action of the Week and Weekly News Update.

With Earth Day coming up, get ready to grow your spring garden the organic way by Springing Into Action, pledge to eliminate toxic pesticide use by signing the Ladybug Love Pledge and follow up with other actions that will make a difference.

(Beyond Pesticides, April 18, 2023) Crop diversification is effective at reducing pest abundance in growing climates across the globe, according to a meta-analysis published this month in the Journal of Applied Ecology. The meta-analysis, which includes a review 44 field studies from six continents, provides greater weight to approaches that work with natural processes, rather than those focused on human-made chemical sprays for pest management.

Within the studies reviewed, researchers aimed to understand the associational effects that resulted in either associational resistance (a decrease) or associational susceptibility (an increase) in insect herbivores on the primary crop being grown. Researchers reviewed a range of variables, comparing pest numbers in monocultures vs bicultures, evaluating whether the pest is a generalist or specialist, how it feeds (checking or piercing/sucking), its origin (native/non-native), as well as climate, crop type (only onions, brassicas, cotton, and cucurbits were evaluated), plot size, and the experimental design within each particular study.  

In sum, the review represents one of the most comprehensive evaluations of intercropping to date. And the results confirm the benefits many farmers and gardeners across the world have found anecdotally in their own plots. “Overall, intercropping proved to be very effective against pests, but it did vary based on the pest and their feed preferences,” said study coauthor Philip Hahn, PhD of University of Florida. “It also depended on crop type, with cabbage and squashes showing the strongest resistance, while resistance was less strong for onions and cotton.”

Bicultures are provide a significant reduction in pest pressure. But this approach is most effective in protecting crops from generalist predators. “In the studies we examined, we found intercropping was more effective for generalist pests that feed on a variety of crops,” Dr. Hahn said. “Specialist pests that target one type of crop were less affected.” This makes sense, as pest predators that evolved a close relationship with a crop are much less likely to be enticed to feed on a crop it did not specialize in consuming.

The effect of intercropping did appear to wane as latitudes increased, but only for certain crops and certain insect pests – specifically specialist, piercing, and native pests. “We did find a stronger benefit for pest suppression at lower latitudes—so, in tropical systems versus northern temperate systems,” Dr, Hahn said. “There are lots of reasons we could have found that pattern, of course; the tropics are places where there tend to be more species of insects year-round. It was surprising that the pattern was not as strong as I would have expected.”

The meta-analysis and studies previously reported on by Beyond Pesticides show the benefits of increasing crop diversity on farms. A 2020 study found that crop diversity in agriculture is just as important as plant diversity in non-commercial landscapes, and that less diversity leads to more pesticide use. A 2021 study reported on found that multi-crop farmlands produced higher biomass and seed yields than single crop monocultures. While intercropping and multi-cropping provide numerous benefits, monocropping contributes to the loss of biodiversity, including pollinator populations, according to a 2019 study.

It is incredibly important to continue research like the present study, so scientists can aide farmers in determining the best natural strategies to take as part of their production practices. But it is apparent from the data collected that one generally can’t go too wrong with such an approach. “There are a few combinations that seem to be particularly effective at reducing pest abundance,” Dr. Hahn indicates. “Overall, for growers interested in organic methods, intercropping seems to be a very effective tool.”

For more information on the benefits associated with organic agriculture, see Beyond Pesticides webpage on Why Organic is the right choice for the future of farming.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: Journal of Applied Ecology, University of Florida press release

Image Source: PXfuel

(Beyond Pesticides, April 18, 2023) Health officials in France are alerting the public that a majority of drinking water samples tested by the government contain the presence of the highly toxic fungicide chlorothalonil. The findings highlight a stark divide between regulations and public health management in the European Union and United States. While EU member states have banned this chemical and are working to understand and address lingering effects, tens of millions of pounds of chlorothalonil continue to be sprayed throughout the U.S. annually.

French officials say they conducted this research after researchers in Switzerland found evidence of the fungicide in drinking water. A few years ago, Swiss scientists released a report showing Evian bottled water, touted for its claims of purity, was found to contain measurable levels of chlorthalonil.  “The fact that even the Evian springs in the French Alps, which are hardly affected by humans, contain pesticide residues is alarming and shows the far too careless handling of these substances,” Roman Wiget, president of the international drinking water association AWBR told the German-language Swiss weekly at the time.

The EU banned uses of chlorothalonil in 2019, due to concerns over water contamination, the effects of such contamination on fish and amphibians, and an elevated cancer risk. EU officials designated chlorothalonil as a 1B carcinogen, meaning it “may cause cancer,” with the most significant risk found for kidney cancer based on laboratory animal studies. Enough data was presented to conclude that the breakdown metabolites of the chemical have genotoxic potential, able to damage DNA and result in the development of cancer. EPA has classified chlorothalonil as a likely human carcinogen.

The fungicide presents an acute risk to amphibians, and chronic risks to fish living in contaminated water.  In addition to these aquatic impacts, other research finds the chemical can harm pollinators by altering honey bee microbiomes, reducing bumblebee colony size, contributing to  ongoing pollinator declines.  

Chlorothalonil was found in over half of drinking water samples tested, and at amounts higher than allowable levels in one out of three tests.

“These results show that, depending on their properties, some pesticide metabolites can remain present in the environment for several years after the ban on the active substance from which they were derived,” a report on the contamination by French health officials concluded.

A rapid transition away from hazardous, industrial pesticides like chlorothalonil is urgently needed to address ongoing health, biodiversity, and climate crises. While the EU is trending in the right direction and seeking to phase out 50% of all pesticide use by 2035 as part of its Farm to Fork Strategy, a recent citizen petition recommending larger restrictions was recently rejected.

While European member states are conducting follow up studies on this EU-banned chemical, regulators at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have done little to address chlorothalonil, the 10^th most commonly used pesticide in the country. In fact, EPA is several years late on a workplan it set for itself on the fungicide. The agency estimated it would open a review document for the chemical in 2016, but the most recent action taken, according to the agency’s docket folder on regulations.gov, was a meeting with the chemical’s primary registrant Syngenta/ChemChina.

With complete lack of action, there is reason to be concerned about health and environmental impacts of chlorothalonil in the U.S. The chemical was identified as a priority contaminant in the Great Lakes by the U.S. Geological Survey, and is increasingly detected in streams near golf courses. Not only has the U.S. done nothing on this chemical, it still permits the product for use on turf by the general public in formulated products like Daconil.  

U.S. regulatory agencies like EPA are consistently failing to meet the modest health protective standards of their peers in Europe. According to advocates, it can be said that U.S. pesticide policy is under the control of a toxic industry regime that has spanned multiple administrations – of both political parties – with strong evidence of corruption at the highest levels of government.  

Join Beyond Pesticides in fighting for the restoration of scientific integrity and the elimination of corruption at EPA. Only through strong engagement from concerned residents can we make progress in fighting back against powerful, deeply embedded industry forces that result in the ongoing poisoning of people, pets, and the wider environment.  

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: France24, Euractiv

Image Source: Andrea Piacquadio

(Beyond Pesticides, April 17, 2023) In celebration of Earth Day and its sixth annual Ladybug Love^SM  campaign throughout the month of April, Natural Grocers is supporting Beyond Pesticides. The campaign celebrates insects that play a crucial role in food supply stability, and regenerative farming practices that use ladybugs and other beneficial insects instead of harmful synthetic pesticides to control pests. Natural Grocers will donate $1 to Beyond Pesticides for each person who pledges (including renewals, so do it again even if you pledged last year) “not use chemicals that harm ladybugs and other beneficial insects on their lawn or garden, and to support 100% organic produce.” Even if you have signed the pledge in previous years, please take moment to sign!

You do not need to shop at Natural Grocers to sign, but it’s a great store to shop at, if there’s one in your area! 

Sign the Ladybug Pledge and support Beyond Pesticides.

In partnership with major retailers like Natural Grocers and Stonyfield Organic, the Beyond Pesticides’ Parks for a Sustainable Future program provides in-depth training to assist community land managers in transitioning two public green spaces to organic landscape management, while aiming to provide the knowledge and skills necessary to eventually transition all public areas in a locality to these safer practices. Through this program, Beyond Pesticides has assisted local leaders in converting dozens of parks and recreational areas to organic practices and to eliminate the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. [Contact Beyond Pesticides ([email protected]) about converting two parks, as demonstration sites, to organic in your town.] 

Regarding the program, Natural Grocers says,” We have an exciting, long-term partnership with Beyond Pesticides. Part of that partnership includes fundraising campaigns throughout the year, specifically for Earth Day in April and Organic Month in September. Natural Grocers is a longtime leader of the organic movement through its national advocacy efforts. We are proud to partner with Beyond Pesticides to further the critical mission of converting local parks and playing fields to pesticide-free management practices to make them safer for kids and pets to play in.” 

Ask your mayor and local officials to convert to organic landcare in town/city/county parks and other public places.  

The targets for this Action are local executives and mayors across U.S cities and townships

(Beyond Pesticides, April 14, 2023) In March, scientists at the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issued a draft Biological Opinion (BiOp) stating that carbaryl and methomyl — two commonly used carbamate insecticides — cause significant harm to dozens of already-endangered fish species in the Pacific Northwest’s Columbia, Willamette, and Snake rivers. The BiOp indicates that these toxic compounds, in wide use on orchards and field vegetables throughout the Willamette Valley, the Columbia River Gorge, and southeastern Washington, will likely threaten scores of species on the Endangered Species list: 37 species at risk from carbaryl and 30 from methomyl. In addition, the BiOp says, “both are likely to harm or destroy many areas designated as critical habitat for endangered species.” The mitigation measures proposed by NMFS and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in light of this BiOp, are likely to be inadequate to the problem, given that both compounds can drift through air and/or migrate into groundwater and generate toxic runoff.

These two neurotoxic insecticides, carbaryl and methomyl, are very toxic to bees, birds, fish, and other aquatic organisms. In addition, carbaryl is a likely human carcinogen and an endocrine disruptor, and has harmful impacts on multiple bodily systems. Methomyl is also an endocrine disruptor, and can cause renal and hepatic damage.

NMFS and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) are the lead federal agencies tasked with implementing the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Under the law’s requirements, EPA must evaluate any pesticide it registers to make sure it is not likely to result in jeopardy to the “continued existence of any listed species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of designated critical habitat of such species.”

When EPA makes a determination that a pesticide product may so affect such species or habitats, the agency must initiate formal consultation with NMFS, the FWS, or both. Those agencies may then develop and issue their own BiOps on the jeopardy a pesticide presents to listed species and/or critical habitats. The new NMFS draft BiOp is open to public comment until May 15; at some point after that date, EPA will provide official comments to NMFS for consideration in developing its final opinion.

Beyond Pesticides has noted — in its 2020 comments on the draft ESA Biological Evaluations for carbaryl and methomyl — that the ESA embodies a more precautionary approach than does the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), federal pesticide law. The consultation requirement means that scientists at FWS and/or NMFS, who have greater expertise in evaluating harms to species and their habitats than do EPA scientists, have the chance to influence EPA pesticide regulation.

The draft BiOp suggests measures to “avoid jeopardy, including a flexible list of chemical-specific measures to reduce loading of pesticides into aquatic habitats to protect them from adverse effects of pesticide exposure. It also includes measures to minimize take and impacts to critical habitats, such as the development of ESA educational materials, reporting of label compliance monitoring, and inclusion of label information about ecological incident reporting.” (Under ESA, “take” means unintentional harm or killing of an individual of a protected species.) According to Oregon Public Broadcasting, FWS “recommends either prohibiting the chemicals within 300 meters (about 325 yards) of species’ habitat or implementing mitigation practices, like expanding vegetation ditches as buffers or using tools that reduce runoff.”

The EPA website indicates that it and NMFS are particularly interested in public comments relating to (1) additional risk reduction options beyond those described in the biological opinion; (2) the general feasibility of drift reduction measures based on wind direction; and (3) runoff and/or spray drift reduction technologies. Clearly, EPA is aware that drift and runoff represent ongoing vectors for listed species’ exposures to these two compounds; a between-the-lines read might reasonably conclude that EPA understands that current measures do not adequately protect the Northwest species at risk from carbaryl and methomyl.

As background: According to the EPA website, in March 2021, the agency completed its final biological evaluations for carbaryl and methomyl — resulting in determinations of “likely to adversely affect” (LAA) for 1,640 listed species and 736 designated critical habitats for carbaryl, and 1,098 listed species and 736 designated critical habitats for methomyl. Carbaryl continues to undergo the every-15-years registration review required by FIFRA, the federal statute governing all things “pesticide”). In October 2022, EPA announced revisions to the proposed interim registration decision on methomyl.

In late December 2022, EPA proposed new mitigations to attempt to curb some of the harms of carbaryl’s use, including:

• some use cancellations for residential dust formulations, residential granular formulations on turf, use on rice, and backpack applications to control tree boring beetles
• additional personal protective equipment for some uses
• longer restricted entry intervals for some uses
• mandatory spray drift language that prohibits application within 25 feet of aquatic habitats for ground applications and 150 feet for aerial applications
• mitigation to reduce runoff through protection statements and application restrictions during rain
• measures to protect pollinators from carbaryl exposure, including restrictions on applications during bloom

EPA also proposed at the time a “pilot” set of measures for protection of four endangered species, one of which was — notably — steelhead trout in the upper Columbia River. It also offered a number of “reasonable alternative measures” intended to protect listed salmon and steelhead species in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and California; those included vegetated filter strips, retention ponds, water control structures, no-till/reduced tillage practices, riparian hedgerow, and no-spray buffers. As of publication, no evidence of the enactment of these measures was publicly and readily available.

As for methomyl, EPA issued (in 2022) Proposed Revisions to the Methomyl Proposed Interim Registration Review Decision — on the heels of a successful lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity and Pesticide Action Network. EPA had made LAA determinations for 1,098 species and 281 designated critical habitats in its BiOp on the compound’s impacts. In response, the agency proffered another set of mitigation measures (roughly analogous to those for carbaryl), including a three-species pilot. Remarkably, EPA concluded that the proposed FIFRA mitigation largely addresses the potential effects, on Pacific salmon and steelhead species, of the use of methomyl.

In February 2023, Beyond Pesticides reported on other chemical pesticide assaults on Northwest salmonid species (which include steelhead trout); previously, we covered the harms of three organophosphate pesticides (chlorpyrifos, malathion, and diazinon) on these same species. (The organophosphate insecticide malathion and methomyl have a similar mode of action — acetylcholinesterase inhibition.) These fish species are economically, culturally, and ecologically critical to the region. The multiplicity of pesticides to which they are exposed, given intensive agricultural pesticide use in the region, contributes significantly to the well-documented decline of salmonid species. Subject simultaneously to impacts of pesticides, habitat loss, and climate change, these species are in trouble.

EPA has a history of continuing to allow use of pesticides that are demonstrably harmful, and taking relatively anemic measures to amend the compounds’ use, in an attempt to reduce harms; examples fairly abound. In the current biodiversity crisis, for which pesticides bear some responsibility, the agency’s lack of robust protective action is unacceptable.

In March 2022, EPA — succumbing to industry pressure — continued the registration of the organophosphate insecticide malathion, despite the agency’s own findings that this class of insecticides has negative impacts on more than 1,000 endangered and threatened species, and that malathion, specifically, threatens 1,284 species. In 2021, EPA reregistered paraquat, the most acutely dangerous herbicide on the market, with some additional constraints on its use. (It subsequently went to a federal court in October 2022 to request permission to return and reconsider its decision to reapprove paraquat.)

In 2016, EPA registered sulfoxaflor, a so-called “novel,” systemic, neurotoxic insecticide that, like neonicotinoids, acts on nACh (nicotinic acetylcholine) receptors, and is very toxic to bees. Beyond Pesticides wrote at the time, “This decision is the final result of a long-fought legal battle over the chemical’s registration, spearheaded by beekeepers and public health organizations concerned with what has been identified as EPA’s inadequate and flawed pesticide review processes. The agency claims that amendments made to the original registration . . . will protect pollinators. However, scientific studies have shown that there is no way to fully limit exposure to bees, especially native species that exist naturally in the environment, given that the chemical, being systemic, is found in pollen, nectar, and guttation droplets.”

Sulfoxaflor is used to kill aphids and another sucking/piercing insects on many crops, including vegetables, fruits and tree fruits, and nuts. In 2019, EPA granted approvals for sulfoxaflor to be used extremely widely on crops that are highly attractive to pollinators — an astonishing move, given the toxicity to bees. Research suggests that beneficial insects are exposed to sulfoxaflor at relatively high concentrations in agricultural environments. In a late 2021 win for bees, a California Superior Court ruled that this “field legal but bee lethal” pesticide could no longer be used in the state.

In its comment to EPA on registration of sulfoxaflor, Beyond Pesticides wrote, “EPA is proposing to repeat missteps of the past by registering a pesticide known to be toxic to nontarget organisms without all required data to ensure its safety. As already seen with the neonicotinoid clothianidin, and the herbicide aminocyclopyrachlor, conditional registration without relevant ecological data can be detrimental to non-target species.” Indeed, according to The Chicago Tribune, attorneys general from Illinois and 12 other states have now called on EPA to restrict use of sufloxaflor because of its toxic impacts on bees and other pollinators.

Beyond Pesticides Executive Director Jay Feldman notes that, “EPA is consistently unrealistic and downright misleading about the real effects of the pesticide risk mitigation measures it enacts. They do not meet the agency’s statutory mandate to protect health and the environment; what result are agency decisions that allow harm to those people and ecosystems EPA is charged with protecting.”

Beyond Pesticides has repeatedly critiqued EPA for its abject lack of appropriate protective action on toxic pesticides — especially in the face of species on the brink of extinction, the unfolding pollinator and insect collapse, endemic human health impacts, and widespread contamination of natural resources and ecosystems. Many health and environmental advocates see EPA as an irresponsible federal agency falling far short of meeting its mission, as the nation (and world) face those extreme challenges.

“EPA is proposing risk mitigation measure that the agency knows do not work. It’s shameful,” said Mr. Feldman. He continued, “EPA knows that nothing short of cancellation is adequately protective, and the agency should know that we no longer need these toxic chemicals to produce food and manage landscapes.”

Conventional, chemical-intensive U.S. agriculture — and the huge network of businesses, trade groups, and government agencies and programs that inform, support, and help fund it — is incredibly “dug in” to pesticide use as the way to do business. This grave and recklessness addiction to chemical pesticides in agriculture can be genuinely solved through a solution that is known, demonstrable, executable, and scalable: the transition to organic, regenerative agricultural practices. Organic agriculture can not only maintain productivity and profitability, but also, increase societal resiliency, sustain living beings and Nature’s functional integrity, and liberate everyone and everything from the toxic impacts of pesticides.

Source: https://www.opb.org/article/2023/03/22/portland-oregon-pesticides-endangered-fish-species-carbaryl-methomyl-chinook-coho-salmon/

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

(Beyond Pesticides, April 13, 2023) Representatives of the 1.2 million-strong “Save bees and farmers! Towards a bee-friendly agriculture for a healthy environment,” European Citizens Initiative (ECI) called on the European Commission in a public hearing “to propose legal acts to phase out synthetic pesticides in EU (European Union) agriculture by 80% by 2030, starting with the most hazardous, and to become free of synthetic by 2035.” Advocates outlined the scientific consensus that biodiversity loss is endangering both the environment and food security and urged the executive branch to take immediate action. [See Previous Article]

The timing is opportune as the Commission recently announced a revised EU Pollinators Initiative (PI), aimed at reversing the decline in wild pollinators by 2030. Noted as “the key instrument to reduce the risk and use of pesticides” by Environment and Oceans Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius, the PI focuses on mitigating pesticides’ impact on pollinators as vital components to food security alongside conservation and restoration efforts of species and habitats in agricultural landscapes, or in other words, “pollinator-friendly farming.”

According to Martin Dermine, the executive director of PAN Europe, the hearing was a “strong democratic signal to EU and national decision-makers to listen to citizens and move away from toxic pesticides.”

It is clear that their voices were heard, as an organic farmer and lawmaker Sarah Wiener of Austria shifted the conversation by authoring a European Parliament report proposing the 80% increase with stricter baselines measuring the member states’ reductions. The baseline years referenced for measuring a state’s pesticide use are more recent (2018-2020 versus 2015-2017), thereby requiring countries that have reduced pesticide usage to nationally phase out a greater percentage of toxic agents within seven years.

Additionally, Ms. Wiener’s language breaks normative barriers; in the first amendment, the phrase “on the sustainable use of plant production products” is replaced with the phrase “on the use of pesticides.” According to the justification, the former phrase “trivializ[es] the nature of these products” and challenges the notion that chemical pesticides can be used sustainably, “especially as alternatives exist.”  Beyond semantics, the amendment’s text reflects a foundational shift as the direct use of the word “pesticides” makes greenwashing less likely and zeroes in on the reality of these noxious chemicals’ impact.

Negative public perception of pesticides has recently transformed the European zeitgeist. From 1.7 million citizens (about twice the population of Delaware) signing an initiative protecting bees in Bavaria to the “Stop pesticides” protests in Italy, grassroots movements are publicly voicing opposition to destructive environmental, agricultural, and pesticide policies. However, in contrast with citizens’ concerns, member states are opposing proposals perceived as ‘penalizing’ states that have more recently begun to reduce their pesticide use and removing exceptions, or “emergency derogations,” for pesticide use on a case-by-case emergency basis.  

Positive responses resonated from Parliament’s environment committee (ENVI) and among the center-left, Left and green policymakers, including the European Commission’s Claire Bury, the Deputy Director-General of Food and Health Safety. According to Commissioner Bury, European citizens clearly “want healthy food without pesticides” and stressed a progressive, but ambitious action accelerating access to biological alternatives. However, Parliament’s center-right and proponents of the flagship “Farm to Fork” strategy sharply rebuked the effort with false narratives stoking fears of food safety.

According to Food Safety Commissioner Stella Kyriakides, a majority of member states advocated for a further impact assessment on the European Commission’s proposal before negotiations with the European Parliament, a delay tactic decried by green groups.  

However, on April 5, 2023 the Commission ultimately rejected the initiative signed by more than one million people, which requested EU-binding targets to reduce synthetic pesticides by 80% in 2030 and a total ban by 2035.

What comes next?

In alignment with organic advocates in agriculture, Beyond Pesticides champions widespread adoption of organic, regenerative systems and practices. Such systems may include mechanical and biological controls, trap crops, natural barriers, organic compatible inputs, and practices such as eliminating monocultures, adopting crop rotation, introducing beneficial predator insects, and a focus on building healthy, “living” soils.

Over 90 years after pesticides were first introduced in the United States, agricultural communities around the globe are still dependent on them, with 44% of farmers estimated to be poisoned by pesticides annually. According to advocates, what is necessary, in Europe, the United States, and around the world, is education around viable alternatives to harmful pesticides and grassroots support for a feasible transition economically to a holistic organic solution.

Ending toxic, petrochemical pesticides and fertilizer use in organic systems will alleviate the harmful impacts of these chemicals on species and ecosystem health. Beyond Pesticides captured the bigger picture in its introduction to its 2017 National Pesticide Forum, Healthy Hives, Healthy Lives, Healthy Land: “Complex biological communities support life.” Learn more about the science and resources behind pesticides’ impact on pollinators, including bee pollinator decline, and take action against the use of pesticides. To find out more about what you can do to protect bees and other pollinators, check out information on the BEE Protective Campaign, pollinator-friendly landscapes, pollinator-friendly seeds, pesticide-free zones, bee-friendly habitats, and what you, or your state representative, can do to protect our pollinators. For more information on the insect apocalypse, see Beyond Pesticides’ article in the Pesticides and You journal, “Tracking Biodiversity: Study Cites Insect Extinction and Ecological Collapse.”

Visit the Beyond Pesticides’ Keeping Organic Strong webpage to learn more about the adverse health and environmental effects chemical-intensive farming poses for various crops and how eating organic produce reduces pesticide exposure. Buying, growing, and supporting organic agriculture eliminate the extensive use of pesticides in the environment, protecting vulnerable pollinators. Organic land management eliminates the need for toxic agricultural pesticides. For more information on how organic is the right choice for consumers and the farmworkers who grow our food, see the Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture. 

Spring is around the corner, so get ready to grow your spring garden the organic way by Springing Into Action, pledging to eliminate toxic pesticide use.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: Euractiv

(Beyond Pesticides, April 12, 2023) Spring represents a period of increased water, soil, and general ecosystem pollution, correlated with increased pesticide use and increased rainfall. Thus, April showers bring May flowers, and often pesticides. We offer this overview to share with friends, family, and your community in an effort to elevate the urgent need to eliminate pesticides and make the shift to organic land management.

Pesticides are pervasive in the environment, affecting all ecosystems, including air, water, and soil. Like clean air and water, healthy soils are integral to ecosystem function, interacting between Earth’s four main spheres (i.e., hydrosphere, biosphere, lithosphere, and atmosphere) to support life. Pesticide use results in pervasive contamination of treated and nontarget sites. Even organic farmers and gardeners globally suffer from the widespread movement of pesticides through the air, water, and runoff from land. Attempts to protect property and ecosystems from pesticide use are a difficult, some say impossible, challenge. Efforts to prevent contamination become a large burden, with attempts to curtail pesticide drift with buffer zone areas and eliminate fertilizers or soil supplements with pesticide residues (e.g., manure and compost). Furthermore, the effects of climate change only exacerbate threats to ecosystem health, as studies show a link between the global climate emergency and the adverse impacts of pesticide exposure.

However, organic land management in agriculture and parks, playing fields, and landscapes offer the only real alternative for meaningful protection of those who work the land (farmworkers, farmers, landscapers, and gardeners) and all who eat food, drink water and breathe air. Additionally, the adoption of organic methods, particularly no-till organic, is an opportunity for farming both to mitigate agriculture’s contributions to climate change and to cope with the effects climate change has had and will have on agriculture. Research from the Rodale Institute’s Farming Systems Trial® (FST) has revealed that organic, regenerative agriculture actually has the potential to lessen the impacts of climate change. This occurs through the drastic reduction in petrochemical pesticide and fertilizer usage to produce the crops (approximately 75% less fertilizer use overall than chemical-intensive agriculture) and a significant increase in carbon sequestration in the soil. Most importantly, no-till organic methods produce comparable yields to conventional systems on average, and higher yields in drought years because of the greater water-holding capacity of the organic soils. Therefore, organic land management is not only necessary to eliminate the use of toxic chemicals but also to ensure the long-term sustainability of our land and ecosystems.

Prepare Your Spring Gardens without Synthetics.

Growing your own food can be a transformative experience. Whether you live in the city and only have room for a few window pots of herbs, or you have enough space to set up a backyard garden to provide nearly all your produce needs, growing your own food organically is worth a try. Planting organic seeds and plants can ensure a pesticide-free garden, since plants in garden centers are often grown from seeds coated with toxic fungicides, bee-harming insecticides like neonicotinoids (neonics), or drenched with them.

Eliminate Synthetic Chemicals.

Synthetic petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides lead to undesirable conditions that restrict water and air movement in the soil. High-nitrogen fertilizers can disrupt the nutrient balance, accelerate turf growth and increase the need for mowing, while contributing to thatch buildup.

Petroleum-based synthetic pesticides harm health and the environment with both immediate and long-term effects. To know what chemicals to avoid, the “40 Most Commonly Used Lawn and Landscape Pesticides” factsheets (on health and environmental effects) simplify the science on pesticides hazardous to people, pets, and the environment. Additionally, our herbicide analysis is an extensive document of over 100 nonorganic (conventional) and organic products with specified health and environmental effects. The chemicals in the analysis include:  

• 2,4-D 
• Carbaryl 
• Dicamba 
• Fipronil 
• Glyphosate
• Malathion 
• Mecoprop 
• Neonicotinoids 
• Pyrethroids 
• Sulfoxaflor

Why Avoid These Synthetic Chemicals?

To Protect Yourself, Your Family, and Your Pets

• *Pesticides have many uses in homes and communities without comprehensive public knowledge about the harm that they cause. A growing body of evidence in the scientific literature (documented in Beyond Pesticides Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database) shows that pesticide exposure can adversely affect neurological, respiratory, immune, and endocrine systems in humans, even at low levels.
• *Children are especially sensitive to pesticide exposure because they (1) take up more pesticides (relative to their body weight) than do adults, and (2) have developing organ systems that are more vulnerable to pesticide impacts and less able to detoxify harmful chemicals.
• *Furthermore, pets encounter pesticides by digging, sniffing, licking, and eating unknown objects. Toxic chemicals in insect sprays and baits, rodent poison, flea collars, weed killers, disinfectants, and more are also hazardous to our companion animals.

To Protect the Bees, Butterflies, and Other Pollinators

As bees, butterflies, bats, and other pollinators suffer serious declines in their populations, we urge people and communities to plant a pesticide-free habitat that supports pollinator populations. We provide information to facilitate this in our BEE Protective Habitat Guide. Become a beekeeper in your own backyard: Backyard Beekeeping: Providing pollinator habitat one yard at a time! 

Urban Areas

• Pollinators: Significantly more pesticide residues are present in urban bumblebees that forage in nonorganic landscapes during April. However, honey bees kept on organic urban farms are less stressed from pesticide exposure. 

Suburban/Exurban/Rural Areas

• Pollinators: Bees in suburban environments remain at risk of pesticide exposure from contamination of areas in which they forage and breed due to toxic weed control, pesticide use on crops, and animal pest treatments on farms. Garden pesticide products and contaminated ornamental plants sold in garden centers play a key role in spreading pesticides through suburban areas. A study from the University of Sussex reveals that 70% of bee-attracting plants sold at a range of garden centers have traces of neonicotinoids. Researchers urge suburban farmers and gardeners to, in addition to adopting soil health practices, swap synthetic pesticides with natural predators, like ladybirds or lacewings, and the use of physical methods, such as hand-removal of pests, and netting or sticky traps.

To Protect Birds, Especially Song and Migrating Birds

Neonicotinoids are a class of highly toxic insecticides that are systemic and move through the vascular system of the treated plant, contaminating pollen, nectar, and guttation droplets and indiscriminately poisoning insects, birds, and soil and aquatic organisms. Seeds are often coated with neonicotinoids and plants are drenched with the chemical. However, birds can eat the poisoned seeds as a food source, causing many adverse effects, including effects on reproductive function and egg formation, and even death. For more information on the dangers of neonicotinoid-coated seeds, see Beyond Pesticides’ short video Seeds That Poison.

To Protect Beneficial Organisms and Microorganisms In and Around the Soil

Wildflowers, native shrubs, and trees, as well as urban green spaces, provide important habitats for beneficial organisms (e.g., worms, ants, beetles, etc.) and microorganisms (e.g., bacteria and fungi). Synthetic fertilizers and toxic pesticides threaten their survivability, reproduction, and distribution of essential nutrients. Additionally, plants grown in chemically-treated areas are more vulnerable to parasites and pathogens. The adoption of organic land management practices, like planting pollinator-friendly plants and cover crops, and using organic mulch for weed suppression, create healthier plants that are less vulnerable to disease and infestation, and more resilient.

Urban Areas

• Many insects are the victims of the global insect apocalypse or population decline. Much research attributes the recent decline to several factors, including pesticide exposure. Broad-spectrum pesticides indiscriminately kill pests and nontarget organisms alike, as their ubiquitous use contaminates soils, even in untreated areas.
  • In addition to insects, the soil microbiome is essential for the proper functioning of the soil ecosystem. The microbiome is home to ecological communities of microorganisms living and working together. Toxic chemicals damage the soil microbiota by decreasing and altering biomass and microbiome composition (diversity). Pesticide use contaminates soil and results in a bacteria-dominant ecosystem, as these chemicals cause “vacant ecological niches, so organisms that were rare become abundant and vice versa.”  

Suburban (Rural) Areas

• One of the most concerning consequences of soil pesticide contamination is the impact on organisms, including beneficial insects and microbes. Conventional farming technologies promote the use of pesticides that directly and indirectly affect soil organisms.
  • Soil biology can change due to the presence of synthetic chemical pollutants like pesticides. Studies find some current-use pesticides induce changes in soil properties that re-release soil-bound chemicals into the ecosystem, contributing to contamination. Long-term or legacy contamination has resulted from the failure to regulate so-called stable chemicals that would bind to soil and remain immobile—thus beginning the continuing multigenerational poisoning from now-banned chemicals, like organochlorines, including DDT(its breakdown contaminant DDE) and chlordecone. Various studies find that glyphosate use stimulates soil erosion responsible for soil-based chemical emergence, harms the gut microbiota of honey bees, and destroys habitats for organisms like the monarch butterfly.

Spring Cleaning without Harmful Disinfectants

With spring cleaning upon us, many household disinfectants pose a risk to human, animal, and ecosystem health. To mitigate this hazard, advocates, including Beyond Pesticides, promote practices that eliminate toxic, synthetic chemical use by switching to organic and least-toxic pesticides to mitigate further risk.

Avoid Indoor Toxins

Exposure to disinfectant products containing toxic chemicals, such as chlorine bleach, peroxyacetic acid, quaternary ammonium compounds (quats), phenolic chemical compounds (i.e., cresols, hexachlorobenzene, and chlorophenols), sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione, and hydrochloric acid, are associated with a long list of adverse effects, from asthma to cancer. All of these chemicals can harm the respiratory system, with some quats shown to cause mutations, lower fertility, and increased antibiotic resistance. Many of these toxic disinfectants are harmful via more than one exposure route, as ingestion and inhalation also trigger potentially more harmful effects. Although chemical disinfectants kill viruses, bacteria, and other microbes via cell wall and protein destruction, they can also irritate and destroy the mucous membranes in animal and human respiratory and digestive tracts upon ingestion or inhalation. This exposure can lead to death in extreme cases.

People who have a preexisting condition or are of advanced age, who may have a weakened immune or respiratory system, are more vulnerable to the effects of the Covid-19 virus. Many of the products approved as disinfectants have negative impacts on the respiratory or immune system, thus reducing resistance to the disease. When managing viral and bacterial infections, chemicals that exacerbate the risk to vulnerable individuals are of serious concern. The Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) report on an increase in poison control calls due to disinfectant misuse notes that a majority pertained to bleach products, a 62% increase in 2020, with a total disinfectant-related call increase of 108.8% between 2019 and 2020. We urge people to recognize that it is important during public health emergencies involving infectious diseases to scrutinize practices and products very carefully so that hazards presented by the crisis are not elevated because of the unnecessary threat introduced by toxic chemical use.

For more information on safe disinfectants, visit Beyond Pesticides’ webpage on Disinfectants and Sanitizers.

The Year(s) of Organic Solutions: The Safer, ORGANIC Choice

Following the organic/Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) label helps guide individuals to the organic-compatible, least-toxic products, safer choice products. There are two established lists of organic materials and products in “Products Compatible with Organic Landscape Management:”

* The National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances of the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA), and

* The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s list of exempt pesticides, Section 25(b) of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).

Residential

Some of the products you may need for your garden include seeds, potting soil, mulch, tools, fertilizer/soil supplements, and compost. For most small-scale gardeners, pest problems can be contained with simple removal (scout the insects and remove them). If you decide to use a product to manage pests, do not be fooled by products labeled as “safe” or “natural” (these products may contain nonorganic “inert” ingredients that may be toxic). In general, organic-compatible products will display an OMRI Listed® seal on their labels, but not all products that meet organic standards have this seal. This same caution applies to fertilizers and potting soil as well. One of the great things about gardening at home on a small scale is the potential to create all the material needed for soil health through simple composting of kitchen scraps and yard waste. 

When planting an organic garden, Beyond Pesticides offers a guide on how to “Grow Your Own Organic Food,” including a resource page on steps to take before planting Grow Your Own Organic Food — Beyond Pesticides. Companies and Nurseries that Grow and Distribute Organic Seeds and Plants can be found in our Seed and Plant Directory Brochure.

If there is a problem with weeds taking over yards and gardens, Beyond Pesticides offers a guide on how to “Read Your Weeds,” which identifies weeds in your lawn and suggests nontoxic, least-toxic, solutions. You can always check Beyond Pesticides’ suggestion for managing lawns and buildings at ManageSafe: Least-Toxic Control of Pests in the Home and Garden. Additionally, Beyond Pesticides’ webpage on the Ecological Management of Invasive Species is a great resource for broad weed management. Know your soil chemistry and biology with simple tests from land grant universities. For instance, clover is considered a typical turf weed (although more people are seeding microclover into lawns to provide nitrogen) that thrives in soil with low nitrogen levels, compaction issues, and drought stress. Many plants that are considered weeds have beneficial qualities (e.g., dandelions for bees). Try to develop a tolerance for some “weeds.”

Organic does not mean expensive, whether related to food or land management. As land management practices result in increased soil health, the microbial life in the soil cycles nutrients naturally and reduces the need for expensive fertilizers. Regarding organic food, Beyond Pesticides offers a guide on how to buy organic on a budget, “The Real Affordability of Organic Food.” Buying organic produce whenever possible is always an option. On how to find and purchase organic products and why organic is about more than eliminating pesticide residues in the food and includes the protection of farmworkers and the environment in its production practices, visit the Beyond Pesticides webpage “Buying Organic” and “Eating with a Conscience.”

Community

Many urban areas have community gardens where one can get an individual plot for gardening. Community gardens in some urban environments have transformed the landscape and the community itself. Our Parks for a Sustainable Future program provides in-depth support for community land managers in transitioning public green spaces to organic landscape management. Contact Beyond Pesticides and we will collaborate with you to start two organic demonstration sites in your community at no charge, with the goal of providing the training and experience necessary for your parks department staff to transition all public areas in your community to these organic practices. Dozens of communities in all regions of the country already have organic communities where local parks, playing fields, and greenways are managed without unnecessary toxic pesticides and fertilizers. This is an opportunity for your community to address the three existential crises (to which petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers contribute) that we must all work to resolve—health threats, biodiversity collapse, and the climate emergency.

Read about some successful community gardens in New York City from Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticides and You journal. If you want to get your hands dirty but do not have the space or the desire to start a garden, see if there are any community-supported farms near you that could use your helping hands-on weeding or other projects.

Check Out Beyond Pesticides’ Spring into Action page to further educate yourself on safer gardening practices around your home and community.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: Beyond Pesticides                           

(Beyond Pesticides, April 11, 2023) Natural areas are often considered more pristine than urbanized locations, but a new study published in Nature Communications shows that the soils in natural lands can be just as polluted as those in more densely populated cities. The findings underscore the broad impacts that human activity is having on the health and stability of natural systems around the globe. In order to address widespread contamination, advocates urge government regulators to consider the full cradle to grave life cycle of toxic materials before releasing them into the environment.

An international contingent of scientists came together to conduct this research on a global scale, looking at soils on every continent. Soil samples were collected from urban greenspaces and nearby natural areas and paired together. Sampling was conducted in 56 cities in 17 countries, representing six continents. These data were also compared to soil samples taken from remote ecosystems in Antarctica. Scientists tested soils for eight heavy metals, 46 pesticide residues, microplastics, and antibiotic resistance genes.

Results reveal a wide distribution of tested contaminants in all samples taken. “Although the level of individual contaminants varied greatly across locations, we detected significant correlations among each type of soil contaminants studied,” the article explains. 

For metals, urban greenspaces had slightly higher levels than natural areas, a variation scientists attribute to anthropogenic factors. For instance, in 42% of urban sites and 36% of natural areas, arsenic contamination exceeds soil contamination levels set under regulations by the Finnish government.

Pesticides were widely detected, including in 63% of natural areas tested. Surprisingly, there was no significant difference between these detections and those found in urban greenspaces. However, researchers indicate these data are likely an underestimate, as per the study’s supporting information, they did not measure some of the most widely used pesticides like glyphosate, 2,4-D, and paraquat. Scientists reason that atmospheric transport is likely playing a role, as well as potential deposition from agricultural sites (farm soils were not tested in the study).

Similar to other results, microplastics were widespread in every soil tested. This was also reasoned a result of atmospheric transport, with small fibers from plastic-based fabrics, ropes, nets, and other materials the likely source.

Antibiotic resistance genes were ubiquitous in both natural and urban soils, though the type of genes varied by soil. Urban greenspaces contained more diversity of these genes than natural areas. But the close similarity to the contamination is likely a result of physical movement of bacterial cells from urban to natural areas.

Despite its remote location, Antarctic soils did exhibit some of these major contaminants. In particular, microplastics were found to be just as widespread in Antarctic soils as those in all other locations. Pesticides were detected, but with less frequency, while levels of heavy metals fell below regulatory concern, and antibiotic resistance genes were below the level of detection.

Looking deeper into the findings, researchers determined that population density is the largest factor associated with the presence of microplastics. The less wealthy a city is, the more likely there would be microplastic and heavy metal contamination. For pesticides and antibiotic resistance genes, soil fertilizer applications is the greatest factor, indicating a significant human role in the global spread of these hazards. “Together, our work demonstrates that soils in nearby natural areas are as contaminated as our urban greenspaces at a large-spatial scale,” the authors write.

This is not the first study to find toxic contaminants in areas traditionally considered pristine or untouched. A 2020 study found that arctic glaciers are trapping pesticides and other atmospheric pollutants, and subsequently releasing them as they melt.

The release of any toxic material can have long term effects that are not limited merely to the location where such material was applied. Pesticides and other hazardous substances drift from direct application, volatilize, or become stirred up by dust, and can be taken into the atmosphere and deposited in locations hundreds of miles away.

Beyond Pesticides has long fought for a precautionary approach to the regulation of toxic pesticides and other materials. In order to safeguard health and the environment now and for future generations, it is critical pass laws that consider the full life-cycle of a material, and forgo production if hazards are too high. Take action today by telling the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Congress that all impacts from toxic pesticides- cradle to grave- must be considered before allowing use.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source:  Nature Communications

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

(Beyond Pesticides, April 10, 2023) Congress has entrusted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the responsibility to protect the health and environment of the United States. As yet another report of EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG)—this one relating to risk assessment for a PFAS chemical—finds that EPA has failed to abide by its own scientific integrity policy, thereby leaving “the public vulnerable to potential negative impacts on human health,” it becomes urgently necessary to insist on accountability for scientific integrity failures at the agency. 

Tell Congress and the President to hold accountable political appointees at EPA who fail to uphold scientific integrity.      

OIG is an independent branch of EPA that can receive complaints of mismanagement, misconduct, abuse of authority, or censorship, including those related to scientific or research misconduct, without fear of improper influence. Through its statutory mandate, OIG investigates these allegations. It makes recommendations based on findings, which it reports to Congress, but it cannot ensure the personal accountability of those responsible for misconduct. In this case, OIG made recommendations relating to strengthening policies and procedures for dealing with scientific data, disagreements, and integrity, and one recommendation “to strengthen the EPA’s culture of scientific integrity, transparency, and accountability of political leadership actions.” EPA disagreed with all five recommendations. If left unresolved, it will be included in OIG’s semiannual report to Congress.  

Corruption and lack of scientific integrity are not new issues for EPA. (Other OIG reports also deal with failures of scientific integrity.) Regarding the pesticide program, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) Senior Counsel Peter Jenkins stated, “EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs has bent so far over backwards to accommodate industry desires that it is now beyond chiropractic help – major surgery is required,” noting that while problems within OPP worsened under Trump, they preexisted his term and continue today. “Inside OPP, marginalization of science remains cause for celebration and the result has been repeated ecological and public health disasters,” Mr. Jenkins said. 

As indicated in the most recent OIG report, problems often arise when scientific professionals are overruled by political appointees. Political appointees—starting with the EPA Administrator—should be held accountable for actions that disregard scientific findings, putting at risk people and the environment. EPA’s failures to take actions recommended by OIG should create a presumption of misconduct of the Administrator and program directors, which should result in initiation of dismissal actions. Congress receives OIG’s annual report, which documents such failures and should trigger oversight hearings if those responsible are not held accountable.

Tell Congress and the President to hold accountable political appointees at EPA who fail to uphold scientific integrity.   

Letter to U.S. Representative and Senators:

Congress has entrusted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the responsibility to protect the health and environment of the United States. As yet another report of EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG)—this one relating to risk assessment for a PFAS chemical—finds that EPA has failed to abide by its own scientific integrity policy, thereby leaving “the public vulnerable to potential negative impacts on human health,” it becomes urgently necessary to insist on accountability for scientific integrity failures at the agency.

OIG is an independent branch of EPA that can receive complaints of mismanagement, misconduct, abuse of authority, or censorship, including those related to scientific or research misconduct, without fear of improper influence. Through its statutory mandate, OIG investigates these allegations. It makes recommendations based on findings, which it reports to Congress, but it cannot ensure the personal accountability of those responsible for misconduct. In this case, OIG made recommendations relating to strengthening policies and procedures for dealing with scientific data, disagreements, and integrity, and one recommendation “to strengthen the EPA’s culture of scientific integrity, transparency, and accountability of political leadership actions.” EPA disagreed with all five recommendations. If left unresolved, it will be included in OIG’s semiannual report to Congress.

Corruption and lack of scientific integrity are not new issues for EPA. (Other OIG reports also deal with failures of scientific integrity.) Regarding the pesticide program, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) Senior Counsel Peter Jenkins stated, “EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs has bent so far over backwards to accommodate industry desires that it is now beyond chiropractic help – major surgery is required,” noting that while problems within OPP worsened under Trump, they preexisted his term and continue today. “Inside OPP, marginalization of science remains cause for celebration and the result has been repeated ecological and public health disasters,” Mr. Jenkins said.

As indicated in the most recent OIG report, problems often arise when scientific professionals are overruled by political appointees. Political appointees—starting with the EPA Administrator—should be held accountable for actions that disregard scientific findings, putting at risk people and the environment. EPA’s failures to take actions recommended by OIG should create a presumption of misconduct of the Administrator and program directors, which should result in initiation of dismissal actions. Congress receives OIG’s annual report, which documents such failures and should trigger oversight hearings if those responsible are not held accountable.

Thank you.

Letter to President Biden (This will require people to go to the White House website and copy and paste into the webform. There is a limit of 2000 characters in the form. People may use suggested language (below) from Beyond Pesticides, which is just under the character limit.):

Congress entrusted EPA with the responsibility to protect the health and environment of the U.S. As yet another report of EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG)—this one relating to risk assessment for a PFAS chemical—finds that EPA has failed to abide by its own scientific integrity policy, thereby leaving “the public vulnerable to potential negative impacts on human health,” We must insist on accountability for scientific integrity failures at the agency.

OIG, an independent branch of EPA, can receive complaints of mismanagement, misconduct, abuse of authority, or censorship, including those related to scientific or research misconduct. Through its statutory mandate, OIG investigates these allegations. It makes recommendations based on findings, which it reports to Congress, but it cannot ensure the personal accountability of those responsible for misconduct. In this case, OIG made recommendations relating to strengthening policies and procedures for dealing with scientific data, disagreements, and integrity, and one recommendation “to strengthen the EPA’s culture of scientific integrity, transparency, and accountability of political leadership actions.” EPA disagreed with all five recommendations. If left unresolved, it will be included in OIG’s semiannual report to Congress.

Corruption and lack of scientific integrity are not new issues for EPA. Other OIG reports also deal with failures of scientific integrity.

As indicated in the most recent OIG report, problems often arise when scientific professionals are overruled by political appointees. Political appointees—starting with the EPA Administrator—should be held accountable for actions that disregard scientific findings, putting at risk people and the environment. EPA’s failures to take actions recommended by OIG should create a presumption of misconduct of the Administrator and program directors, which should result in initiation of dismissal actions.

Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, April 7, 2023) A  petition to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) implores the agency to halt the practice of allowing pesticides banned in the U.S. to be exported to other countries without any consent from relevant governmental authorities in those nations. The two petitioners—the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)—are focusing on a longstanding practice of U.S. pesticide manufacturers and brokers, who sell toxic pesticide products that fail to qualify for EPA registration domestically to entities nearly anywhere in the world (except where the products are specifically prohibited). As Beyond Pesticides has noted, this is a dangerous and environmentally unjust practice and has for decades urged Congress and EPA to forbid it.

According to the CIEL press release on the matter, the petition was motivated by the reality that banned or voluntarily withdrawn pesticides “are routinely exported to countries that often have limited resources or capacity to assess and regulate chemical risks,” and that the “practice has directly fueled the influx of extremely hazardous pesticides to countries in the Global South, where they disproportionately harm Indigenous peoples and vulnerable and marginalized communities.” The organizations emphasize that, for example, more than four-fifths of countries that import neurotoxic pesticide compounds that are banned in the U.S. are egarded as developing or low-to-middle income, and that in more than three-fourths of those, roughly 30% (or more) of their agricultural workers suffer pesticide poisoning annually.

The petitioners argue that what they are urging EPA to do — “initiate rulemaking procedures to require prior informed consent for the export of pesticides unregistered in the United States” — would help less-well-resourced nations make informed decisions about whether (or under what conditions) to allow such hazardous products into their countries.

The petition notes, “Current EPA regulations and practice on the export of unregistered pesticides are incompatible with the legislative text and purpose of the FIFRA provisions. This becomes even more apparent in light of accepted understandings of ‘notice’ that have developed since 1978, and the fundamental change in pesticide trade since that time. The regulatory, scientific, and public health context with respect to pesticides and hazardous substances has shifted profoundly in the 65 years since FIFRA’s original adoption, and in the more than four decades since the statutory language of FIFRA §17 was amended to its current form.” (FIFRA is the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, the statute that governs the registration, regulation, sale, and use of pesticides.)

The petition also calls out the environmental injustice of current practice, and endorses the 2019 conclusions of United Nations Special Rapporteur on Toxics Baskut Tuncak, JD. He then said that all countries — in order to “meet their obligations to respect, protect, and promote fundamental human rights,” must “adopt laws and policies consistent with their duty under international human rights law to prevent exposure to hazardous substances, protect the most vulnerable and susceptible and prevent discrimination; prohibit the export of chemicals and production processes that are prohibited from use domestically; and prevent the import of chemicals and production processes that are prohibited in the country from which they are exported.”

The petition cites three central arguments underlying its request for new rulemaking:

• The U.S. has binding obligations to provide prior informed consent regarding exports of delisted or unregistered pesticides under treaties which it has signed or ratified.
• The U.S. has a duty to ensure prior informed consent as a matter of customary international law.
• Prior informed consent is a legal tradition rooted in U.S. domestic law.

Absent prior informed consent (PIC), these unregistered pesticides are able to cross national borders and are often deployed “on the ground” with minimal oversight or enforcement of regulations that may exist. CBD and CIEL further argue that PIC is a “widely accepted legal concept that has been defined by many U.S. statutes, including FIFRA, U.S. multi-lateral agreements, and other international treaties and agreements.”

Commenting in 2020 on the global dynamics of this exportation of banned/unregistered pesticides, Mr. Tuncak said, in a statement endorsed by 35 other experts on the UN Human Rights Council, “Wealthier nations often create ‘double standards’ that allow the trade and use of banned chemicals in parts of the world where regulations are less strict. [The] ‘racialised nature of these standards cannot be ignored’ as the dangers [are] externalised to communities of African descent and other people of colour. These loopholes are a political concession to industry, allowing their chemical manufacturers to profit from inevitably poisoned workers and communities abroad, all the while importing cheaper products through global supply chains and fueling unsustainable consumption and production patterns. It is long-overdue that states stop this exploitation.”

The petitioners also maintain that the production of these banned pesticides — which is ongoing in the U.S. —disproportionately harms domestic fenceline communities that are more often (than those of other demographic groups) located nearby to pesticide (and other chemical) manufacturing facilities. Further, the residents of these “environmental justice” communities, often low-income and/or people of color, may well comprise much of the workforce for production of these compounds, putting them at additional, heightened health risk.

Spokespeople for both organizations offered their takes on the petition’s goals. CBD Environmental Health Science Director Nathan Donnelly commented, “The Biden EPA must end the horrifically immoral U.S. legacy of squeezing profits out of dangerous pesticides we refuse to use ourselves by shipping them off to developing countries. Pesticide companies are exploiting weak laws to dump their most toxic poisons on countries with extremely limited regulatory resources. This system is built on deception and shrouded in secrecy. It’s time to make it more transparent.”

CIEL President Carol Muffett said, “In the half-century since FIFRA’s notice requirements were last updated, the U.S. has dramatically expanded its pesticide exports while falling ever farther out of step with global standards governing those exports. EPA has the opportunity, authority, and . . . obligation to narrow that gap and provide importing countries with the critical information they need to better protect their own people and the U.S. public.”

For its part, EPA notes that although pesticides intended only to be sold abroad need not be registered in the U.S., their sale by exporters must comply with specific requirements under FIFRA, and exporters must submit reports to EPA. Such requirements have mostly to do with exporters keeping track of how much of what is sold to whom and when, as well as a requirement that importers must certify their understanding that the products are not registered in the U.S. In addition, every pesticide, active pesticide ingredient, and any pesticide “device” that is exported must bear labeling that meets FIFRA requirements.

EPA has long used labels as a mechanism to attempt to tweak the parameters along which pesticides are used domestically — changing a labeling requirement as a “baby step” means of trying to limit damage from use. The agency calls the label “a key part of pesticide regulation,” and cites label contents as critical to “safe” handling and use in order to avoid harm to human health and the environment.

Pesticide front-side labels may include: a restricted use pesticide statement; a product name, brand, or trademark; an ingredient statement; a child hazard warning statement; a signal word (“danger,” “warning,” or “caution”); a first aid statement; a skull and cross bones symbol and the word “poison”; and net contents/net weight. The back side includes a precautionary statement, directions for use, storage and disposal instructions, and a warranty statement.

Beyond Pesticides Executive Director Jay Feldman notes that EPA’s label restrictions should not be regarded as adequate for the protection of human and environmental health, primarily because the agency does not exercise sufficient scientific scrutiny in its registration of pesticides. Mr. Feldman cites broader issues relating to the serious hazards associated with U.S. exportation of all pesticides to developing countries. He comments: “Clearly, EPA bans pesticides or negotiates their withdrawal from the market because it is determined that their use results in unacceptable risk factors. Their removal from the market in the U.S. should result in a concurrent ban on exportation. More broadly, the problem extends to all pesticides, since EPA knows that the exportation of registered pesticides to countries that do not have the infrastructure, regulation, training, and enforcement to ensure product label compliance will result in harm to health and the environment. In fact, all legal uses of pesticides in the U.S. are based on EPA risk assessments, however weak or deficient, that establish allowed uses based on risk mitigation measures. EPA then determines that the resulting restrictions necessary to meet its standard of pesticide safety (or allowable harm) are reliant on the enforceability of pesticide product labels. However, it is clear that we allow pesticide exportation to countries without the resources and capacity to ensure compliance, thus, resulting in unacceptable harm by any standard.”

In 2020 coverage of this issue, Beyond Pesticides reviewed a study showing that companies in the United Kingdom and the European Union are also exporting such products, and that the biggest importers were countries in the Global South — Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Indonesia, and Ukraine. In August 2022, our reporting looked at a BBC investigative team’s discovery that, “Export data from U.S. ports found that over 27 million pounds of pesticides forbidden for use domestically were shipped at an average of 32 thousand pounds per day. In 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that banned pesticides were being produced in 23 U.S. states.”

As if the export of banned pesticides to other countries were not sufficiently concerning, a 2019 Truthout article — “Export of Banned US Pesticides Creates a Deadly Circle of Poison,” by Elisabeth McLaughlin — reminded Americans that the chickens of unethical practices will inevitably come home to roost. To wit, some of the food grown in countries using these U.S.-banned pesticides ultimately returns to American dinner plates, replete with residues of those pesticides.

EPA’s established “tolerances”(maximum residue levels) for pesticide residues on food do not apply to imported foods U.S. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) conducts annual reviews of pesticide residue on both domestic and imported foods; in 2022, the review concluded that “samples of food imported to the U.S. from other countries appeared to pose a greater risk of containing pesticide residue. Countries documenting the highest number of import violations included Mexico, India, and Pakistan.”

Another reality in this scenario is that pesticides that have been effectively banned in the U.S. continue to contaminate the environment (and soils, in particular) and thus, continue to show up in food plants. Evidencing the persistence of some pesticides over time, the 2022 U.S. Department of Agriculture Pesticide Data Program (PDP) Annual Summary found that now-banned, “legacy” pesticides continue to show up as residue on food plants grown in the U.S., — including DDT, chlordane, dieldrin, and lindane.

In covering this issue in 2022, Beyond Pesticides wrote: “For banned pesticides . . . the fates of agricultural workers thousands of miles away . . . may seem (increasingly) remote. . . . But it is critical to remember that legacy chemicals are ‘gifts that keep on giving,’ whether DDT from the ‘40s and ‘50s, DBCP in the ‘70s, or PFAS chemicals used for the past 90 years (among others). But in addition, the creation and deployment of toxic legacy chemicals are not all in the past; this is a ‘rolling admissions’ situation because we continue to . . . export toxic chemicals whose impacts may show up now, or may show up in a decade or more.”

In her article, Ms. McLaughlin pithily wrote, “When the federal government bans a pesticide, pro-industry loopholes allow agrochemical companies to recoup lost profits by manufacturing the same pesticide for use abroad. . . . This disturbing practice creates a ‘circle of poison’ where we are unknowingly consuming U.S.-banned chemicals in food produced in conditions dangerous to agricultural workers and their families. How can ethical responsibility for hazardous chemicals end at our borders?” She added, “With no comprehensive global regulatory framework to guide policy for transport, storage and use, the U.S. consciously subjects vulnerable agricultural workers overseas to chemicals known to cause harm and death, and widens international dependence of agriculture on pesticides.”

This export by agrochemical entities of pesticide compounds whose use the U.S. will not permit within its borders is an ethical and health outrage, as well as an assault on environmental justice communities in countries around the world. The petitioners’ request of EPA for new rulemaking to prevent this is certainly a useful step, and the agency should comply with it.

Yet the ultimate solution lies in eliminating the use of synthetic pesticides — some of which are registered and toxic, some of which are banned and toxic, and some of which are registered and have not yet been determined by EPA to be toxic enough — in the U.S. and worldwide. Beyond Pesticides has called for the transition to organic agricultural (and other land) management in the next decade. The public can help advance the organic transition by talking about the importance of it to everyone: family, friends, local food purveyors/markets, and local, state, and federal officials (elected and otherwise), and by supporting Beyond Pesticides and other advocacy groups, whether national, local, or international. Find more on how to help with our Tools for Change webpage.

Sources: https://www.ciel.org/news/epa-petitioned-to-halt-export-of-us-banned-pesticides-to-developing-countries/ and https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/environmental_health/pdfs/FIFRA-Petition-Section-17-March-2023.pdf

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

(Beyond Pesticides, April 6, 2023) A study published in Global Change Biology adds to research demonstrating that climate change can exacerbate the adverse impacts of pesticide exposure on managed and wild bees. Temperature can alter the sublethal effect pesticides, particularly the neonicotinoid (neonic) imidacloprid and the sulfoximine sulfoxaflor, have on bumble bee behavior tied to fitness and pollination services. Both an increase and decrease in temperature can cause diverging thermal responses in bumble bee behavior. However, increasing temperature bares more severe behavior abnormalities than cooler temperatures.

The pervasiveness of pesticide exposure combined with climate change threatens global species biodiversity. As has been widely reported, pollinators (such as bees, monarch butterflies, and bats) are a bellwether for environmental stress as individuals and as colonies. Pesticides intensify pollinators’ vulnerability to health risks (such as pathogens and parasites), with pesticide-contaminated conditions limiting colony productivity, growth, and survival. Now more than ever, people are changing their sentiment toward sustainability, with two-thirds of consumers stating the importance of limiting climate change impacts and 88 percent supporting greater pollution reduction. The globe is currently going through the Holocene Extinction, Earth’s 6th mass extinction, with one million species of plants and animals at risk. With the increasing rate of biodiversity loss, advocates say it is essential for government agencies to hold the pesticide industry accountable for the direct (i.e., excessive agrochemical use) and indirect (i.e., water pollution from runoff) impacts on ecosystems.

The study notes, “Our findings highlight the importance of multi-stressor studies to quantify threats to insects, which will help to improve dynamic evaluations of population tipping points and spatiotemporal risks to biodiversity across different climate regions.”

The study investigates six behaviors of bumblebees exposed to imidacloprid and sulfoxaflor at three different temperatures (21 ̊C/69.8 ̊F [Low], 27 ̊C /80.6 ̊F [Medium], 30 ̊C / 86 ̊F [High]). The behaviors under observation include: “1. Likelihood of being responsive; 2. Likelihood of movement; 3. Rates of walking; 4. Rate of food consumption; 4. Flight distance; and 5. Flight velocity.”

Of the six behaviors, imidacloprid significantly impacts the responsiveness, likelihood of movement, walking rate, and food consumption rate at lower temperatures and reduces flight distance by over 50 percent at higher temperatures. Sulfoxaflor impacts bumble bee walking rate at medium temperatures and reduces flight distance by 24 percent, but not as significantly as imidacloprid. With temperature predicted to increase, lead researcher from the Department of Life Sciences (Silwood Park) at Imperial College London, Richard Gill, Ph.D., highlights, “The drop-off in flight performance at the highest temperature suggests a ‘tipping point’ has been reached in the bees’ ability to tolerate the combined temperature and pesticide exposure. This seeming cliff-edge effect happens over the span of just three degrees, which changes our perception of pesticide risk dynamics given such temperature changes can commonly occur over the space of a day.”

The United Nations states that 80 percent of the 115 top global food crops depend on insect pollination, with one-third of all U.S. crops depending on pollinators, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). However, research finds that many insect populations, including managed and wild pollinators, are collapsing. Monarchs are near extinction, and commercial beekeepers continue to experience declines that are putting them out of business. The continued loss of mayflies and fireflies disrupts the foundation of many food chains. Additionally, the decline in many bird species has links to insect declines. Since the 1970s, three billion birds have vanished. Despite habitat fragmentation and climate change, extensive use of pesticides, like neonicotinoids, sulfoxaflor, pyrethroids, fipronil, and organophosphates, increase the potential risk and indiscriminate threat to all insects. Research shows that residues from neonicotinoids (including seed treatments) and sulfoxaflor accumulate and translocate to pollen and nectar of treated plants. Pyrethroids and fipronil impair bee learning, development, and behavioral function, reducing survivability and colony fitness. However, inert ingredients in these products cause similar or more severe impacts on insect populations, such as disruption in bee learning behavior through exposure to low doses of surfactants. With the global reliance on pollinator-dependent crops increasing over the past decades, a lack of pollinators threatens food security and stability for current and future generations.

Additionally, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) routinely finds widespread pesticide contamination of surface waters throughout the U.S. Scientists warn that neonicotinoids and other pesticides pose a direct threat to both insect and non-insect wildlife, including birds, aquatic animals, and other wildlife, which absorb pesticide sprays and vapors through respiration, as well as ingestion via food. Industrial agriculture and its use of hazardous pesticides, particularly systemic insecticides like the neonicotinoid class, are harming insect life and biodiversity throughout the globe. Most animals on Earth are insects, which play a significant role in sustaining the ecosystem, despite their size. Insects found in nature preserves are consistently contaminated with over a dozen pesticides, calling into question the ability of these areas to function as refuges for threatened and endangered species. With rampant pesticide use and ubiquitous contamination, it is imperative that lawmakers and regulators embrace stronger measures to reverse the ominous trajectory society continues to follow, especially with the ongoing global insect apocalypse.

The wide range of temperatures in temperate regions can significantly impact bee health and survival more severely when combined with pesticide exposure, demonstrating synergistic (combined) effects on flight performance within a three-degree Celsius increase. However, the synergistic impacts of pesticides and climate change are not a new phenomenon. A 2023 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) utilizing a climate and land use model confirms that recorded temperature during the warm seasons has a greater impact on bee declines, with a twofold increase in negative stressors. However, bees are not the only insects a risk of chemical exposure. Research published in 2017 highlighted a major red flag for insect populations worldwide, finding a 77 percent decline in German nature preserves of flying insect biomass. A systematic review of insect population decline studies published in 2019 found that 41% of insect species worldwide are declining. The declines of butterflies, wild bumblebees, and honey bees have links to hazardous pesticide use in conventional agricultural systems. Since 1990, roughly a quarter of the global insect population has been vanishing, according to research published in Science. This research finds worldwide trends in declines in terrestrial insect biomass to be nearly 1% each year (~9% each decade).

To mitigate the risks associated with chemical exposure from toxic pesticides, advocates say the manufacturing and use of pesticides need addressing, first and foremost. Global leaders should curtail the continued manufacturing of chemical pollutants that readily contaminate the environment. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) appears to discount threats like the insect apocalypse, evidenced by a 75% decline in insect abundance, threatening global ecosystems and food production that depends on animal pollination. If pesticide use and manufacturing are amplifying the impacts of the climate crisis, especially on vital pollinators, advocates argue that it is essential to incite change by enhancing pesticide policy and regulation that eliminate use. 

Dr. Gill, concludes, “…[T]he frequency to which bees will be exposed to pesticides and extreme temperatures under climate change are predicted to increase. Our work can help to inform the right concentrations and application times of pesticides across different climatic regions of the world to help safeguard pollinators, such as bees.”

Ending toxic pesticide use can alleviate the harmful impacts of these chemicals on species and ecosystem health. Beyond Pesticides captured the bigger picture in its introduction to its 2017 National Pesticide Forum, Healthy Hives, Healthy Lives, Healthy Land: “Complex biological communities support life.” Learn more about the science and resources behind pesticides’ impact on pollinators, including bee pollinator decline, and take action against the use of pesticides. To find out more about what you can do to protect bees and other pollinators, check out information on the BEE Protective Campaign, pollinator-friendly landscapes, pollinator-friendly seeds, pesticide-free zones, bee-friendly habitats, and what you, or your state representative, can do to protect our pollinators. For more information on the insect apocalypse, see Beyond Pesticides’ article in the Pesticides and You journal, “Tracking Biodiversity: Study Cites Insect Extinction and Ecological Collapse.”

Additionally, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) finds that agriculture, forestry, and other land use contributes about 23% of total net anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, while organic production reduces greenhouse gas emissions and sequesters carbon in the soil. Learn more about the possibility of sequestering more than 100% of current annual CO2 emissions by switching to organic management practices by reading Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change: A Down-to-Earth Solution to Global Warming. For more information about organic food production, visit the Beyond Pesticides Keeping Organic Strong webpage. Learn more about the adverse health and environmental effects chemical-intensive farming poses for various crops and how eating organic produce reduces pesticide exposure. Buying, growing, and supporting organic agriculture eliminate the extensive use of pesticides in the environment. Organic land management eliminates the need for toxic agricultural pesticides. For more information on how organic is the right choice for consumers and the farmworkers who grow our food, see the Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture. 

Spring is around the corner, so get ready to grow your spring garden the organic way by Springing Into Action, pledging to eliminate toxic pesticide use.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: Science Daily, Global Change Biology

(Beyond Pesticides, April 5, 2023) A collective of Mayan beekeepers (Colectivo de Comunidades Mayas) in Mexico are implicating chemical industry giant Bayer/Monsanto in a massive die-off of more than 300,000 bees among their combined apiaries. According to Mexico News Daily, the total value of losses represent a staggering $663,000 U.S. dollars (12 million pesos). The incident is the latest instance of the pesticide  and agrichemical industry setting up shop in a local community and wrecking the health of the local ecology.

Mayan beekeepers explain that Bayer/Monsanto recently started operations on a ranch near Crucero Oxá in the southern Mexican state of Campeche. A local businessman placed the 50 hectare ranch on loan to the company. Since that arrangement, the company has aerially sprayed row crops like corn and soy with undisclosed chemicals. “One of Bayer’s engineers or technicians allowed us to take samples from one of their crops after the bees started to die,” said beekeeper José Manuel Poot Chan, to the newspaper La Jornada Maya. “We are exhausting all possible legal instances, while members of the Welfare Ministry already came to offer humanitarian social aid to cover part of the damages.”

Beekeepers suspect that the company is using the site to test new pesticides it is developing. This is not at all unheard of for a tropical environment. In the United States, giant chemical corps have been the focus of ongoing campaigns by grassroots health advocates in Hawaiian counties for its hazardous use of experimental pesticides. For instance, in 2016 Syngenta/ChemChina was fined nearly $5 million for exposing a dozen agricultural workers to an unregistered pesticide. According to data gathered by the nonprofit Center for Food Safety, in 2014 alone there were 1,381 field test sites in Hawaii and 178 sites in California.

Bee kill incidents from aerial spraying campaigns also have a saddening history. In 2016 in Dorchester County, SC, over two million honey bees were killed after an aerial mosquito spray campaign dropped the hazardous organophosphate insecticide Naled over yards and farms. These incidents show the importance and necessity of embracing pesticide alternatives on a broad scale.

To the Mexican government’s credit, there are efforts to move in that direction. Mexican President López Obrador announced in 2020 that his government would phase out glyphosate and work to embrace a more sustainable approach to agricultural production. Víctor M. Toledo, the Mexican Minister of the Environment, said the government’s goal is to produce food that is “safer, healthier and more respectful of the environment (más seguro, más sano y respetuoso con el medio ambiente).” The government also indicated it would aim to support time-tested practices developed by indigenous farmers. The United States, for its part, has worked on behalf of the chemical industry to pressure the Obrador administration to rescind this intended phaseout. While the U.S. government was successful in stopping similar actions in Thailand, there is no current indication that Mexico will rescind this decree.

In the context of these proclamations, the actions by Bayer/Monsanto are certainly not doing anything to endear itself to the local community. “I see no hope; on the contrary, the use of these products has worsened while [also] affecting those of us who are dedicated to beekeeping, and [it’s] harming our bees,” said Leydy Pech, beekeeper and longtime activist leader for Maya beekeepers to La Jornada Maya. In 2020, Ms. Pech received the international Goldman environmental prize for her work stopping Monsanto from producing genetically engineered soybeans in seven Mexican states.

These incidents and the dire situation with pollinator populations in the state underscore the need to place actions behind positive proclamations. It is evident that Bayer/Monsanto is incapable of being a good neighbor, given the inherent hazards associated with the core of their business practices. In an open letter posted in a recent tweet, Mayan beekeepers are calling on the government to open an investigation and urgently prohibit pesticide fumigation in the region.

These disaffected Mayan communities are part of global resistance efforts against the actions of agrichemical corporations. In Hawaii, advocates in Maui County are responding to this threat in a variety of ways. Since the start of the pandemic, work has focused on homegrown food security. Rather than direct local resources to chemical dependent farming practices, Maui lawmakers are embracing grassroots work to establish a local food hub, and organic agriculture in the community ag park.

Join Beyond Pesticides in urging the current U.S. administration to hold polluters like Bayer/Monsanto accountable for their actions, and adopt a new direction for pesticide regulation that challenges the so-called benefits of pesticides, and protects farmworkers, pollinators, and broader biodiversity.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: Mexico News Daily (also see tweet in Spanish from Colectivo de Comunidades Mayas

(Beyond Pesticides, April 4, 2023) The pesticide industry focused the entirety of their “legislative day” late last month on an effort to roll back local democratic decision making and implement federal pesticide preemption of local governance in the Farm Bill. “Something that most people don’t know,” J.D. Darr, the director of legislative and regulatory affairs for the National Pest Management Association told Pest Control Technology (PCT), “is that the Ag Committee does have oversight of a small sliver of FIFRA. So, the Farm Bill is a really good vehicle for us making regulatory decisions surrounding pesticide.” Contrary to Mr. Darr’s statement, pesticide reform advocates are well aware of the threat the pesticide industry poses in the 2023 Farm Bill, having defeated a similar effort in 2018, and repeated attempts to implement pesticide preemption in the preemption-free states of Maine and Maryland. Reform advocates are pushing Congress to include in the Farm Bill diametrically opposing language already contained with Senator Cory Booker’s (D-NJ) Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act.

The pesticide industry’s lobby day attempted to soften the industry’ image in Congress by including a range of non-pesticide related issues, such as a “friendly political discussion” between conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg and NPR reporter Mara Liasson, sponsored by multinational chemical company FMC. Other sessions were sponsored by major pesticide producers, such as BASF and Corteva (formerly called DowDuPont).

In an interview with PCT, Mr. Darr forwarded a range of unfounded myths about the viability of local authority. It is critically important that the public and members of Congress understand the true facts behind the industry’s dangerous falsehoods. There is nothing democratic, sustainable, or healthy about an effort that is focused squarely on creating conditions to apply ever more toxic chemicals in local communities. Here are the major falsehoods pesticide corporations are trying to sell U.S. politicians on:

Myth: Federal and state law provide adequate protections from toxic pesticides. (Mr. Darr says state agencies are “adequately reviewing pesticides.”)

Fact: Deficiencies in the federal pesticide regulatory process are well documented and date back decades. Problems with inert ingredient disclosure, failure to regulate endocrine (hormone) disruptors, the frequency of ‘conditionally’ registered pesticides without important health and safety information, assumption of complete label compliance, and lack of consideration for sensitive and vulnerable populations are merely a few of the grave insufficiencies within EPA’s pesticide registration process. These concerns, and tendency for state regulatory agencies to merely rubber stamp EPA approvals provides a role for local communities to play in protecting their resident’s health and environment.

Myth: Local officials do not have the expertise to restrict pesticides. (Mr. Darr says at the local level, staffing and resources are “kind of lacking.”)

Fact: This claim flies in the face of common sense. Local officials are in fact likely the most knowledgeable individuals in a community regarding sensitive sites may need protections from toxic pesticides. In the Wisconsin v Mortier Supreme Court decision that established the rights of localities, the justices referenced the importance of local rights over local factors, like climate, population, geography and water supply. Local officials should have the right to protect their most vulnerable community members like children and the elderly from toxic exposure. They know the playgrounds, local swimming holes and drinking water sources, the conservation areas with vulnerable species, and other sensitive or unique local environments better than state and federal officials. They are also savvier than that claim gives them credit for –scientific resources are readily available for local lawmakers wishing to read up on the dangers and alternatives to pesticides. In any case, Beyond Pesticides knows of no local policies where lawmakers did not consult or hear testimony from experts on both sides of an issue when considering pesticide restrictions. This issue is well studied, and unfortunately the argument is merely an attempt to stifle democratic conversations in local communities. 

Myth: Allowing local authority will hurt local pesticide or lawn care businesses. (Mr. Darr says “our member companies are forced to deal with a bit of regulatory uncertainty…”)

Fact: While there hasn’t been an extensive amount of scientific study specifically on local pesticide reform policies, the research we do have does not bare out that argument.

A peer-reviewed study conducted on the implementation of Toronto, Canada’s pesticide law (a policy similar to those passed in Maine and Maryland localities) found that lawn care company businesses actually increased by 30% during the implementation phase of their ordinance, as pesticide use decreased among both homeowners and lawn care companies. Again, this is common sense, as folks uneasy about using what may be perceived as ‘new’ natural land care methods will look to established experts or new green companies to manage their landscapes. Rather than hurt local companies, these laws incentivize a new green, sustainable industry in communities.

Myth: Local authority will create a patchwork of laws that would be too difficult for land care officials to follow. (Mr. Darr says NPMA companies also have to deal with “…just a patchwork of localities…which is really burdensome”)

Fact: This has not been borne out in any states where there is no pesticide preemption. We have present, existing examples that disprove this argument. In both Maine and Maryland the laws passed to date are nearly identical in restricting the use of all but organic and minimum risk pesticide use. There is no evidence for this ‘patchwork theory’ as communities generally look towards their neighbors for similar or consistent policy language (very few local communities want to be first out the gate).

Even if it were the case, local businesses navigate these issues all the time– they work through local zoning, smoking and other health codes, water use limits, or other restrictions aimed at addressing unique local situations. Part of running a business is understanding and adapting to local laws.  

Local leaders say that local communities must have the right to protect the health of their residents and local ecology from the hazards associated with toxic pesticides. Large multinational companies should have no say in this process but are working to influence lawmakers to bully local communities into permitting the use of toxic products that go against their community’s values. Help Beyond Pesticides and our allies push back against inclusion of this regressive, anti-democratic language in the Farm Bill by taking action and sending a letter to your members of Congress today.  

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: PCT(1), PCT(2)

(Beyond Pesticides, April 3, 2023) The National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) has opened its public comment period, with comments on organic standards due by 11:59 pm EDT April 5. April 5 is also the deadline for registering for the upcoming public comment webinar on April 18 and 20, which precedes the online meeting April 25-27—in which the NOSB deliberates on issues concerning how organic food is produced. Written comments must be submitted through Regulations.gov.

As always, there are many important issues on the NOSB agenda this Spring. For a complete discussion, see Keeping Organic Strong (KOS) and the Spring 2023 issues page, where you can find Beyond Pesticides’ comments on all issues facing the NOSB at this meeting. In the spirit of “continuous improvement,” we urge you to submit comments (please feel free to use our comments on the KOS page) that contribute to an increasingly improved organic production system. If you have already submitted comments on the key issues we have suggested (below), please take a look at the Beyond Pesticides’ KOS page and pick an issue to comment on. (The public is welcome to cut-and-paste from the Beyond Pesticides’ comments posted on its KOS page.) Here are some high priority issues for Beyond Pesticides:

Prohibit the Routine Allowance of Ingredients Processed with Ion Exchange. Because the ion exchange process is a chemical process, all organic ingredients processed in this manner must be subject to review by the NOSB. Ion exchange creates synthetic ingredients through chemical change—removing some components and substituting other chemicals—that are used in processed food. It is not simply filtration. Chemicals in the ion exchange resins may leak into the food product. Yet, the Handling Subcommittee of the NOSB is proposing to allow any and all resins without review. To maintain the integrity of the organic label, resins must be subject to full National List (National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances) review to determine whether these ingredients meet organic standards, rather than establishing a blanket allowance of ion exchange in organic processing.

Organic Agriculture is Climate-Smart Agriculture. In a draft letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, the NOSB has written an excellent primer on how organic agriculture responds to the climate emergency. An important caveat is that NOP and certifiers must hold organic producers to the letter and spirit of the Organic Foods Production Act, which requires that organic production be soil-based, incorporate diversity, and protect the environment. Operations based on hydroponics or confined animal facilities, and those that replace native ecosystems with organic farms do not meet those requirements. The NOSB has made its position clear on those issues and must insist that NOP and certifiers carry out NOSB recommendations and consistently enforce the law—for the sake of reducing climate change, biodiversity loss, and human health impacts, as well as fairness. The NOSB should also stress the need for USDA to dramatically increase support for converting chemical-intensive agriculture to organic. It is critical that the National Organic Program ask, “What more should USDA be doing to advance organic?” As the Board states, the resiliency of organic is established: “Organic is the solution to mitigating climate change and responding to it.” However, despite the astronomical growth in organic consumption in the U.S., conversion to organic agriculture lags behind demand. USDA could and should require the adoption of organic/climate-smart practices a prerequisite for receiving the benefits of its programs and abandon its promotion of chemical-intensive agriculture supported by the biotech/chemical industry.

Plastic mulch is under consideration this year as a part of its five-year review cycle. This is part of the larger issue relating to the use of plastic in organic production and handling. Awareness is growing about the impacts of plastic—and the microplastic particles resulting from its use—on human health and the environment. Plastics manufacture requires transportation of hazardous chemicals, such as those involved in the recent derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Plastic mulch should not be relisted as allowable in organic production. Moreover, the NOSB should initiate action to eliminate all uses of plastic in organic processing and packaging.

The NOSB should use the review (or sunset) process to eliminate nonorganic ingredients in processed organic foods. Materials listed in §205.606 in the organic regulations are nonorganic agricultural ingredients that may comprise 5% of organic-labeled processed foods. The intent of the law is to allow restricted nonorganic ingredients (fully disclosed and limited) when their organic form is not available. However, materials should not remain on §205.606 if they can be supplied organically, and we can now grow virtually anything organically. The Handling Subcommittee needs to ask the question of potential suppliers, “Could you supply the need if the organic form is required?” The materials on §205.606 up for sunset review this year are made from agricultural products that can be supplied organically and thus should be taken off the National List of allowed materials.

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Thank you for keeping organic strong!

(Beyond Pesticides, March 31, 2023) A report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identifies the most recent event in the very long chronicle of EPA dysfunction that — put charitably — constitutes failures to enact its mission, and more accurately, sometimes crosses the line into malfeasance. In the report, OIG concludes that EPA’s 2021 PFBS Toxicity Assessment failed to “uphold the agency’s commitments to scientific integrity and information quality,” and that the agency’s actions “left the public vulnerable to potential negative impacts on human health.” As reported by The Guardian, “Trump administration appointees at . . . EPA meddled in agency science to weaken the toxicity assessment of a dangerous chemical.” Last year, Beyond Pesticide concerns about the myriad risks and harms of pesticides intersected with those about the PFAS (Per- and Polyfluorinated Substances) family of chemical compounds, of which PFBS is a member, when a study found very high levels of PFAS in multiple pesticide products.

The EPA OIG explains why it undertook the evaluation that led to this report: “to determine whether the EPA followed applicable policies and procedures to develop and publish the January 19, 2021 perfluorobutane sulfonic acid toxicity assessment. Two weeks after publication, the EPA removed the toxicity assessment from its website, citing political interference and Scientific Integrity Policy violations. . . . The EPA’s Scientific Integrity Policy, established in 2012, states that science is the backbone of the EPA’s decision making and that the Agency depends on the integrity of its science to protect human health and the environment. All EPA employees — including scientists, managers, and political appointees — must follow the Scientific Integrity Policy.”

PFBS (perfluorobutane sulfonate) is one of thousands of PFAS “forever chemicals” that are emerging as a ubiquitous and serious threat to human and organismic health. These compounds do not break down in the environment, and can move through soils, contaminate water resources, and bioaccumulate in aquatic and terrestrial organisms. The Guardian writes that PFBS “is toxic at low levels. Research has linked the chemical to kidney disease, reproductive problems and thyroid damage, and it has been found throughout the environment, including in an estimated 860,000 Americans’ drinking water.”

Concurrent with the recent Biden administration EPA announcement of new proposed federal standards for PFAS compounds in drinking water, the Environmental Working Group published an interactive map of the nearly 3,000 (and rising) number of sites in the U.S. (and two territories) contaminated by PFAS chemicals. EPA warned, in June 2022, that PFAS compounds, linked to reproductive, immune, cardiovascular, and endocrine (especially thyroid) anomalies and to several kinds of cancer, are an even greater health threat than was previously known. Many advocates have noted that the proposed new federal standards are still inadequate because they are less stringent than the interim advisory levels for safe consumption EPA set out last year — lifetime exposures of no more than 0.004 to 0.02 ppt (parts per trillion), depending on the type of PFAS compound.

The OIG report notes “unprecedented” interference on the part of Trump EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and other political appointees in the PFBS assessment. At the 11^th hour, Mr. Wheeler ordered the insertion of a range of toxicity values, rather than a specific limit. The compromised assessment, which would have guided drinking water standards for the chemical, as well as targets that polluters would need to meet in pollution cleanup — thus, allowing companies to remediate PFBS to higher, more-dangerous levels — was published just four days prior to the inauguration of President Biden. The OIG report notes that “The new numbers were inserted without being fully scientifically vetted, and they lacked ‘technical and quality assurance review.’” Kyla Bennett of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) notes that “[t]hey were trying so hard to get [the assessment] out before Trump left office.”

The Biden administration yanked the 2021 PFBS assessment in February 2021 because of its determination that there had been political interference. According to The Guardian, it was republished several months later “using what it said is sound science, and declared it had resolved the issue.” But some EPA scientists related to the newspaper that “several employees willingly worked with the Trump appointees to weaken the assessment, and they were never reprimanded or fired. The scientists say the controversy is part of a deeper problem afflicting EPA: industry influence on career staff, and an unwillingness from the EPA to address it.

‘The issue is part of the larger rot at the agency of career staff working with industry to weaken the EPA,’ a current agency scientist familiar with the situation said. The scientist did not use their name for fear of reprisal.”

After the 2021 assessment was pulled, the Biden administration declared in a statement that the EPA evaluation of PFBS had been “compromised by political interference as well as infringement of authorship.” The Guardian reports that, “During its review, the administration took no action against career employees who implemented the political appointees’ changes. Those employees ‘made the changes happily,’ according to PEER’s Kyla Bennett, of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), but remained at the agency.”

According to The Guardian’s coverage, internal emails from the ebbing days of the Trump EPA, as well as comments in the OIG report, indicate that career employees in the agency’s OCSPP (Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention) either asked for the toxicity metric changes or did not object to them. Reportedly, the sole career employee who opposed the order for changes to the PFBS assessment was Orme-Zavaleta, who told The Guardian that Administrator Wheeler’s order “flew in the face of scientific integrity.” Former EPA scientist Betsy Southerland told the paper that the changes were “something that industry has always wanted.”

Beyond Pesticides has repeatedly highlighted the too-cozy relationship between the chemical industries and EPA, with particular attention to the impacts on EPA’s registration and regulation of pesticides. A 2021 press release on a letter sent to the Biden Administration by Beyond Pesticides and PEER (with 35 other groups) summarized the issues: “The Office of Pesticides Programs within the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has become so captured by industry that it has lost sight of its health and environmental mission. . . . [T]he groups are urging the Biden administration to adopt reforms within OPP to ensure pesticide approval and use decisions are science-based.”

It continues, “Inside OPP [EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs], marginalization of science remains cause for celebration and the result has been repeated ecological and public health disasters. . . . The letter recounts a litany of improper pesticide approval decisions, some of which were blocked in court, while still others are being reversed under Biden. But the groups say these cases are symptomatic of a larger institutional illness that calls for thoroughgoing reforms. The cumulative effects of years and decades of this regulatory abuse are untold human deaths, disabilities, and illnesses. Industry has been forced to pay out billions of dollars for damages claims over OPP-approved products. The groups also point to the decline of pollinators — the key to American food security — due to the indiscriminate application of highly potent pesticides. The health of non-target wildlife, as well as our soil and waters, is under chemical siege.” 

Beyond Pesticides has covered many of the transgressions of EPA during the Trump administration, including those related to pesticides (e.g., dicamba, chlorpyrifos), scientific integrity, lack of transparency and accountability, poor enforcement of regulations, and water protection, among others. Investigative journalists Cary Gillam, Sharon Lerner, and PEER have all bird dogged EPA on its chemical and pesticide policies and regulations; Beyond Pesticides has featured their work (and others’) in various Daily News Blog entries. See, for example, coverage on EPA’s ongoing failures and malfeasance: EPA reliance on industry research; the “revolving door” between industry and EPA; chemical industry influence on the agency; the corrupt alteration of scientific information, as related to the pesticide dicamba; and so many instances of EPA disregarding scientifically demonstrable harms that they cannot reasonably be listed here.

Beyond Pesticides’ three-part series, based in part on Ms. Lerner’s work, goes directly to these issues: undermining of EPA function by industry influence, the susceptibility of EPA officials and managers to corrupt behavior, and the ongoing failure of the agency to align its efforts with its own 2012 Scientific Integrity Policy, here and here. Further, the many transgressions of the Trump EPA are a dramatic demonstration of how whip-sawed EPA’s operations and approach can be with the advent of administrations whose politics harbor animus toward regulation — even though the agency’s job is to protect human and environmental health.

As is the practice for the offices of federal Inspectors General in reports on their internal agency investigations, the EPA OIG made recommendations to the agency. Three of those are directed to the assistant administrator for Research and Development; they (1) “aim to reduce procedural confusion and strengthen existing policies, procedures, and guidance by clarifying if and when comments expressing scientific disagreement can be expressed; (2) making clear if and when toxicity ranges are acceptable; and (3) using the OIG as a resource for high-profile scientific integrity concerns that relate to political interference or that assert risk to human health or the environment.” Another is directed to the assistant administrator for Mission Support: “to update policies and procedures on environmental information quality to require additional quality assurance reviews for EPA products.” The last goes to the deputy administrator of EPA: “to strengthen the EPA’s culture of scientific integrity, transparency, and accountability of political leadership actions when changes occur as a result of policy decisions.”

Whether and how EPA chooses to adopt these recommendations remains to be seen. Yet even this OIG report — though potentially helpful in righting EPA’s ship — does not address the comprehensive overhaul needed at EPA to ensure it pursues its mission with integrity, based in science, and with protection of health and environment at the helm.

As Beyond Pesticides recently wrote, “[EPA’s] track record, on so many pesticides [and chemicals broadly], is to deal with one compound (under a narrow range of circumstances and/or narrow time frame and/or specific exposure levels) at a time. Beyond Pesticides has dubbed this the ‘whack-a-mole’ struggle on pesticides. Each regulatory baby step at EPA, each judicial settlement or knock-down of a particular pesticide, each bit of research demonstrating harms — these represent small, incremental advances on a pesticide [and broad “chemical saturation”] problem that is vast in scope. But this approach is wholly inadequate to the devastation that [dangerous chemicals] are causing, and it continues the “collision course” we are on re: human health and well-being, biodiversity collapse, and the climate crisis. A precautionary approach . . . is far more suited to the task of genuinely protecting public health and the environment.”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/23/trump-appointees-epa-toxic-chemical-pfas-pfbs-toxic?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

(Beyond Pesticides, March 30, 2023) A study published in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety finds that the commonly used herbicide, atrazine, promotes breast cancer development through suppression of immune cell stimulation, and thus function, and upregulation of enzymes mediating tumor development. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), breast cancer is a disease that causes breast cells to grow out of control, with the type of breast cancer depending on the cells themselves. Several studies and reports, including U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data, identify hundreds of chemicals as influential factors associated with breast cancer risk.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, causing the second most cancer-related deaths in the United States. Past studies suggest genetic inheritance factors influence breast cancer occurrence. However, genetic factors only play a minor role in the incidence of breast cancer, while exposure to external environmental factors (i.e., chemical exposure) appears to play a more notable role. One in ten women will receive a breast cancer diagnosis, and genetics can only account for five to ten percent of cases. There are grave concerns over exposure to endocrine (hormone) disrupting chemicals and pollutants that cause adverse health effects. Therefore, advocates point to the need for national policies to reassess hazards associated with disease development from exposure to chemical pollutants. The study notes, “This study demonstrated that atrazine accelerated the cell cycle and encouraged the proliferation and invasion of breast cancer tumor cells. Furthermore, atrazine can reduce anti-tumor immunity by decreasing lymphocyte infiltration and modulating cytokine production inside the tumor microenvironment, thereby promoting tumor immune escape and breast cancer progression. To fully understand the mechanism underlying atrazine’s immunosuppression of breast cancers, further research is needed.”

Beyond cancer, atrazine is a notoriously toxic herbicide known to cause different health issues, including skin and respiratory diseases, cancer, and kidney/liver damage. Therefore, it is essential to understand how external stimuli—like environmental pollution from pesticides—can drive breast cancer development.

The researchers examine how exposure to atrazine impacts 4T1 breast cancer cell development, facilitating tumor metastasis (spread from the primary site of origin into different parts of the body) and angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels to support tissue growth). Exposure to atrazine significantly increases breast cancer cell spread, tumor size, and the expression/upregulation of MMPs (matrix metalloproteinases) enzymes, mediating precursor tumors to breast cancer. The percentage of lymphocytes in the thymus and spleen responsible for coordinating the immune response by stimulating other immune cells (CD4 + and CD3) are lower in atrazine exposure cohorts, with the CD4 + /CD8 + immune cell ratio lower than control groups. The abundance of CD4 + and CD8 + lymphocytes that infiltrate tumors decreases, suggesting atrazine’s suppression of the local and systemic immune function on tumors and upregulation of tumor growth promotes breast cancer development.

The connection between pesticides and associated cancer risks is nothing new. Several studies link pesticide use and residue to various cancers, from more prevalent forms like breast cancer to rare forms like kidney cancer nephroblastoma (Wilms’ tumor). The link between agricultural practices and pesticide-related illnesses is stark, with over 63 percent of commonly used lawn pesticides and 70 percent of commonly used school pesticides showing links to cancer. Past research demonstrates the mechanism by which cancer can develop after pesticides enter the bloodstream. An experimental study showed that pesticide exposure produces reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are highly unstable and cause potential DNA and cell damage that propagates cancer development. Additionally, pesticides can increase cancer risk through alternate mechanisms, including genotoxicity (gene damage), epigenetics (gene expression), immunotoxicity, tumors, and endocrine (hormone) disruption.

Research demonstrates that endocrine disruption is prevalent among many pesticide products like herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, and pesticide manufacturing by-products or contaminants like dioxin (TCDD). These chemical ingredients can enter the body, disrupting hormones and causing adverse developmental, disease, and reproductive problems.

Regarding atrazine, EPA registers the pesticide as a restricted-use, and only certified pesticide applicators can use the chemical because of its effects on health and ecology. However, encountering pesticides can happen at any point during the pesticide’s production, transportation, storage, or application. The general population mainly encounters atrazine through drinking water, as reports of atrazine contamination demonstrate the chemical’s widespreadcontamination of waterways (e.g., rivers, streams, surface/groundwater). However, licensed pesticide applicators may also encounter atrazine via inhalation during crop treatments. Furthermore, atrazine can volatilize into the atmosphere by up to 14 percent of the applied volume during treatments.

Hormone-related cancers have ties to endocrine disruption and immune disruption. The endocrine and immune systems transmit signals to one another as multiple immune processes are involved in endocrine diseases. Thus, hormones generated by the endocrine system greatly influence breast cancer and other hormonal cancer (e.g., prostate, thyroid, etc.) incidents among humans. Although most types of breast cancers are hormonally responsive and thus dependent on the synthesis of either estrogen, progesterone, or too much of the protein called HER2, G protein-coupled estrogen receptors (GPERs) regulate estrogen through non-genetic cellular pathways, forgoing attachment to standard molecular receptors, leading to triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). Triple-negative breast cancer has a higher rate of recurrence and worse clinical outcomes than other breast cancers. Xenoestrogens, like atrazine (external estrogen and synthetic compounds sources), can stimulate GPER upregulation and activation in cancer cells. However, although the connection between pesticides and associated cancer risks is nothing new, this study demonstrates the upregulation of MMP enzymes in cancer cells (4T1-Luc) associated with breast cancer development. The researchers consider these cancer cells ideal models to study the immune mechanisms, especially for TNBC, as the cells in TNBC lack receptors for estrogen or progesterone hormones, as well as limited HER2 protein occurrence, and TNBC does not respond to hormonal therapy medicines or medicines that target the HER2 protein.

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide. Hence, studies concerning pesticides and cancer help future epidemiologic research understand the underlying mechanisms that cause cancer. With far too many diseases in the U.S. associated with pesticide exposure, eliminating pesticide use is critically important to the safeguarding of public health and addressing cost burdens for local communities. Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database (PIDD) is a vital resource for additional scientific literature that documents elevated cancer rates and other chronic diseases and illnesses among people exposed to pesticides. This database supports the clear need for strategic action to shift away from pesticide dependency. For more information on the multiple harms of pesticide exposure, see PIDD pages on breast cancer, endocrine disruption, and other diseases.

Proper prevention practices like buying, growing, and supporting organic can eliminate exposure to toxic pesticides. Organic agriculture has many health and environmental benefits, which curtail the need for chemical-intensive agricultural practices. For more information on how organic is the right choice for farmers and consumers , see the Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture. 

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 

(Beyond Pesticides, March 29, 2023) A commonly used slug killer known as metaldehyde can hamper the growth of garden vegetables. This finding, published in the journal Scientific Reports, provides a helpful reminder for gardeners to seek out non and less toxic management approaches as spring comes into full swing and pests arrive. While slugs can be devastating to seedlings this time of the year, some simple approaches can help reduce pest pressure while maintaining the quality and integrity of one’s garden plot.

Metaldehyde is a molluscicide that is applied through a bait, causing slugs to expel mucus and completely dry out. It has been in use since the 1940s, but like many pesticides from that era, there are a range of hazardous impacts that were not adequately studied at the time and are only beginning to be understood today. In mammals, ingestion of the chemical has been linked to neurotoxicity, including tremors, loss of coordination, rapid breathing and heart rate, vomiting, seizures and even death. Although humans are less likely to eat the baits, these risks are particularly pronounced for children and pets.

Data on the impacts this material poses to plant growth is few and far between. To remedy this, and better understand whether metaldehyde could impact yields, scientists utilized Allium cepa, or onion plants, as a model test organism.

Onion bulbs were purchased and divided into four different treatment groups with increasing levels of metaldehyde exposure (in the form an aqueous solution), as well as an unexposed control group. Scientists observed growth patterns and the genotoxic impacts of exposure to the material.

While the control group saw 100% germination success, this rate decreased as metaldehyde concentrations increased. It follows that the highest rate of exposure resulting in the greatest inhibition of plant growth. Adverse impacts were also seen to root growth and root elongation, and onions exposed to the chemical recorded a consistently lower weight than those unexposed. These were merely the apparent physical impacts; metaldehyde also resulted in statistically significant DNA damage to exposed bulbs. DNA fragmentation is seen in root tip cells, and effects are noted on the activities of antioxidant enzymes, indicating elevated stress levels in the plants.

“The results of this study highlighted the need for new and detailed studies on the undesirable effects of metaldehyde on non-target organisms, including humans,” the authors say.

Commercial slug baits should not be necessary in the garden. Although the National Organic Program permits the use of an alternative to metaldehyde, iron phosphate, in slug and snail control, its efficacy relies on a synergy between iron phosphate and a so-called “inert” ingredient known as EDTA. In 2014, Beyond Pesticides called on the National Organic Standards Board to delist iron phosphate slug products due to the risks that EDTA poses to soil organisms, as well its ability to contaminate soil, sediment and local waterways.

The good news for gardeners dealing with snail and slug problems is that management is still possible without these more toxic baiting products. Work to reduce moisture and consider the type of mulch that is being applied –straw can be an excellent mulch, but there are times in which its use can attract slugs. Never water at night, and consider tactics like drip irrigation in particularly damp, slug-prone areas as slugs are attracted to moisture. Hand-picking slugs out of the garden with a disposable glove and placing them into soapy water isn’t a favorite activity among any gardener, but it can be an effective way to reduce populations. Domestic foul can also be helpful at lowering slug populations but need to be closely monitored around growing crops.

There is evidence that effective biological controls are coming closer to commercialization. Researchers at Oregon State University (OSU) have been on the case for many years now, and made a promising discovery in 2020 when they found a nematode that effectively ‘liquified’ slug populations. The OSU research team also discovered that slugs can be attracted with simple bread dough. While that research utilized bread dough to attract and metaldehyde to kill, many traps and baits on the market, such as the Snailer, can work with bread dough and water without the need for additional pesticide, as they bar pests from exiting and cause the slug or snail to drown.

For more information on managing these problematic pests, see Beyond Pesticides ManageSafe webpage on least toxic control of snails and slugs.

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: Scientific Reports

Image Source: Wikimedia