(Beyond Pesticides, September 30, 2019) A warm thank you to all who have sent in comments for the Fall 2019 National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) meeting. We are sending out a second reminder so that those who have not commented can take this opportunity to do so. If you have already submitted, we encourage you to make a second round of comments to make sure your voice is heard!

Public comments are due by October 3, 2019. Your comments and participation are critical to the integrity of the organic label. Written comments may be submitted through Regulations.gov until 11:59 pm ET October 3, 2010. Reservations for in-person and webinar comments close at the same time.

The proposals of the NOSB, as a part of its ongoing review of practices and materials, are published for public comment.  Beyond Pesticides/OrganicEye is providing the public with a listing and analysis of the issues under consideration by the Board when it meets in Pittsburgh, PA on October 23 – 25, 2019. You can view USDA’s announcement of the NOSB’s meeting and proposals here.

Issues before the NOSB include materials allowed in organic production as well as some policy issues. Materials are either being considered for initial use in organics or the subject of a five-year Sunset Review. To be allowed, materials must have evidence demonstrating that they meet Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) requirements of essentiality, no adverse effects on humans and the environment, and compatibility with organic practices.

Major issues before the NOSB at the Fall 2019 meeting
(Please feel free to copy and paste the language below with your own, personalized introduction to regulations.gov.)

Take nitrates out of organic meat!
The Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) prohibits the addition of nitrates to organic food because of the known health effects, but producers of organic processed meat products, along with producers of nonorganic “nitrate free” meats, have found a way around that prohibition –celery powder. The high levels of nitrate fertilizer allowed in nonorganic production concentrate in some vegetables, including celery, but organically grown celery does not contain high enough levels of nitrate to be used in curing meat. Celery powder has been listed as an allowed nonorganic agricultural ingredient since 2007.

Nitrates are prohibited in organic food because of their impacts on human health, which include methemoglobinemia, hypotension, risk of pregnancy complications, a number of reproductive effects, and cancer. In addition, the Beyond Pesticides Eating with a Conscience database identifies impacts of pesticides used in producing nonorganic celery, including farmworker poisonings, contamination of water, wildlife poisoning, and pollinator impacts. The NOSB must deny the relisting of celery powder.

Keep genetic engineering out of organic! 
The NOSB continually updates its assessment of which methods meet the criteria for “excluded methods” in organic production—that is, genetic engineering. At this meeting, the Materials Subcommittee proposes to add induced mutagenesis developed via use of in vitro nucleic acid techniques to the list of excluded methods and embryo transfer, or embryo rescue, in livestock, without use of hormones in recipient animals, is proposed to be listed as “not excluded.” We support these recommendations, except that there should be no use of hormones in either donor or recipient. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) appears to have forgotten the lesson learned 20 years ago when it was forced to ban genetic engineering (GE) in organic regulations. At a July 17 hearing called by the U.S. House Agriculture Subcommittee on Biotechnology, Horticulture, and Research on “Assessing the Effectiveness of the National Organic Program,” Greg Ibach, the USDA’s Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, stated, “There is the opportunity to open the discussion to consider whether it is appropriate for some of these new technologies, including gene editing, to be eligible to be used to enhance organic production.” In view of this statement, we believe it is important to stress that gene editing, like other forms of genetic engineering, is unacceptable in organic production.

Stop supporting organic CAFOs!
The addition of synthetic methionine to organic poultry rations has a long and controversial history –not because of direct health effects on organic consumers, but because it facilitates industrial-style production of poultry. 

Poultry production in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) needs synthetic methionine because of the lack of outdoor access and the choice of fast-growing breeds. 

The “need” for synthetic methionine is a result of choices regarding breeds, stocking rates (both density and group size), and outdoor access. Increasingly, consumers are turning to eggs and meat produced in pastured poultry systems, which require fewer synthetic inputs. There have also been advances in the use of insects –specifically black soldier fly larvae—as a source of natural methionine.

The European Union does not allow the use of synthetic methionine in organic poultry, but does require more space per bird, fewer birds per house, and more access to the outdoors. Significantly, the EU also requires that poultry be of slow-growing breeds or be slaughtered at an older age. All these factors contribute to the welfare of poultry.

Research shows that methionine acts as a growth promoter above and beyond its role as a protein building block. Manipulating methionine in the diet through additions of synthetic methionine is effectively using a synthetic growth promoter and is comparable to the use of rBGH to enhance milk production.

Sunset gives the NOSB the opportunity to reconsider past decisions and reinstitute a process of continuous improvement. The NOSB should delist synthetic methionine or add an expiration date to force serious reconsideration.

Written comments may be submitted through Regulations.gov until 11:59 pm ET October 3, 2019.

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Please go to Beyond Pesticides’ Keeping Organic Strong (KOS) webpage to learn more about these and other substantive issues, and to provide a unique public comment to the NOSB. We will continue to update the KOS page in advance of the public comment deadline on October 3.

Again, thank you for helping to protect and uphold organic integrity!

(Beyond Pesticides, September 27, 2019) The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) will be required to protect the habitat of the endangered rusty patched bumblebee, per a settlement with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) reached earlier this week. The bee was listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 2017, but USFWS has yet to designate the “critical habitat” for the bee where improved protections must be made to ensure its recovery. With the decline of both wild and managed pollinators throughout the U.S., action on this issue by federal agencies is sorely needed.

According to NRDC, the settlement will require FWS to propose critical habitat by July 31, 2020, unless it makes a finding that habitat protections are not prudent. The Service must then finalize any habitat protections by July 31, 2021. Under ESA, FWS is required to designate the critical habitat of a listed species within one year of its listing if not included within its listing announcement. Thus, by drawing out this process, FWS is flouting this important action that will lead to real on-the-ground protections.

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has violated federal law—again—by not designating critical habitat for the rusty patched bumble bee,” said Lucas Rhoads, staff attorney for NRDC. “This settlement is a step in the right direction to ensure the bee’s survival. The Service must now do their part to protect the bee’s habitat or they’ll find themselves in court once more.”

According to FWS, the rusty patched bumble bee was once widespread across the United States, but declined dramatically in the 1990s.  Since then, their populations have dwindled and their overall decline is estimated at 91 percent. In its initial assessment, FWS acknowledged that the population may be even smaller than estimated, as data used for this listing have not been reassessed in the field since the early 2000s.

Commercial bumble bees represent a threat to the rusty patched, as they carry diseases and are often released near wild populations. Climate change plays a part, along with habitat loss from industrial agriculture and development. There is also an overwhelming amount of research demonstrating that systemic neonicotinoid insecticides, working either individually or synergistically, play a critical role in the ongoing decline of bees and other pollinators.

“Pollinators are small but mighty parts of the natural mechanism that sustains us and our world,” said FWS in a press release when the rusty patched was first listed. “Without them, our forests, parks, meadows and shrublands, and the abundant, vibrant life they support, cannot survive, and our crops require laborious, costly pollination by hand.”

It is concerning that statements from federal agencies do not match up with actions on the ground. True protections come from full implementation of the law, yet FWS, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture continue to fall short. A recent report from the EPA Office of Inspector General found EPA was lacking in its oversight of state plans aimed at protecting managed honey bee populations. In 2016, a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report concluded that the federal government was not doing enough to safeguard pollinators from the the multiple threats to their populations. In sum, there has been little action since 2014, when the Obama Administration convened a White House Pollinator Task Force, itself ultimately a tepid response to a crisis with perilous implications for the civilized world.

In fact, the Trump administration is attacking ESA, and working to roll back a law that has helped prevent the extinction of 291 species since it was first passed in 1973; a 99% success rate. With the current administration either attacking or failing to implement basic legal requirements to protect endangered pollinators, we must look to Congress to act. To stop the Trump administrations attempt to undo the ESA, tell your member of Congress to cosponsor the PAW and FIN Conservation Act. And to implement lasting protections for pollinator populations, tell them to join in support of the Saving America’s Pollinators Act.

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

Source: NRDC Press Release

(Beyond Pesticides, September 26, 2019) While the leaves are beginning to turn and the world is inundated with all things pumpkin spice, remember that fall is the best time to start transitioning your lawn to organic management practices.

The key to a healthy lawn is feeding soil biology (soil organisms) in tandem with proper cultural practices (mowing height, water management, aeration, and overseeding). Healthy soil contains high organic matter content and is teeming with biological life. Healthy soil supports the development of healthy grass that is naturally resistant to weeds, insects, and fungal disease. In a healthy and well-maintained lawn, diseases, and pest problems are rare.

“But doesn’t it cost more?” If your lawn is currently chemically‐dependent, initially it may be more expensive to restore the biological life. But, in the long term, it will actually cost you less money. Once established, an organic lawn cycles nutrients naturally, uses fewer materials, such as water and fertilizers, and requires less labor for mowing and maintenance. Most importantly, your lawn will be safe for children, pets, and your local drinking water supply.

Getting Started‐ Late September‐ Early October

1. Mow High Until the Season Ends – Bad mowing practices cause more problems than any other cultural practice. Mowing with a dull blade makes the turf susceptible to disease and mowing too close invites sunlight in for weeds to take hold.

Keep your blades sharp, or ask your service provider to sharpen their blades frequently. For the last and first mowing, mow down to 2 inches to prevent fungal problems. For the rest of the year, keep it at 3‐3.5 to shade out weeds and foster deep, drought‐resistant roots.

2. Aerate – Compaction is an invitation for weeds. If your lawn is hard, compacted, and full of weeds or bare spots, aerate to help air, water and fertilizer to enter. If you can’t stick a screwdriver easily into your soil, it is too compacted. Get together with your neighbors and rent an aerator. Once you have an established, healthy lawn, worms and birds pecking at your soil will aerate it for free!

3. Fertilize, but go easy and go organic! – Fertilizing in early fall ensures good growth and root development for your grass. Nitrogen, the most abundant nutrient in lawn fertilizers promotes color and growth. Adding too much nitrogen, or quick release synthetic fertilizers, will result in quicker growth and the need for more mowing. Too much nitrogen can also weaken the grass, alter the pH, and promote disease, insect, and thatch build‐up. If applied too late, nutrients can leach directly into nearby surface waters. Be aware of local phosphorus or nitrogen loading concerns. Your soil test results will ensure that you apply only what you need.

Your grass clippings contain 58% of the nitrogen added from fertilizers, improve soil conditions, suppress disease, and reduce thatch and crabgrass. So, leave the clippings on your lawn. You can also use a mulching mower and leave the leaves on the lawn too. Compost is an ideal soil amendment, adding the much‐needed organic content to your soil and suppressing many turf pathogens. In the fall and spring, preferably after aerating, spread ¼ inch layer of organic or naturally‐based compost over your lawn. Compost tea and worm castings are also great additions.

Look for compost or organic slow release fertilizers at your local nursery or order online. A few fertilizers, such as Ringer® Lawn Restore®, are certified by the Organic Materials Review Institute. North Country Organics has a number of natural fertilizers, including phosphorus‐free fertilizers for lawns close to fresh water bodies. Others choices include Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, Down To Earth’s Bio‐Turf, and Harmony Farm.

4. Overseed With the Right Grass Seed – Once again, fall is the best time to seed your lawn. Grass varieties differ enormously in their resistance to certain pests, tolerance to climatic conditions, growth habit and appearance. Endophytic grass seed provides natural protection against some insects and fungal diseases ‐ major benefits for managing a lawn organically. Talk to your local nursery about the best seed for your area. Check to see the weed content of the grass seed and that there are no pesticide coatings.

5. Learn to love the odd balls ‐ many plants that are considered weeds in a lawn have beneficial qualities. Learn to read your “weeds” for what they indicate about your soil conditions. Monocrops do not grow in nature and diversity is a good thing.

For instance, clover‐ considered a typical weed, is found in soil with low nitrogen levels, compaction issues, and drought stress ‐ conditions that can be alleviated with the above recommendations. However, clover is a beneficial plant that takes free nitrogen from the atmosphere and distributes it to the grass, which helps it grow. Clover roots are extensive and extremely drought resistant, providing significant resources to soil organisms, and staying green long after turf goes naturally dormant.

It is highly recommended that you analyze your soil to determine specific soil needs. Contact your University extension service to find out how to take and send in a soil sample. In addition to nutrients and pH, ask for organic content analysis, and request organic care recommendations. Ideal pH should be between 6.5‐7.0, and organic content should be 5% or higher.

Happy fall!

For more information, see Beyond Pesticides lawn and landscape resource or call 202-543-5450.

(Beyond Pesticides, September 24, 2019) In 2016, Canadians and Americans residing in Havana reported symptoms of headaches, dizziness, nausea. They described hearing strange buzzing and high-pitched sounds – some woke in the middle of the night fumbling for alarm clocks that were not going off. Media used the term “Havana syndrome” to describe the illness. Diplomats, scared by symptoms that seemed to only hit them in their hotel rooms or at home, speculated that a sonic weapon was being used against them. The Trump administration accused Cuban leaders of misconduct and removed all but essential employees. Later, some suspected that the diplomats could have experienced “mass hysteria.” A new Canadian study provides a more likely explanation to this mysterious illness that impacted diplomats in Havana: neurotoxic pesticide exposure.

Researchers conducted testing on 14 individuals who had resided in Havana and a control group of 12 that had never lived there. Some of the experimental group had been recently exposed while others, tested 19 months after their return, were classified as “remotely exposed.” Tests included brain imaging and self-reported symptom questionnaires. They analyzed blood samples for routine biochemistry, kidney, liver, and metabolic functions. Individuals that showed symptoms of brain injury went through further neurological, visual, movement, auditory, and vestibular assessments.

The self-rated questionnaires from individuals who had lived in Havana were consistent with “post-concussion syndrome” and disabling headaches. Auditory and visual tests showed no significant problems, but some tests suggested brain-stem dysfunction and other neurological damage. The authors reported, “Cognitive tests showed significant reduction in spatial memory and a milder decrease in decision making quality in both exposed groups.” Further, they stated, “The clinical course, pattern of injury, brain regions involved, cortical and sub-cortical dysfunction, together with a history of common exposure, all raise the hypothesis of recurrent, low-dose exposure to neurotoxins.”

Mass spectrometry tests found the presence of cholinesterase-inhibiting insecticides including Temephos, an organophosphate, as well as pyrethroids. The enzyme cholinesterase is critical to the creation of neurotransmitters and, therefore, healthy neuron communication.

Lead author Alon Friedman, PhD told CBC in an interview that they only developed the working hypothesis after getting most of the test results. “There are very specific types of toxins that affect these kinds of nervous systems … and these are insecticides, pesticides, organophosphates — specific neurotoxins,” said Dr. Friedman. “So that’s why we generated the hypothesis that we then went to test in other ways.”

Beginning in 2016, Cuba responded aggressively to the threat of Zika virus by spraying for mosquitoes. The embassies sprayed both inside and outside offices and diplomatic residences, increasing frequency of fumigations up to five times more than normal – sometimes every two weeks. The report found a correlation between individuals with strongest symptoms and the number of fumigations conducted at their residence. More research will be conducted on current residents of Havana.

Organophosphates were developed during World War II as nerve gas agents for military use – there is, therefore, some bitter irony to be found in the mystery of the “Havana Syndrome” being attributed to a government attack. Many groups, including Beyond Pesticides, have long advocated for the total discontinuation of the use of organophosphates and other neurologically damaging pesticides because of the known health effects described by the diplomats. In the U.S., farmworkers and their children are on the frontlines of this ongoing debate.

A group of leading toxics experts called for a ban on organophosphates after the publication of their 2018 paper in the journal PLOS that researched the impact of organophosphate exposure during pregnancy as well as impacts on child development. They concluded: (1) widespread use of organophosphate pesticides to control insects has resulted in ubiquitous human exposures; (2) acute exposures to OPs is responsible for poisonings and deaths, particularly in developing countries; and (3) evidence demonstrates that prenatal exposures, even at low levels, put children at risk for cognitive and behavioral deficits, and for neurodevelopmental disorders.

Pyrethroids, too, are known neurotoxins that have been linked to learning and development issues in children. Despite this, the Trump administration recently lowered safety measures on pyrethroids for children in the US.

Toxic pesticides are furtive and largely characterized as benign, often escaping notice until it is too late. Victims of chemical poisoning are frequently, like these diplomats, dismissed as “hysterical.” As Dr. Friedman told CNN, “There is a lot we don’t know about how much we can expose people to these chemicals and what are toxic levels, or if the damage in the brain is reversible, but it’s not called a neurotoxin for nothing. The hint is in the name.”

To help move the nation and world to a more cautionary approach to pesticides engage with the Action of the Week, check out Tools for Change, and consider joining the organization as one more way to advocate for the transition away from toxic chemicals. A better, less-toxic world is possible.

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

Sources: CBC, Buzzfeed, CNN, The Guardian

(Beyond Pesticides, September 24, 2019) “Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song,” Rachel Carson wrote in Silent Spring in 1962. New research finds that quote has held true since it was written. Over three billion birds, or 29% of 1970s abundance have been lost in North America over the last 50 years.

To make these dismal determinations, scientists drew from multiple long-term bird monitoring datasets, and a network of nearly 150 weather radars that pick up and thus have recorded the trajectory of migratory birds. Long-term surveys helped scientists determine the 3 billion bird decline, while satellite data found that migratory bird abundance has declined by 9.1% since 2007.

In general, 57% of bird species are in decline, with showing the largest loss. Ninety percent of all declines were within 12 bird families: American sparrows, warblers, blackbirds, larks, Old world sparrows, swallows, nightjars, swifts, finches, flycatchers, starlings, and thrushes. Only waterfowl and wetland bird species showed any increase, 13% and 56%, respectively. Ducks, geese, and raptors all improved population levels more than 50% since 1970.

Importantly, researchers caution that their results are conservative, as only breeding populations were estimated, and true losses in the wild could be even worse.

Like other declines the world is currently witnessing, there are a range of threats contributing to losses. Advocates urge that business as usual is unacceptable and devastating, as the call to enact solutions is at a crisis level. As the authors note, North American declines are not unlike those being witnessed in other areas of the world. “In particular,” the study reads, “depletion of native grassland bird populations in North America, driven by habitat loss and more toxic pesticide use in both breeding and wintering areas, mirrors loss of farmland birds throughout Europe and elsewhere.”

Just last week, Beyond Pesticides reported on research linking the use of neonicotinoid insecticides to the silent demise of songbirds. As co-author Christy Morrissey, PhD, told Environmental Health News, there are “already replacements for neonics—and they’re just as toxic as neonics, they’re just a different name.” To fix the problem, focus should be on the “need to change the whole system to make it more resilient.” She indicated, “We should incentivize farmers to diversify systems rather than substituting one chemical for another.”

As Dr. Morrissey’s message indicates, our charge is both farther-reaching and more sinister than simply eliminating one pesticide or pesticide class. As the current study shows, banning DDT and other organochlorine insecticides resulted in raptors and other birds of prey significantly increasing their overall population. But protecting songbirds and other species lower on the food chain will required a change not just in chemical use, but in our entire approach to land management and food production.

Rachel Carson warned the world how insidious pesticide use can be. She wrote in Silent Spring:

“For each of us, as for the robin in Michigan or the Salmon in the Miramichi, this is a problem of ecology, of interrelationships, of interdependence. We poison the caddis flies in a stream and the salmon runs dwindle and die. We poison the gnats in a lake and the poison travels from link to link of the food chain and soon the birds of the lake margins become its victims. We spray our elms and the following springs are silent of robin song, not because we sprayed the robins directly but because the poison traveled, step by step, through the now familiar elm leaf-earthworm-robin cycle. These are matters of record, observable, part of the visible world around us. They reflect the web of life — or death — that scientists know as ecology.”

Thus this report on bird losses is more than a report on birds, it’s a report on gnat, caddisfly, and earthworm declines, on species that create the foundation of the food web. Ecological effects ripple up and down the food chain, resulting in trophic cascades that effect all life in a region.

It’s clear that industrial agriculture is contributing to the insect apocalypse, as well as declines in birds and other yet unknown species. Yet we also know that, by eschewing pesticide use, focusing on soil health, diversification, and sustainable practices, organic and regenerative farming and land management can help reverse this decline. Join this effort by purchasing organic whenever possible, planting diverse pesticide-free habitat on your property, and encouraging your local community to follow suit. Initiatives in cities like Amsterdam, Netherlands show that this is an issue we can still address.

Critically, we must also fight for the backstops that prevent the complete loss of species. Take action to protect the Endangered Species Act against the current administration’s attacks by contacting your member of Congress today.

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

Source: Science (peer-reviewed journal)

(Beyond Pesticides, September 23, 2019)  Your voice is making a difference! Last month, thousands of individuals took action through Beyond Pesticides and other environmental groups to express concern to their federal lawmakers about the Trump Administration’s assault on the Endangered Species Act (ESA). In response, U.S. Representatives Grijalva, Beyer, and Dingell in the House, and Senator Udall in the Senate have introduced the PAW and FIN Conservation Act of 2019. This law will roll back Interior Department regulations that would weaken this landmark law protecting species from extinction.

Tell your member of Congress to co-sponsor the PAW and FIN Conservation Act of 2019!

The PAW and FIN Act reverses rules which will: (i) weaken the consultation process designed to prevent harm to endangered animals and their habitats from federal agency activities; (ii) curtail the designation of critical habitat and weakens the listing process for imperiled species; and (iii) eliminate all protections for wildlife newly designated as “threatened” under the Act.

Biodiversity is under threat in the US and throughout the world. Pollinator declines are well known, and now scientists are indicating we are in the midst of an insect apocalypse.  Declines at the bottom of the food chain are even more concerning given reports of “biological annihilation” and a 6th mass extinction among mammals and other vertebrate species.

Every species very species is like a book in the library of life, and losing a species is like burning that book. It means we will forever miss out, and never truly understand how its story connects with the chronicles of life on Earth. Even obscure or uncharismatic species may hold the key to curing diseases and other medical breakthroughs.

Tell your federal lawmakers to join the fight to protect the Endangered Species Act!

The ESA has helped prevent the extinction of 291 species since it was first passed in 1973; a 99% success rate. It’s critically important that we take action today to keep this effective legislation working.

Please consider following up with a phone call urging your elected official to cosponsor the PAW and FIN Conservation Act.

Letter to Congress

Please help stop the Interior Department’s attacks on the endangered species act by cosponsoring the PAW and FIN Conservation Act of 2019. This legislation, introduced by Representatives Grijalva, Beyer, and Dingell in the House, and Senator Udall in the Senate, will undo regulations intended to gut the letter, spirit, and intent of the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

The new rules announced by the administration this week: (i) weaken the consultation process designed to prevent harm to endangered animals and their habitats from federal agency activities; (ii) curtail the designation of critical habitat and weakens the listing process for imperiled species; and (iii) eliminate all protections for wildlife newly designated as “threatened” under the Act.

Biodiversity is under threat in the US and throughout the world. Pollinator declines are well known, and now scientists are indicating we are in the midst of an insect apocalypse.  Declines at the bottom of the food chain are even more concerning given reports of “biological annihilation” and a 6th mass extinction among mammals and other vertebrate species.

In the face of these declines, it is critical that we protect those already at heightened risk. Every species is like a book in the library of life, and losing a species is like burning that book. It means we will forever miss out, and never truly understand how its story connects with the chronicles of life on Earth. Even obscure or uncharismatic species may hold the key to curing diseases and other medical breakthroughs.

The ESA has helped prevent the extinction of 291 species since it was first passed in 1973; a 99% success rate. It’s critically important that we take action today to keep this effective legislation working. Please become a cosponsor of the PAW and FIN Conservation Act.

Thank you.

Pesticide-coated (or treated) seeds.

(Beyond Pesticides, September 20, 2019) The actual utility of pesticides to achieve their purported goals is an under-recognized failing of the regulatory review of pesticide compounds for use. A study published in Scientific Reports now exposes the faulty assumptions underlying the use of neonicotinoids — the most widely used category of insecticides worldwide. The study demonstrates that use of neonicotinoids (neonics) to treat seeds — a very common use of these pesticides — actually provides negligible benefits to soybean farmers in terms of yield and overall economic benefit. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should take notice, and consider that efficacy ought to have a role in the agency’s evaluation of pesticides for registration.

Neonicotinoids are systemic pesticides that move through a plant’s vascular system and are expressed in pollen, nectar, and guttation droplets (drops of sap exuded on the tips or edges of leaves of some vascular plants). They can also persist in the environment — in soil and water — for extended periods. Neonics are applied to seed, as well as to crop soils and to plant foliage. Corn and soybean seed treatments represent the largest uses of neonics in the U.S.: for somewhere between 34% and 50+% of the soybean crop and for nearly all field corn. This contrasts dramatically with metrics from the decade prior to the introduction of neonics to the marketplace, when a mere 5% of soybean acreage was treated with insecticides. The pesticide is also applied liberally to cotton, oilseed rape, sugar beet, vegetable, and pome, stone, and citrus fruit crops.

Neonicotinoids have come under intensive scrutiny in the past decade because of their persistence in the soil, ability to leach into the environment, high water solubility, and potential negative health implications for non-target organisms such as pollinators — especially bees of all sorts — as well as butterflies, bats, and birds. Indeed, a recent Science publication from researchers in Canada demonstrates that “low-level neonic exposure may delay the migrations of songbirds and harm their chances of mating.” Beyond Pesticides’ video, Seeds That Poison, offers a succinct primer on the dangers of neonic-coated seeds.

The subject study examined a variety of factors in determining neonic efficacy, including weather patterns, soil pH, precipitation, pest abundance and timing, and yield for three experimental groups: soybeans treated with fungicides only, those treated with fungicides and neonicotinoids, and an untreated control group. Despite broad use, the practice of using fungicide-plus neonicotinoid seed treatment appears to have negligible benefit for most soybean producers. The researchers write, “These results demonstrate that the current widespread prophylactic use of NST [neonicotinoid seed treatment] in the key soybean-producing areas of the U.S. should be re-evaluated by producers and regulators alike.”

This new research finding underscores Beyond Pesticides’ advocacy against neonic seed treatment, and duplicates some of the findings of a 2014 EPA report, which said that use of treated soybean seed provided little-to-no overall benefit in controlling insects or improving yield or quality in soybean production. The researchers in this recent study analyze data across 14 soybean-producing states and a 12-year period, and conclude that not only does their investigation provide no empirical evidence for the use of neonic-coated seeds, but also, beyond that, the data suggest that the approach yields “little to zero net benefit in most cases.”

Co-authors cite the lack of observed pest management benefits of planting treated seeds, and note that there is a disconnect between perceived crop vulnerability and neonicotinoid utility: “throughout most soybean-producing regions of the U.S., the period of pest protection provided by [use of neonic-treated seeds] does not align with [the presence of] economically significant pest populations. Absent economic infestations of pests, there is no opportunity for this plant protection strategy to provide benefit to most producers.”

Relative to the benefits of neonics for growers, the researchers cite other recent studies that have reported “weak relationships between NST use and effectiveness in preserving crop yield.” They continue: “A recent multi-state study of management tactics for the key pest in the [Midwest] region, the soybean aphid . . . demonstrated that crop yield benefits and overall economic returns were marginally affected by NST.”

The study did not address an additional issue inherent in the question of efficacy: because of the well-documented issue of resistance that develops in chemical-intensive monocultural agriculture, what may be effective in one growing season is unlikely to work in subsequent years because of the resistance that inevitably develops in the target organism.

The researchers also point to one of the alarming and infamous impacts of neonics: “Aside from the fact that a farmer may be incurring unnecessary input costs, a growing body of research suggests that the use of NST in this manner can lead to a host of negative effects upon non-target organisms. It has been reported that neonicotinoids are increasingly detected in terrestrial and aquatic environments. Furthermore, studies in the U.S. and elsewhere have evaluated impacts of neonicotinoid on nontarget organisms such as honey bees wild bees, monarch butterflies, vertebrates, terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates, and overall declines in ecosystem function.”

Additionally, they note that the critical soybean-producing states represented in their study, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota, rank 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th, respectively, in numbers of honey bee colonies — many of those migratory colonies used for pollination of key fruit and nut crops. The co-authors conclude, “This presents a key intersection between NST exposure and our principal managed pollinator species with demonstrated sensitivity to this class of compounds.”

This research adds to the evidence of EPA’s inadequate registration process for pesticides: the agency has interpreted the foundational legislation for pesticide registration — the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) — as not requiring it to conduct review of pesticide efficacy. Presumably, efficacy would be considered a benefit. It strains credulity to maintain that the FIFRA mandate — to evaluate the risks of pesticide use compared with any of its benefits — can be fulfilled without any assessment of the benefit of the use of a pesticide might be. (See EPA assertion of neonic seed treatment “benefits” here.)

As noted in May 2018 by Beyond Pesticides’ Daily News Blog, “EPA does not review manufacturer data on pesticide efficacy, even though the statutory registration standard requires weighing the risks of pesticides against their benefits. Without efficacy information, the real benefits of a pesticide are unknown, and the reasonableness of pesticide use cannot be assessed. The lack of efficacy data review results in escalating and predictable insect and weed resistance, unnecessarily increases in pesticide use, and putting farmers at risk of crop loss and economic damage. The only instance in which EPA evaluates pesticide efficacy is as a part of public health (not agricultural) pesticide registrations, and even this is without public disclosure or opportunity for comment.”

EPA has taken the position, viewed as irresponsible by advocates, that the marketplace determines efficacy, and that farmers (and consumers) would abandon pesticide products if they did not work. But in real life, absent meaningful independent assessment, farmers use pesticide products on huge swaths of cropland largely on the basis of agrochemical marketing claims. This situation is all the more disturbing because neonics, and many other pesticides, are toxic substances that can cause harmful effects.

Contrast with EPA’s negligence on the “efficacy front” what the Organic Foods Production Act mandates for all organically produced foods: that synthetic a substance or input “approved for organic production” be deemed essential for organic productivity. This criterion is considered in addition to any adverse effects of a subject substance and its compatibility with organic agriculture.

The transition to organic agriculture, land management, and nontoxic or least-toxic pest control strategies, which would obviate issues of pesticide efficacy, is the task at hand. Evidence continues to grow: organic, regenerative, and ecologically based farming approaches can generate not only healthier soils and crops, but also, competitive yields compared to those of conventional, chemical agriculture. A recent study from American Farmland Trust (AFT) shows that such “healthy soil” practices also generate real ROI — return on investment.

The AFT research project followed two corn and soybean farmers (from Illinois and Ohio), a New York farmer growing sweet corn, alfalfa, and corn for silage or grain, and a California almond grower over a number of years. All of them employed various regenerative practices, such as crop rotation, no-till, cover cropping, and composting that garnered soil and environmental benefits, including average reductions of: 54% in nitrogen losses; 81% in phosphorous losses; 85% in sediment losses; and 379% in total greenhouse gases from the test fields. Beyond those outcomes, the stellar economic results included: average increased yields of 12%; average net income increase of $42 per acre per year (with a whopping average increase for the almond grower of $657 per acre per year); and ROI ranging from 35% to 343%. Those are numbers with which any farmer would be thrilled.

To help move the nation and world to organic and regenerative approaches that benefit producers, consumers, and the environment, follow Beyond Pesticides’ coverage of organics; engage with its Action of the Week; check out its Tools for Change; and consider joining the organization as one more way to advocate for the transition away from chemical agriculture. A better, less-toxic world is possible.

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

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-47442-8

(Beyond Pesticides, September 19, 2019) A coalition of beekeepers is suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its recent new use registrations of the neonicotinoid-related insecticide sulfoxaflor on bee-attractive crops . The environmental nonprofit Earthjustice is representing the Pollinator Stewardship Council, the American Beekeeper Federation, and Jeff Anderson—a beekeeper. This is the second suit of its kind to be filed against the agency in the past month: The Center for Biological Diversity and Center for Food Safety have also filed a lawsuit in the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals on the use of sulfoxaflor on over 200 million acres of crops that draw in pollinators to forage on poisoned nectar, pollen, and guttation droplets.

Sulfoxaflor is a systemic insecticide whose mode of action is the same as neonicotinoid pesticides. After application, the chemical is absorbed and distributed throughout the plant, including pollen and nectar. These insecticides are selective agonists of insects’ nicotinic acetylcholine receptors—they bind to the receptor and cause it to activate. The impact on foraging bees is generally sublethal, but devastating on a population level.

At the request of industry, EPA waived the legal requirement for a full-field study of sulfoxaflor’s impacts on pollinators, erroneously stating that further research would “not add meaningful input to our conclusions.” Under EPA’s approval, the chemical can be aerially sprayed with no buffer zone and applied before and during bloom periods when pollinators are most active.

“Honey bees and other pollinators are dying in droves because of insecticides like sulfoxaflor, yet the Trump administration removes restrictions just to please the chemical industry,” stated Greg Loarie, Earthjustice attorney. “This is illegal and an affront to our food system, economy, and environment.”

Beekeepers were behind the original impetus to get sulfoxaflor registration limited from blooming bee-attractive crops such as sorghum and cotton; Mr. Anderson and the American Beekeeper Federation were also on that initial coalition of litigants during the 2013 lawsuit against EPA.

After a 2015 decision in favor of beekeepers, EPA regularly utilized the “emergency exemption” rule under Section 18 of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) to circumvent restrictions–a move that was continuously noticed and lambasted by environmental advocates.

The Bee Informed Partnership’s latest survey estimates that beekeepers lost 40% of their honey bee colonies between April  2018 and April 2019, and pollinators as a whole are under threat. As scientists and beekeepers tally up reasons to change farming practices to protect pollinators from poisons such as sulfoxaflor–including entire ecosystem collapse, EPA marches obstinately in the opposite direction under the directive of corporate interests.

Michele Colopy of the Pollinator Stewardship Council stated, “It is inappropriate for EPA to solely rely on industry studies to justify bringing sulfoxaflor back into our farm fields.” She continued, “Die-offs of tens of thousands of bee colonies continue to occur and sulfoxaflor plays a huge role in this problem. EPA is harming not just the beekeepers, their livelihood, and bees, but the nation’s food system.”

With EPA failing to take even the most basic steps to protect declining pollinators, it is up to concerned residents to get active in their state and community and demand change. Work to pass policies that eliminate sulfoxaflor and a broad range of systemic pesticides by promoting organic land care.  For help in organizing your community, reach out to Beyond Pesticides at [email protected] or 202-543-5450.

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

Sources: Earthjustice, New York Times

(Beyond Pesticides, September 18, 2019) A new report published by Friends of the Earth (FOE), “Pesticides and Soil Health” highlights healthy soil as a key pillar of regenerative, organic agriculture. There are numerous methods that regenerative agriculture utilizes to maximize soil health such as cover cropping, crop rotation, and compost applications. FOE focuses in on an often-overlooked aspect to soil health, “that eliminating or greatly reducing toxic pesticides is key to building healthy soils and ecosystems for a healthy planet.” Beyond Pesticides has long believed that toxic pesticide use has no place in organic and regenerative land management practices and that they can and should be eliminated. According to Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides and former member of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) said, “Pesticide reduction strategies that allow continued use of toxic substances undermine the soil biology and biodiversity that is critical to healthy plants and  unnecessary to achieving pest management goals.” “It’s past time to talk elimination of toxic pesticides and nothing short of that.”

Toxic pesticides have a diverse range of unintended impacts, including  cancer and other diseases to those exposed via usage or drift, and crop loss. Lesser known is the impact that pesticides have on the microbes that live in the soil. The report notes that a teaspoon of healthy soil holds billions of soil microorganisms. These bacteria and fungi provide a range of services to plants, such as access to necessary nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. In exchange, plants provide these tiny life forms with carbon in the form of carbohydrates. As the climate crisis continues to wreak havoc, this process of carbon sequestration is integral to mitigation. Pesticides therefore pose a threat to the capacity of soil to play a role in the fight against climate change.

Toxic chemicals damage the soil microbiota by decreasing soil microbial biomass and altering the composition of the soil microbiome. Fungi-rich soil improves productivity and increases carbon sequestration capacity, but use of pesticides results in a bacteria-dominant ecosystem.  Changes in soil composition also result in “vacant ecological niches, so organisms that were rare become abundant and vice versa.” This unhealthy and imbalanced soil has reduced fertility and resilience, and plants grown in such conditions are more vulnerable to parasites and pathogens.  This degraded soil sequesters less carbon than soil with a diverse array of microbiota.

The report discusses the correlation between no-till practices and pesticide use. While advocates often tout the positive impacts no-till has such as reduced erosion and preservation of microbes, the report states, “data indicates that the majority of no-till farmers rely on herbicides such as glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. In fact, 86% of No-Till Farmer readers said they planned to plant Roundup Ready corn in 2017, while 80 percent planned to plant Roundup Ready soybeans, and some 92 percent planned to use glyphosate for weed control.”

While no-till practices in an organic regenerative setting may prove beneficial, when used in combination with pesticides such as glyphosate the cons outweigh the pros. Glyphosate negatively impacts the flow of nutrients and carbon from plants to soil, reduces the activity of earthworms, increase pathogens and super weeds, and continue users on the pesticide treadmill.

In order to maximize the capacity of soil to sequester carbon and serve as a tool in the climate crisis, the use of toxic pesticides must stop. Instead, focus and energy must be put into transitioning to regenerative organic systems and restoring soil health to maximizing the flow of nutrients and carbon between plants and microorganisms. This will preserve the important microbial communities in the soil, increase crop resiliency, drought resistance, and reduce overall carbon emissions. Keep abreast of developments in organic, regenerative, and agroecological approaches to health and environment through Beyond Pesticides’ Daily News Blog and its journal, Pesticides and You.

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

Source: Friends of the Earth

(Beyond Pesticides, September 17, 2019) The poisonous farm fields migratory birds forage on during their journey reduce their weight, delay their travel, and ultimately jeopardize their survival, according to new research published in the journal Science.  Like their effects on pollinator populations, neonicotinoid insecticides generally are not killing migratory songbirds outright, but instead precipitating a cascade of sublethal impacts that reduces their fitness in the wild. As the authors told Environmental Health News, the study is a call not simply to ban neonics or one class of chemical, but to change the entire farming system toward more sustainable bird and bee-friendly practices.

Using new technology, this study was not only able to dose wild-caught songbirds (white-crowned sparrows), but also track their migration route using automated telemetry. Apart from the control group that received no pesticide exposure, sparrows were treated at levels well below the median lethal dose (3% of the lethal dose in the ‘low’ exposure group and 10% within the ‘high’ exposure group), and permitted to continue on their migratory path. These are exposure amounts similar to a songbird accidentally ingesting a few treated seeds, according to the study.

Within six hours, both the ‘low’ and ‘high’ exposure group showed a significant reduction in body mass (3% and 6%, respectively) after a single dose of the neonicotinoid imidacloprid. The ‘low’ exposure group ate 8% less than the control group after dosing, while the ‘high’ exposure group reduced its intake by a staggering 70%. This is an important impact because body weight and fat storage are critical during songbird migration. Birds rest at stopover sites to refuel, and return to flight, but birds in the experiment dosed with imidacloprid stayed on average 3.5 days longer than the unexposed control group. Authors suspect that this was the result of weight reduction and reduced feeding.

“Extended stopovers while intoxicated and in reduced body condition could lower survival by increasing susceptibility to predation or inclement weather,” the study indicates. In addition, “Birds that are delayed during migration and arrive later at breeding grounds have been reported to obtain poorer-quality territories, breed later, and produce fewer offspring in worse condition than those of early arrivals, reducing the probability of their offspring recruitment to the population.”

Neonicotinoids are in use throughout the migratory path of these songbirds, indicating a risk that accumulates over time, given that avoidance of treated seeds appears to be a learned, rather than innate bird behavior.

Indeed, there is prior evidence that birds are already feeling the effects of neonicotoinoid use. A 2017 study by the same set of researchers found similar impacts on songbird weight and effects on migration orientation. Research conducted by Canadian scientists in 2018 found turkeys that feed on agricultural fields to be widely contaminated with neonicotinoids, indicating a potential link between exposure and poor reproductive output noted by hunters in the region. Studies from Spanish researchers (1, and 2) also indicate partridges exposed to neonic-treated seeds can reduce fecundity and impact the health of their offspring.

Risks to songbirds are also not limited to agricultural settings. In a report published earlier this year by California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife, a soil drench application of the neonicotinoid imidacloprid was implicated as causing a die-off of goldfinches in the area.

Ultimately, the authors indicate that although neonics are of particular concern, simply eliminating their use will not address the problems being observed. As co-author Christy Morrissey, PhD, told Environmental Health News, there are “already replacement for neonics—and they’re just as toxic as neonics, they’re just a different name.” To fix the problem focus should be on the “need to change the whole system to make it more resilient.”

“Monoculture, single crop agriculture is heavily reliant on chemicals for production, unfortunately, that’s just not conducive to life and biodiversity,” she told Environmental Health News. “We should incentivize farmers to diversify systems rather than substituting one chemical for another.”

Beyond Pesticides wholeheartedly agrees with Dr. Morrissey’s assessment, and has long called for a broadscale transition to organic systems. This approach focuses on soil health, and aims to work with, rather than against nature in the management of pests and weeds. Focus in placed on alleviating the root causes of pests and weeds through good nutrition, proper watering, and other cultural practices such as cover crops and crop rotation. As the success of organic farming has shown, this approach can feed the world while protecting the environment. Without this changeover the future is certain to bring more and more silent declines, building towards the Silent Spring Rachel Carson warned could occur.

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

Source: Environmental Health News, Science (peer-reviewed journal)

(Beyond Pesticides, September 16, 2019) The Fall 2019 National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) meeting dates have been announced and public comments are due by October 3, 2019. Your comments and participation are critical to the integrity of the organic label. Written comments may be submitted through Regulations.gov until 11:59 pm ET October 3, 2010. Reservations for in-person and webinar comments close at the same time.

The proposals of the NOSB, as a part of its ongoing review of practices and materials, are published for public comment.  Beyond Pesticides/OrganicEye is providing the public with a listing and analysis of the issues under consideration by the Board when it meets in Pittsburgh, PA on October 23 – 25, 2019. You can view USDA’s announcement of the NOSB’s meeting and proposals here.

Issues before the NOSB include materials allowed in organic production as well as some policy issues. Materials are either being considered for initial use in organics or the subject of a five-year Sunset Review. To be allowed, materials must have evidence demonstrating that they meet Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) requirements of essentiality, no adverse effects on humans and the environment, and compatibility with organic practices.

Major issues before the NOSB at the Fall 2019 meeting include:

Take nitrates out of organic meat!
The Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) prohibits the addition of nitrates to organic food because of the known health effects, but producers of organic processed meat products, along with producers of nonorganic “nitrate free” meats, have found a way around that prohibition –celery powder. The high levels of nitrate fertilizer allowed in nonorganic production concentrate in some vegetables, including celery, but organically grown celery does not contain high enough levels of nitrate to be used in curing meat. Celery powder has been listed as an allowed nonorganic agricultural ingredient since 2007.

Nitrates are prohibited in organic food because of their impacts on human health, which include methemoglobinemia, hypotension, risk of pregnancy complications, a number of reproductive effects, and cancer. In addition, the Beyond Pesticides Eating with a Conscience database identifies impacts of pesticides used in producing nonorganic celery, including farmworker poisonings, contamination of water, wildlife poisoning, and pollinator impacts. The NOSB must deny the relisting of celery powder.

Keep genetic engineering out of organic! 
The NOSB continually updates its assessment of which methods meet the criteria for “excluded methods” in organic production—that is, genetic engineering. At this meeting, the Materials Subcommittee proposes to add induced mutagenesis developed via use of in vitro nucleic acid techniques to the list of excluded methods and embryo transfer, or embryo rescue, in livestock, without use of hormones in recipient animals, is proposed to be listed as “not excluded.” We support these recommendations, except that there should be no use of hormones in either donor or recipient.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) appears to have forgotten the lesson learned 20 years ago when it was forced to ban genetic engineering (GE) in organic regulations. At a July 17 hearing called by the U.S. House Agriculture Subcommittee on Biotechnology, Horticulture, and Research on “Assessing the Effectiveness of the National Organic Program,” Greg Ibach, the USDA’s Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, stated, “There is the opportunity to open the discussion to consider whether it is appropriate for some of these new technologies, including gene editing, to be eligible to be used to enhance organic production.” In view of this statement, we believe it is important to stress that gene editing, like other forms of genetic engineering, is unacceptable in organic production.

Stop supporting organic CAFOs!
The addition of synthetic methionine to organic poultry rations has a long and controversial history –not because of direct health effects on organic consumers, but because it facilitates industrial-style production of poultry.

Poultry production in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) needs synthetic methionine because of the lack of outdoor access and the choice of fast-growing breeds.
The “need” for synthetic methionine is a result of choices regarding breeds, stocking rates (both density and group size), and outdoor access. Increasingly, consumers are turning to eggs and meat produced in pastured poultry systems, which require fewer synthetic inputs. There have also been advances in the use of insects –specifically black soldier fly larvae—as a source of natural methionine.

The European Union does not allow the use of synthetic methionine in organic poultry, but does require more space per bird, fewer birds per house, and more access to the outdoors. Significantly, the EU also requires that poultry be of slow-growing breeds or be slaughtered at an older age. All these factors contribute to the welfare of poultry.

Research shows that methionine acts as a growth promoter above and beyond its role as a protein building block. Manipulating methionine in the diet through additions of synthetic methionine is effectively using a synthetic growth promoter and is comparable to the use of rBGH to enhance milk production.

Sunset gives the NOSB the opportunity to reconsider past decisions and reinstitute a process of continuous improvement. The NOSB should delist synthetic methionine or add an expiration date to force serious reconsideration.

Written comments may be submitted through Regulations.gov until 11:59 pm ET October 3, 2019.

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Please go to Beyond Pesticides’ Keeping Organic Strong (KOS) webpage to learn more about these and other substantive issues, and to provide a unique public comment to the NOSB. We will continue to update the KOS page in advance of the public comment deadline on October 3.

Thank you for helping to protect and uphold organic integrity!

(Beyond Pesticides, September 13, 2019) A study on the use of the herbicide dicamba’s off-target effects finds broad impacts, in both geographic spread and the variety of affected species, with use of the weed killer on Arkansas cropland putting birds at risk in agricultural landscapes. Audubon of Arkansas is reporting results of its community science dicamba monitoring project, conducted under the direction of Bird Conservation Director Dan Scheiman, PhD, and launched in late spring 2019. The project monitored dicamba symptomology in species on municipal, state, and federal lands, where dicamba was not applied, but where its impacts were nonetheless detected. Arkansas Audubon “predicts that in a landscape full of GMO crops [genetically modified organisms] (on which dicamba is typically used), the atmospheric loading of volatile dicamba could be enough to cause landscape scale damage to our state natural areas, wildlife management areas, national wildlife refuges, family farms, and the wildlife they harbor.”

Dicamba herbicides are volatile compounds used to control broadleaf weeds — especially on fields of GMO soybean and cotton crops that have been genetically engineered for resistance to dicamba. These herbicides damage non-GMO crops and native plants well beyond intended application areas. (In 2017, more than 3 million acres of soybeans and other crops suffered damage from the chemical.) In addition, warm temperatures during and after application increase the odds of a state change of the liquid herbicide to a gas, which can then rise and drift for miles in any direction. Thus, dicamba herbicides can move significantly off the intended targets, affecting acreage far beyond the bounds of application sites — damaging as much as half again the amount of acreage on which it is applied.

Community scientists were trained by Audubon to detect such typical dicamba symptoms as leaf cupping (just as it sounds, the leaf takes on a concave shape), epinasty (a distorted leaf growth pattern), and chlorosis (yellowed leaves because of insufficient chlorophyll), and to look for multiple symptoms on one plant, uniform symptoms throughout a plant, and instances of numerous plants in an area exhibiting symptoms. Species found to be affected include oak, redbud, and sycamore trees, and muscadine and trumpet vine plants. From June through August, project staff and volunteers amassed nearly 250 observations of dicamba symptomology across 17 Arkansas counties.

Symptoms were observed in plant species growing on public lands, such as parks, cemeteries, university research farms, church properties, and wildlife management areas, as well as along many state and county roadways. In February 2019, the Arkansas state Plant Board moved the dicamba application cutoff date deeper into the growing season (to May 25) for this year, and changed some regulations to try to limit impacts of the chemical on non-target species. Yet the community science monitoring project found 13 occurrences of dicamba symptoms “within two miles of where [state] Plant Board inspectors collected pigweed tissue samples that tested positive for dicamba. This and the 198 dicamba misuse complaints received by the Plant Board . . . are evidence that dicamba use was widespread this summer despite the May 25 cutoff.”

Dr. Scheiman comments, on the Audubon of Arkansas website, “Spraying Dicamba on millions of acres of soybean and cotton is an uncontrolled experiment that puts sensitive habitats at unacceptable risk. In a landscape full of GMO crops, the atmospheric build-up of volatized dicamba may result in significant damage to our state natural areas, wildlife management areas, national wildlife refuges, family farms, and the wildlife they harbor.”

Complicating the picture of dicamba damage is the increasingly common practice of using both it and glyphosate on GE soy and cotton crops — as glyphosate has become more ineffective, given the development of some weeds’ resistance to the compound. In 2015, Monsanto began selling another iteration of its genetically engineered (GE) soybean seed, which is tolerant of both compounds.

But this seed-plus-double-herbicide protocol has exacerbated the drift problem and resultant plant damage, whether to crops, or to trees and landscapes on nearby private or public lands. Parcels affected have included university research test fields in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Arkansas, which have reported the same kinds of dicamba symptoms in their test plots from drift (which is a significant problem for their experimental work), and in parks and along public ways in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Recent research shows that the addition of glyphosate to dicamba herbicides increased concentrations of dicamba in the air by as much as nine times those of dicamba alone.

As Beyond Pesticides noted in its July coverage of that research, “exposure to either herbicide poses . . . health risk[s,] and both have been linked to diseases such as cancer. These herbicides also pose a threat to pollinators, especially when drift occurs. Increasing the volatility of dicamba with the addition of summer heat and glyphosate will only increase the spread of the herbicide, resulting in more crop damage, pollinator deaths, and human health concerns. While risks to public health and the environment increase, these new formulations are certain to fail as weeds will, as they have in the past, adapt.”

A number of lawsuits have been brought over this issue of dicamba drift and its resultant harms, including a class action suit. In 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced label changes (to “restricted use”) for dicamba products, which aimed to reduce the huge drift issue that causes such damage to contiguous land and crops. In January 2018, following on a huge grassroots effort by Beyond Pesticides and other advocates, the Arkansas state Plant Board instituted a temporary ban on agricultural use of dicamba in agriculture from mid-April through late October of that year. The Arkansas Legislative Council (which by statute acts as a state decision-making body when the legislature is not in session), went on to make that ban official. The moves were attempts to rein in the rampant level of drift, crop damage, and health impacts Arkansans had experienced from the herbicide. Monsanto sued in Arkansas State Circuit Court in 2018 to stop the ban, but lost in that effort.

Then in late 2018 — in apparent obeisance to the agrochemical industry — EPA approved continued use of dicamba. Beyond Pesticides reported at the time: “On October 31, EPA announced changes to dicamba’s registration. Rather than respond to the results of a study performed in coordination with Bayer’s Monsanto, and agreed upon by officials within the agency, Acting EPA Administrator Wheeler decided to ignore adverse impacts to farmers and nontarget species, in favor of the chemical industry. . . . This decision raises a litany of [concerns about] structural problems within the pesticide registration process. Mixtures and synergy are not adequately tested. Inert ingredients are not disclosed. As exemplified in this instance, pesticide producers submit their own studies to EPA in order to support the registration of a product [in] which they have a vested economic interest. Many pesticides, including GE dicamba products . . . are registered conditionally without required health and environmental safety information. . . . Advocates see this action by top-level officials in the Trump Administration as political meddling with a scientific process already structurally deficient, seriously jeopardizing the health and well-being of U.S. residents and the environment. This action is part of a pattern of the Trump administration’s EPA head ignoring the agency’s science.”

As Trump EPA officials continue to roll back and subvert regulations designed to protect the public and the environment, and to work with industry to subvert the agency’s own scientific findings, greater numbers of consumers are changing their purchasing decisions to buy organic foods and other organic products. Marketplace choices signal to producers what the public is willing to purchase, so these choices are an immediate way for the public to protect itself from the risks imposed by regulators’ failures and to give producers feedback. In addition, upset about the way the pesticide industry and EPA collude to manipulate or ignore science in the pesticide review process can be transformed into action. One place to begin is at the local level to eliminate toxic pesticides from your community.

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

Source: https://ar.audubon.org/sites/default/files/static_pages/attachments/audubon_arkansass_dicamba_symptomology_monitoring_report.pdf

(Beyond Pesticides, September 12, 2019) This September, adults will join in a global climate strike spurred by the Fridays for Future school climate strike movement.

Environmentalists around the world are galvanizing the public to participate in youth-led disruption in order to bring attention to the climate crisis. U.S. strike demands include a Green New Deal, respect for indigenous land and sovereignty, environmental justice, protecting biodiversity, and sustainable agriculture. The strike will kick off on Friday, September 20 and actions will continue until the next Friday, September 27.

Fridays for Future started when then 15-year-old Greta Thunberg began striking in 2018 in front of the Riksdag – the Swedish parliament. She was inspired by U.S. teens who refused to go back to school and instead organized a massive national protest for gun control after the Parkland, Florida shooting. Ms. Thunberg gained publicity and captured a global audience with her clear voice and piercing castigation of adults in power who, “are sh–ting on my future.” Ms. Thunberg has, among other diagnoses, Asperger Syndrome. She attributes her ability to articulate the climate crisis to her capacity to think differently and see things in “black and white.” In an interview with TIME Magazine, she stated, “The climate crisis is, in some ways, black and white. Either we stop the emissions or we don’t, either we prevent setting off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control or we don’t.” Fridays for Future has become a weekly, international phenomenon. Ms. Thunberg was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this year.

In May of 2019, Ms. Thunberg and other activists issued a request for adults to join on September 20. “We feel a lot of adults haven’t quite understood that we young people won’t hold off the climate crisis ourselves. Sorry if this is inconvenient for you. But this is not a single-generation job. It’s humanity’s job,” they stated, “So this is our invitation. Starting on Friday 20 September we will kick-start a week of climate action with a worldwide strike for the climate. We’re asking adults to step up alongside us.”

The U.S. Youth Climate Strike, a coalition of eight national youth-led climate groups, recently released their demands. In full, they are:

• A Green New Deal
  • Transform our economy to 100% clean, renewable energy by 2030 and phase out all fossil fuel extraction through a just and equitable transition, creating millions of good jobs
  • A halt to all leasing and permitting for fossil fuel extraction, processing and infrastructure projects immediately
• Respect of Indigenous Land and Sovereignty
  • Honor the treaties protecting Indigenous lands, waters, and sovereignty by the immediate halt of all construction, leasing, and permitting for resource extraction, processing and infrastructure projects affecting or on Indigenous lands
  • Recognize the Rights of Nature into law to protect our sacred ecosystems and align human law with natural law to ban resource extraction in defense of our environment and people
• Environmental Justice
  • A transition that invests in prosperity for communities on the frontlines of poverty and pollution
  • Welcoming those displaced by the cumulative effects of the climate crisis, economic inequality, violence, and lack of opportunity
• Protection and Restoration of Biodiversity
  • Protection and restoration of 50% of the world’s lands and oceans including a halt to all deforestation by 2030
• Implementation of Sustainable Agriculture
  • Investment in farmers and regenerative agriculture and an end to subsidies for industrial agriculture

Beyond Pesticides is supporting the global climate strike because toxic pesticides contribute to the climate crisis and mass extinction, and organic agriculture is part of the solution. If the U.S. is to meet the demand of protecting and restoring biodiversity, that must include a paradigm shift regarding indiscriminate, poisonous chemicals that leach away from their intended purposes and destroy life. Sustainable agriculture is not compatible with the continued use of toxic chemicals. The demand for regenerative agriculture motivates Beyond Pesticides to note that organic agriculture is regenerative, and the use of toxic pesticides and synthetic fertilizers inhibits soil’s ability to capture carbon. The work of Beyond Pesticides stemmed from a commitment to farmworker justice, a frontline community to pesticide pollution and poisoning – the demand for environmental justice must include farmworkers.

If you are inspired to stand up and join young people in the global climate strike, you can find local events in your area. If there is not an event in your area, you can start your own. Want to join Beyond Pesticides in the strike in Washington, DC? Email [email protected].

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

(Beyond Pesticides, September 11, 2019) Germany is the latest entity to take action on getting glyphosate-based pesticides out of the marketplace. Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced that, beginning in 2020, the country will phase out herbicides that contain glyphosate by the end of 2023. The phase-out will occur through a series of scheduled reductions in amounts allowed for use, with a goal of a 75% reduction over the next four years. The announcement comes after “nation-wide protests and demands from [Merkel’s] junior coalition partner, the Social Democrats, for more decisive action on environmental issues.” This action stands in telling contrast to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) repeated failures to protect people, ecosystems, and our food supply, from this toxic compound.

The German government also plans to oppose any European Union (EU) request for renewal of licensing of these herbicides, according to the environment ministry. Bayer AG, maker of glyphosate-based herbicides and owner of original manufacturer Monsanto, has pushed back, saying that the government is “getting ahead of itself” by banning glyphosate-based herbicides prior to any decision by the relevant EU authority, and that EU laws disallow unilateral decisions by member states. (Pesticide licensing decisions lie with EU governance in Brussels, the de facto capital of the EU, rather than with EU member countries.)

Agriculture Minister Julia Kloeckner emphasized that, although glyphosate products are currently legal under EU law (until December of 2022), German farming policies will continue to become “greener.” Germany’s Environment Minister, Svenja Schulze, said at a news conference in Berlin, “I don’t expect that there will be a majority anywhere in the EU for glyphosate after 2022.” The government’s move is particularly noteworthy because Monsanto, which developed glyphosate and marketed it as the ubiquitous and infamous Roundup herbicide, was bought in 2018 by Bayer — a German company. This development adds to the uphill slog the company faces in keeping its products viable, given the recent plethora of developments related to the toxic compound.

Monsanto’s patent on glyphosate expired in 2015, so dozens of other chemical companies, including BASF and Dow Agrosciences, now market herbicides based on this active ingredient; they are the most commonly applied herbicides worldwide. Concern about glyphosate-based pesticides swelled when the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) determined that glyphosate is a probable carcinogen. Beyond Pesticides has covered the relationship of glyphosate (and the adjuvant ingredients in formulations) to cancer, endocrine disruption, reproduction, and renal and hepatic damage, not to mention its toxicity to fish and other aquatic organisms.

Contrary to scientific consensus and to the IARC’s conclusions, EPA has decided that glyphosate formulations are “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans,” as it posited in a decision announced in May 2019. EPA took this step even in the face of an April 2019 report by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) — an agency of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — which evidenced findings that support glyphosate’s carcinogenicity.

Among the cascade of developments since IARC’s designation have been the more than 13,000 lawsuits brought against Monsanto/Bayer. The premier one of those, which has helped catalyze a veritable tsunami of others, was the suit in which California groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson prevailed in his contention that his occupational exposure to Monsanto’s Roundup had caused him to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL). The plaintiff was awarded $39 million in compensatory damages and $250 million in punitive damages by a jury in California State Superior Court in San Francisco County; Judge Suzanne Bolanos later upheld the verdict but reduced the punitive amount to $39 million, for a total award of $78 million. The first glyphosate case in federal court was decided in March 2019 in favor of plaintiff Edwin Hardeman, who also developed NHL after decades of mixing and using Roundup on their extensive home property; the jury in that case awarded $5 million in compensatory damages and $75 million in punitive damages. As noted, there is a very long queue of other plaintiffs bringing suit related to the harms of glyphosate exposure.

EPA’s intransigence on the glyphosate issue is underscored with every effort by other entities to recognize glyphosate’s health and environmental threats, and to rein in use of the toxic chemical. In addition to Germany’s announcement, some of those recent efforts include: a 2016 call by scientists to reconsider permitting of the compound; a 2019 University of California ban on use of glyphosate on its 10 campuses; a major pesticide supplier’s discontinuing sales of glyphosate products because its insurer, in the face of that tsunami of litigation, refused to insure the company if it continued sales; a bill passed in July 2019 by Austria’s lower house of parliament banning all glyphosate uses; bans instituted in August 2019 by 20 French mayors in their municipalities in defiance of federal regulations; and a French court’s January 2019 yanking of the license for a Roundup product. Just days ago, 16 stakeholders — health, environmental, farmer, and farmworker communities — called for EPA to remove glyphosate from the marketplace. These stakeholderss cite the critical mass of high-profile lawsuits, environmental impacts, increasing reports of weed resistance, and growing public concern over the health effects of glyphosate in their comments on EPA’s interim reregistration review decision for the chemical.

Advocates say that EPA has a dismal record on glyphosate-based formulations — and on many other pesticides. This record has been more extreme during the tenure of the Trump administration, which has since 2017 worked to loosen and/or revoke regulation it perceives as “unfriendly” to industry. But EPA has for many more years been inadequate to the task of protecting the public and the environment from the compound’s impacts. Beyond the current administration’s industry-friendly machinations, Beyond Pesticides has noted and explained EPA’s failures as, fundamentally, basic inadequacies of the risk assessment paradigm EPA uses for regulating toxic chemicals.

That paradigm arises from the overarching pesticide law, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). One area of inadequacy lies in its distinctions between “active” ingredients (such as glyphosate) and “inert” ingredients, the latter of which get inadequate review compared to that for “active” ingredients. Inert ingredients are not required to be listed on product labels because they are considered “proprietary” manufacturer information, a concerning lack of transparency for the public. EPA’s assessment strategy is not “holistic,” but instead, employs a chemical-by-chemical approach.

Further, the agency depends in significant part on industry-generated research in its regulatory decisions. It also does not systematically address evidence of epigenetic/multi-generational impacts of, for example, glyphosate exposures. Another failure of the regulatory paradigm, as set out in Beyond Pesticides’ report, Thinking Holistically When Making Land Management Decisions, is the “failure of the current laws and regulatory review to consider complex ecological impacts of pesticides. These effects are not captured in current ecological risk assessments, even though interactions among pesticides and their cumulative impacts are devastating to ecological balance and health.”

The gaining momentum against use of glyphosate-based herbicides is good news. The ultimate solution is, of course, ceasing to use toxic chemicals for most pest issues in agriculture, land management, and building contexts. Organic, mechanical, and biologic approaches are available for most of the problems industry wants to fix chemically. Please stay engaged and informed on these issues with Beyond Pesticides’ many resources, including its Daily News Blog, its journal, Pesticides and You, its Programs and Resources web pages, and its newest initiative: Organic Eye — a Beyond Pesticides watchdog agency that will focus on defending the time-honored philosophy and legal definition of organic farming and food production.

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

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-04/germany-cabinet-aims-to-reduce-glyphosate-usage-in-coming-years

(Beyond Pesticides, September 10, 2019) Monarch populations on both coasts of North America are in serious decline, and new research indicates that same chemicals killing bees may be responsible for similar impacts to these charismatic butterflies.  Published in the journal Insects by Washington State University researcher David James, PhD, the study is the first to investigate how adult monarchs react to chronic, low dose exposure to the neonicotinoid insecticide imidacloprid. Many are calling the decline of pollinators and other insect species a form of apocalypse and mass extinction. What’s happening with insects must be considered a warning for species higher up in the food chain; it’s therefore critical that our observations of the natural world lead to corrective action before it’s too late.

Monarchs in the study were reared from untreated milkweed plants in Washington State in 2018, totaling 40 adult butterflies. Eleven males and the same number of females were assigned to be treated with the insecticide, while the remaining butterflies acted as a control. Both groups were provided a sugar solution, with the treated group’s solution containing 23.5 parts per billion imidacloprid, a dose similar to what a butterfly could encounter in a real world scenario.

Monarchs that fed on contaminated sugar solution experienced a significantly shortened lifespan. By day 22, 78.8% of monarchs in the treatment group were dead, compared to 20% mortality within the control group. The treatment group showed marked declines before death – at day 12 displaying uncoordinated flapping of their wings and uncontrolled body vibrations that prevented them from flying.

Monarchs migrate north to south across the North American continent. But not one individual butterfly makes the journey, it takes several generations of monarchs to complete a single migration south to breeding grounds in California, Texas and Mexico. A shortened lifespan therefore has significant consequences for how successful this journey will be. “The potential widespread impact of imidacloprid-contaminated crop and wild flower nectar, may be a significant driver of monarch population decline,” the research concludes.

In the 1990s, the eastern monarch population numbered nearly one billion butterflies, and the western population numbered more than 1.2 million. Last year’s winter counts recorded around 93 million eastern monarchs and fewer than 200,000 western monarchs. Imagine such a loss scaled to human proportions. It would be, “so staggering that in human-population terms it would be like losing every living person in the United States except those in Florida and Ohio,” said senior scientist at Center for Biological Diversity Tierra Curry.

Previous studies, one in 2015 and another in 2016, found monarch larvae to be affected by contamination of milkweed plants by neonicotinoid insecticides. Milkweed is the only plant monarchs will lay their eggs on, and the only plant caterpillars are able to feed upon when they’re born. Recent research finds that areas where milkweed often grows leads to contamination totaling 14 different agricultural pesticides. And for monarchs, even finding a contaminated plant is increasingly difficult, as genetically engineered agriculture has led to the near-eradication of its primary food source.

This is unconscionable. It is not that we lack the tools to understand the magnitude of this crisis. It is not that we lack solutions. It is that we have stood by for the last 30 years and permitted not only monarchs, but other pollinators, and an entire class of species, the insects, to reach catastrophic levels of decline. Saving monarchs, bees, pollinators, and the insect world will not be easy, but unless we undertake this charge human civilization may follow in their decline.

Organize your friends, neighbors and community; tell us you’re fighting for local pesticide reform.  The stakes are too high to continue sitting behind a computer, reading article after article and falling into doom and gloom. We understand the crisis – we know what the solutions are. Scientists, whether professional or citizen, must translate their anger and upset over the world today into change for the better. It is only through informed and active citizenry that we’ll save pollinators and stave of these apocalyptic scenarios.

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

Source: Insects

(Beyond Pesticides, September 9, 2019) New rules proposed by the Department of Labor (DOL) will weaken protections for both foreign and domestic farmworkers who grow and harvest the nation’s food. The changes would affect the H-2A guestworker program, which permits U.S. farms to temporarily hire foreign workers. Despite rapid increases in foreign agricultural workers over the past several years, the new rules would expand the program and make it easier for agrichemical companies to exploit foreign labor, driving down working conditions and pay for all farmworkers.

Tell Congress to stop DOL from weakening farmworker protections.

DOL’s proposed rules would eliminate the obligation for growers to provide priority to U.S. farmworkers during the first half of a work contract, and extend the ability for growers to bring in foreign labor throughout the growing season. Growers would also be able to change job terms and work locations in the middle of a growing season. This would increase job insecurity for U.S. farmworkers, who are already facing tough economic conditions.

As described by Farmworker Justice, “The Trump Administration seeks to guarantee agribusiness unlimited access to a captive workforce that is deprived of economic bargaining power and the right to vote. The proposal epitomizes the Trump Administration’s hostility to immigrants. At the same time that the Administration seeks to transform the farm labor force of 2.4 million people into a workforce of 21st-century indentured servants, it is demonizing hard-working immigrants and ratcheting up cruel, heartless and counterproductive arrests and deportations, targeting many of our nation’s current experienced and valued farmworkers.”

Farmworkers deserve respect. DOL must drop this anti-worker proposal.

The rules as currently written would eliminate the already meager benefits guest workers receive when working in the U.S.

Changes would affect:

• The way foreign workers are reimbursed for travel, shifting more of the burden onto their shoulders.
• How wages are calculated, undermining the way the minimum wages are determined in a region by replacing a simple survey with complex calculations.
• The way housing is provided, permitting employers to “self-inspect” housing, despite widespread reports of substandard living conditions for guest workers.

Tell Congress it’s time to stop denying fairness and justice to farmworkers and their families!

The average life expectancy for a farmworker is 49 years, compared to 78 for the general population. This is similar to the life expectancy of individuals living in the 1850s. With this information, it’s clear that farmworkers are giving years of their lives to put food on the tables of countless Americans.

Letter to Congress       

New rules proposed by the Department of Labor (DOL) would weaken protections for both foreign and domestic farmworkers who grow and harvest the nation’s food. Despite rapid increases in foreign agricultural workers over the past several years, the rules proposed by DOL would expand the guestworker program and make it easier for agrichemical companies to exploit foreign labor, therefore driving down working conditions and pay for all farmworkers.

DOL’s proposed rules would eliminate the obligation for growers to provide priority to U.S. farmworkers during the first half of a work contract, and extend the ability for growers to bring in foreign labor throughout the growing season. Growers would also be able to change job terms and work location in the middle of a growing season. This would increase job insecurity for U.S. farmworkers, who are already facing tough economic conditions. The changes would also affect the way foreign workers are reimbursed for travel, shifting more of the burden onto their shoulders. Determining “prevailing wage” would be changed from a simple survey to a complex calculation. And employers would be permitted to “self-inspect” housing, despite widespread reports of substandard living conditions.

The average life expectancy for a farmworker is 49 years, compared to 78 for the general population. This is similar to the life expectancy of individuals living in the 1850s. It is clear that farmworkers are giving years of their lives to put food on the tables of countless Americans.

In the face of administrative attempts to weaken farmworker protections, please put pressure on the Department of Labor to rescind these anti-worker rules. It’s time we improve the lives of farmworkers, rather than continuing to subject them to low pay and toxic work environment

(Beyond Pesticides, September 6, 2019) Heavy rains in urban areas bring together a toxic mixture of man-made chemicals which make their way to waterbodies at levels that can harm aquatic life, according to new research published by a team of scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Although U.S. government agencies continue to accurately identify chemical hazards in the everyday environment, precaution and action on these emerging threats has not materialized. In the face of important federal data without subsequent federal action, it is up to states and local communities to regulate the discharge of toxic pesticides and other chemicals that ultimately flow into rivers, lakes, and streams communities rely on for fishing, swimming, and drinking water.

Researchers aimed to provide a national snapshot of the contents of urban stormwater discharge by sampling 21 sites in 17 states over the course of 50 rainfall events. Samples were taken at sites where stormwater is discharged from buildings, parking lots, roads, and other urban landscapes before making its way into ground or surface water. The team tested for 438 different compounds, including pesticides, pharmaceuticals, hormones, and other industrial chemicals.

Nearly 50% (215) of the 438 chemicals tested for were found at least once during the course of the study. Most sites contained 73 or more chemicals per site, with pesticides being the most frequently detected chemical group, accounting for 35% of all detections.

The following chemicals were what the researches deemed “pervasive across all samples:” DEET, nicotine, cotinine (nicotine metabolite), caffeine, carbendazim (a metabolite of the pesticide benomyl), methyl-1H-benzotriazole (industrial corrosion inhibitor), creosol (wood preservative), fipronil, bisphenol A (BPA), pluoranthene (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, PAH), and pyrene (PAH). Each of these chemicals were found in over 90% of samples tested.

Although most closely associated with harm to pollinators, fipronil and the neonicotinoid insecticide imidacloprid pose significant risks to aquatic organisms. Health Canada instituted a ban on imidacloprid in response to these concerns. Backing up past data, the present study found imidacloprid to be widespread at levels of significant concern to aquatic life. Nearly 75% of imidacloprid detections exceeded EPA’s benchmark for chronic impacts to aquatic life, while 44% of fipronil samples surpassed this limit.

Researchers also suspect that, due to the frequent detection of pharmaceuticals like metformin (prescribed for diabetes) and acetaminophen, human waste is a component of urban water runoff, resultant from leaking, aging infrastructure. Other notable frequent detections included several industrial PAHs known to cause cancer, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and highly hazardous pesticides such as the wood preservative pentachlorophenol and long-banned chlordane.

“Results indicate that urban stormwater is transporting an extensive mixture of organic contaminants with highly variable individual-component concentrations,” the authors write.  “The organic chemicals detected in stormwater cause concern for aquatic organisms because many of the chemicals persisting in the environment are known carcinogens (PAHs and PCBs), bioactive (pesticides and pharmaceuticals), or hormonally active (biogenic hormones).”

While some may dismiss the toxic soup flowing out of urban areas as de minimis in amount and thus not a cause for concern, the report specifically notes how the wide range of mixtures detected presents novel risks to health. “The effects from exposure to complex organic and inorganic contaminant mixtures at low concentrations are poorly understood, and a range of potential mixture effects are possible even when each individual chemical is present in a mixture at low concentrations determined not to have individual effects,” the study notes.

While government scientists continue to publish concerning research on the ubiquitous presence of numerous highly hazardous man-made chemicals in the environment, government regulators have yet to take actions that would rein in their use. In their absence, it is critical that local communities fill the gap. Pesticides are a low hanging fruit that can be restricted from use on publicly owned property by local governments. Education campaigns and a sustained fight against state preemption can work to expand these bans to private property. Any amount of source reduction will help in easing the multiple stressors the modern industrialized world is placing on aquatic habitats and drinking water supplies.

Take the pledge to get active in your community, and fight for pesticide reform today. After signing you’ll receive resources to help you make your case to your local leaders. For further assistance, contact Beyond Pesticides at [email protected] or 202-543-5450.  And for more information on the threats pesticides pose to US waterways, see Beyond Pesticides Threatened Waters webpage.

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

Source: Environmental Science and Technology (peer-reviewed journal)

(Beyond Pesticides, September 5, 2019)
USDA Failures Necessitate Independent Corporate and Governmental Oversight
WASHINGTON, DC, Beyond Pesticides, a Washington, DC-based public interest organization founded in 1981 to advocate for healthy air, water, land, and food by eliminating the use of toxic pesticides and advancing organic practices, has announced the formation of its new investigative arm, OrganicEye. The watchdog agency will focus on defending the time-honored philosophy and legal definition of organic farming and food production.

“Trusted certified organic production must continue to offer a healthier marketplace alternative and critical environmental protection,” stated Jay Feldman, Executive Director of Beyond Pesticides and former National Organic Standards Board member.

As organic agriculture and food marketing has grown into an over $50 billion industry, corporate agribusiness has influenced USDA to shift primary organic production from family-scale farms to large livestock factories, and allow massive hydroponic/soilless greenhouses and fraudulent imports – all devastating to ethical farmers, businesses, and consumers.

“We are happy to announce the hiring of Mark Kastel to serve as the Director of OrganicEye,” Mr. Feldman said. Mr. Kastel, one of the founders of The Cornucopia Institute, a venerable organic farm-policy research group, brings over 30 years of diverse involvement in the organic industry. He has worked as a certified agricultural producer, business development consultant, and registered lobbyist, and is one of the most experienced independent fraud investigators in the organic industry. He has advanced major enforcement actions leading to decertification, fines, modifications to ongoing operations, cessation of organic fraud by international crime syndicates, and millions of dollars in settlements of consumer fraud class action lawsuits.

With Mr. Kastel’s deep roots in the farming community and high degree of respect among key organic business leaders, we will amplify the voices of committed organic stakeholders who share our strong belief that continued growth of trusted organic

practices is essential to solving escalating environmental and health problems, from the climate crisis to the insect apocalypse,” said Mr. Feldman.

Mr. Kastel stated,” We launch this project with the backdrop of thousands of cases of fraud submitted to the USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP), a number of independent audits by the agency’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) criticizing their weak oversight of certifiers and poor record of bringing fraudulent operations to justice.” A recent legally mandated peer review also sharply criticized USDA oversight of documented cases of illegal organic certificates, domestic fraud, and imports laundering conventional commodities as organic.

In their first official action, OrganicEye has sent formal letters urging the OIG and Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate NOP’s recent enforcement failures.

With 113 years of organic industry-related experience, the OrganicEye team is also joined by Terry Shistar, PhD, an ecologist and one of the nation’s top experts in analyzing synthetic substances used or proposed for use in organic production.

OrganicEye has established a toll-free hotline, 1-844-EYE-TIPS (844-393-8477), to gather confidential tips from the public on threats to organic integrity.

For more information, visit www.organiceye.org.

Contact:
Mark A. Kastel, 608-625-2042 / [email protected]
Jay Feldman, 202-255-4296 / [email protected]

[Long Version of Press Release (with more details)]

Veteran Policy Experts Form Organic Industry Watchdog Agency
USDA Failures Necessitate Independent Corporate and Governmental Oversight

WASHINGTON, DC — Beyond Pesticides, a public interest organization founded to advocate for healthy air, water, land, and food by eliminating the use of toxic pesticides, and advance healthy practices, has announced the formation of an investigative arm, OrganicEye. The new watchdog agency will focus on defending the “time-honored philosophy and legal definition of organic farming and food production” from USDA’s systemic failure to protect the interests of organic farmers, ethical businesses, and consumers.

As organic agriculture and food marketing has grown into an over $50 billion industry, corporate agribusiness has used its influence within USDA—and many independent certification agencies it oversees—to shift primary organic production from family-scale farms to large livestock factories, massive hydroponic/soilless greenhouses, and imports that have proven less than trustworthy.

“Certified organic production must continue to offer a viable alternative for shoppers, who want to protect the environment and provide healthier food for their family—with industry stakeholders stepping up to rein in the wholesale abuse that is an attack on the working definition and integrity of organics,” stated Jay Feldman, Executive Director of Beyond Pesticides, a Washington-based public interest group.

“We are happy to announce that Beyond Pesticides has hired Mark Kastel to direct the new project,” Mr. Feldman continued. Mr. Kastel, one of the founders of The Cornucopia Institute, a venerable organic farm-policy research group, brings over 30 years of diverse involvement in the industry. His background includes work as a certified agricultural producer, business development consultant, and registered lobbyist, making Mr. Kastel one of the most experienced independent fraud investigators in the organics industry.

Research and public pressure spearheaded by Mr. Kastel has compelled USDA to take a number of major enforcement actions resulting in decertification, fines, modifications to ongoing operations, and millions of dollars in settlements of class action lawsuits related to consumer fraud. His efforts have also been instrumental in helping bust large international crime syndicates laundering conventional commodities as “organic.”

“Mark is highly respected in the organic farming community, and by key business leaders who walk their talk, while at the same time feared and reviled by powerful interests profiting from the weakening of organic standards,” Mr. Feldman added. “With Mark on board, we will amplify the voices of committed organic stakeholders who share our sense of urgency to stop the degradation of the environment and health, with organic as a critical piece of the solution,” said Mr. Feldman.

Mr. Kastel, the new Director of OrganicEye, stated, ”You don’t have to take my word for the inadequacy of enforcement actions by the USDA’s National Organic Program. With the backdrop of thousands of cases of fraud submitted to the NOP, there is a legacy of independent audits by the agency’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) criticizing their oversight of certifiers and poor record of bringing fraudulent operations to justice.”

In addition to the OIG audits, a recent legally mandated peer review sharply criticized the USDA organic program for grossly inadequate staffing and management overseeing the burgeoning number of documented cases of illegal organic certificates, domestic fraud, and imports laundering conventional commodities as organic.

In their first official action OrganicEye has sent formal letters to the OIG and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) requesting an investigation of a recent incident where a large shipment of imported grain from Turkey was identified as fraudulent and the USDA National Organic Program failed, when they had the opportunity, to collaborate with other federal and state agencies in quarantining the shipment and testing the cargo prior to unloading.

The tip on the allegedly fraudulent shipment came from an authoritative industry source and was relayed by the Organic Farmers Association. Instead of collaborating with agricultural regulators in North Carolina, and federal Customs and Border Protection agents, NOP chose to rely exclusively on paperwork from the certifier.

“Turkey is a country with past documented, wholesale fraud in the organic arena, and the certifier was currently under investigation by USDA, and shortly thereafter lost its accreditation,” said Mr. Kastel, “It’s unconscionable that, at a time when the credibility of the organic seal is in jeopardy, NOP would not choose to take decisive action in this matter.”

Along with Mr. Kastel and Mr. Feldman, a 40-year veteran of organic policy work and former member of USDA’s National Organic Standards Board, the team is joined by Terry Shistar, PhD, one of the nation’s top experts in analyzing synthetic and non-organic materials proposed for use in organic production. The depth and breadth of the leadership at OrganicEye, with cumulatively over 110 years of organic industry-related experience, could very well be unparalleled in the public interest sector.

In addition to its organic gumshoe work, OrganicEye will continue the tradition that Beyond Pesticides has established in commonly being the only public interest group thoroughly analyzing every single synthetic and non-organic material petition for use in organic farming or food production before the National Organic Standards Board.

“Examining materials petitions will be a continuing, in-depth commitment. Our board members and staff have been deep in the organic weeds since the beginning—from helping to write the Organic Foods Production Act, to examining the USDA’s draft regulations, word-by-word, to supporting organic farmer Arthur Harvey in his successful court challenge of USDA’s misinterpretations of the law,” Dr. Shistar stated. “Investigative scrutiny by OrganicEye will give the organic community one more tool for ensuring that consumers and growers derive the benefit of the law.”

In addition to the scores of industry “intelligence agents” with whom Mr. Kastel has worked over the past fifteen years as the organic industry’s best-known watchdog, OrganicEye has established a new toll-free hotline, 1-844-EYE-TIPS (844-393-8477), to help facilitate tips from the public.

“We are not in the rumor business. Intel has to be verified with additional witnesses, documentation, photographs, or other evidence,” Mr. Kastel added. “We encourage stakeholders to come forward if they have firsthand knowledge concerning fraud, which damages the value of the organic label for all those producing food in an honest and ethical manner.”

The organization emphatically stated that the identity of all whistleblowers and tipsters will be held in strict confidence.
For more information, visit www.organiceye.org.

-30-

OrganicEye endeavors to leverage the extensive experience of our management and staff in farm policy, scientific research, and political and marketplace education/advocacy, acting as corporate and governmental watchdogs, educating the public and preventing the erosion of the foundational precepts of the organic movement.

Founded in 1981, Beyond Pesticides (formerly National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., which works with allies in protecting public health and the environment to lead the transition to a world free of toxic pesticides. Organic is Beyond Pesticides.

(Beyond Pesticides, September 4, 2019) Sixteen organizations representing health, environmental, farmer, and farmworker communities joined together yesterday to call on EPA to remove glyphosate from the marketplace. The groups cite a combination of high-profile lawsuits, environmental impacts, increasing reports of weed resistance, and growing public concern over the health effects of glyphosate in their comments on EPA’s interim reregistration review decision for the chemical.

The comments warn that EPA is at risk of damaging the public’s trust in the agency’s review process for toxic pesticides. “EPA’s myopic review and response to the dangers posed by glyphosate does a disservice to American farmers, farmworkers, and commercial landscapers wishing to use least-toxic products that do not put them at risk of health impacts, and consumers aiming to make the safest choice in regards to what to feed their family and how to manage their yards,” the comments read.

The document likewise replies to EPA’s attacks against the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which determined glyphosate to be a probable carcinogen based on sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental organisms. EPA has indicated that its process for evaluating glyphosate, “…is more transparent than IARC’s process” and that IARC’s “…conclusions are not well described.” The comments cite IARC’s response to these criticisms, which discuss the need to avoid “…interference from vested interests” and the ability to “…scrutinize the basis of its decisions rather than relying on appeals to authority or trust.”

The comments take aim at EPA’s attempt to sow doubt in IARC’s process, writing, “It is also unacceptable for the agency to attack highly esteemed scientific institutions like the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which has been at the forefront of scientific determinations on carcinogenicity since its founding prior to EPA in 1965.”

EPA has refused to test end-use glyphosate products sold on store shelves, saying “…though the Agency evaluates the product components, long term testing of individual products is not required.” Under federal pesticide law, EPA is only required to test the active ingredient in pesticide formulations. Ingredients listed as “inert” on a pesticide label can be just as toxic as the active ingredient, but are not tested alongside the active ingredient and are considered confidential business information by pesticide companies. The groups “…urge the agency to employ due diligence and complete a full evaluation of all glyphosate-containing pesticide products registered by EPA.”

Groups say that in order to regain public trust EPA must conduct full-formulation testing on glyphosate’s carcinogenicity and other health effects, consider impacts to soil organisms, the human microbiome, and growing weed resistance to the chemical. “In the absence of this additional and necessary data, we urge the agency to revoke the registration of glyphosate and promote the wide range of non-toxic and least-toxic products and practices currently available, which can readily replace the use of this hazardous pesticide,” the comments read.

The following groups have signed on in support of these comments: Beyond Pesticides; Beyond Toxics; Central Maryland Beekeepers Association; Farmworker Association of Florida; Food and Water Watch; Friends of the Earth; Kansas Rural Center; Maryland Pesticide Education Network; National Family Farm Coalition; Northeast Organic Farming Association:Massachusetts Chapter;  Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides; Organic Consumers Association; People and Pollinators Action Network; Pesticide Action Network; Sierra Club; Toxic Free North Carolina.

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

Source: Beyond Pesticides’ Comments to EPA on Glyphosate

(Beyond Pesticides, September 3, 2019) Brazil’s environment is under siege, as President Jair Bolsonaro has approved hundreds of new toxic pesticides this year and gutted watchdog environment agencies. Among the many dreadful results, news reports indicate that between December 2018 and March 2019, Brazilian beekeepers found more than 500 million dead bees. As the Amazon burns, Indigenous activists are calling on the world to help, and Beyond Pesticides is responding by promoting a boycott started by a Swedish supermarket owner: #BoycottBrazilianFood.

Pledge to #BoycottBrazilianFood, and ask major U.S. supermarkets to do the same.

The Amazon rainforest is the world’s biggest terrestrial carbon sink, and home both to the planet’s richest biodiversity and approximately 400 indigenous tribes. The country has 2300 pesticides registered for use; a total of 290 new toxic pesticides have been approved as of late August 2019.

Swedish supermarket owner Johannes Cullberg started an international boycott in response to Brazil’s approval and use of hazardous pesticides in food production. #BoycottBrazilianFood began in June of 2019 when the total of newly registered pesticides stood at 197. Cullburg declared, “We need to stop (the president) Bolsonaro, he’s a maniac.” The boycott prompted a response from the Brazilian embassy, stating, “…the Embassy wishes to inform you that Brazil, despite being an agricultural powerhouse, is not the biggest user of pesticides. It is ranked 5th or 7th in the World, according to applicable parameters in pesticide studies,” and so on.

Cullberg responded, “I salute you for that fifth-runner up position in 2017, but it seems you might actually win in 2019.” The European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility recorded 4,208 cases of pesticide poisoning and 355 deaths from agricultural chemicals in Brazil in 2016. Culberg contends, “These numbers are far from acceptable to me and should not be to anyone.”

Bolsonaro is insensitive to pleas regarding human or environmental rights. His campaign last year ran on a platform that touted protected lands as an obstacle to economic growth, and committed to removing barriers to commercial exploitation. This has led to more than 1,330 square miles of forest cover loss since Bolsonaro took office in January and the fires that we now see in the Amazon. Local mining groups are clashing with indigenous tribes for land, and there is a lack of enforcement because protective agencies have been crippled by budget cuts. Ewerton Marubo, an indigenous activist, stated bluntly, “Just imagine if all this is destroyed, if the government opens this area up. In two years it will all be gone. The wood will be gone. The fish will be gone. The rivers will all be polluted. All they want is to destroy.”

U.S. total imports of agricultural products from Brazil totaled $3.3 billion in 2018, our 10th largest supplier of agricultural imports. Leading categories include: coffee, unroasted ($934 million), fruit & vegetable juices ($504 million), prepared meats ($281 million), tobacco ($211 million), and essential oils ($145 million).

A boycott of Brazilian food will weaken the industry that stands to gain from environmental exploitation and pesticide poisonings. Defund the destruction of the rainforest. Pledge to #BoycottBrazilianFood and share the message to friends and family today!

This message will be sent to:

• Whole Foods: CEO John Mackey: [email protected]
• Costco: CEO W. Craig Jelinek: [email protected]
• Kroger: CEO Rodney McMullen: [email protected]
• Albertsons (owns Safeway): CEO Vivek Sankaran [email protected]
• Ahold (owns Giant/Martins): CEO Nicholas Bertram [email protected]

Pledge to #BoycottBrazilianFood, and ask major U.S. supermarkets to do the same.

Pledge

Out of concern for pollinators, the Amazon rainforest, and the health and well-being of indigenous tribes and the people of Brazil, I will check the label of food products I purchase for country of origin and seek alternative products when I find the product was produced in Brazil. I will refuse to purchase Brazilian imported foods until the Bolsonaro government addresses the serious environmental concerns raised by beekeepers, indigenous tribes, and the international community. I pledge to encourage friends, family, and businesses where I shop to join me as I #BoycottBrazillianFood. I ask grocery chains to join in the boycott.

(Beyond Pesticides, August 30, 2019) The indictment of organophosphate pesticides gained more traction with the publication, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, of a new research study out of the University of California, Berkeley. The research, among the first to use advanced brain imaging to assess cortical activation, shows altered brain activity, during tasks that call on executive function, in teenagers from California’s Salinas Valley (the site of significant organophosphate use) whose mothers were exposed prenatally. The UC Berkeley study underscores the slow-motion calamity of the Trump administration Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) failure to ban the use of this class of pesticides, and of chlorpyrifos in particular, which compounds carry extreme risks for children. The effects of this prenatal exposure continue to unfold during children’s critical developmental periods.

Researchers used fNIRS (functional near-infrared spectroscopy) imaging to monitor blood flow in the brains of the teens, 15–17, born and raised in the Salinas Valley. They used data from the California Pesticide Use Reporting program (which documents locations and times of pesticide spraying) to estimate the subjects’ mothers’ proximity to organophosphate (OP) applications during pregnancy. The subject adolescents — estimated to have relatively high levels of prenatal exposure to organophosphates — showed aberrant brain activity in executive function, attention, social cognition, and language comprehension, compared to their peers. The fNIRS found less blood flow to the frontal cortex during tasks using cognitive flexibility and visual working memory, and increased blood flow to the parietal and temporal lobes during tests of linguistic working memory.

The teens were part of the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS), a longitudinal study, begun two decades ago, that examines impacts of pesticides (and other environmental toxins) on children’s development. UC Berkeley’s Berkeley News reports, “Previous CHAMACOS work has linked prenatal organophosphate exposure with attention problems and lower IQ in children.”

Beyond Pesticides covered previous CHAMACOS work on health impacts of pesticides in the Salinas Valley: “Researchers looked at pregnant women living within one kilometer of agricultural fields where organophosphate pesticides were used. They found that at age 7, the children of those women had declines of approximately two IQ points and three verbal reasoning points per 522 pounds of pesticides applied nearby.”

Associate adjunct professor of epidemiology at UC Berkeley and lead author of the new study, Sharon Sagiv, PhD, said, “These results are compelling, because they support what we have seen with our neuropsychological testing, which is that organophosphates impact the brain.” The seemingly odd results of both reduced and increased blood flow are apparently not entirely unusual; such patterns show up in conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, and with Type 1 diabetes, according to Allan Reiss, co-author of the study, Howard C. Robbins Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and a professor of radiology at Stanford University.

He elaborates: “The brain has a remarkable ability to utilize compensatory mechanisms to counteract long-term insults. Higher activation may represent the recruitment and utilization of extra neural resources to address functional inefficiency related to a long-term insult, and lower activation, then, could be related to the eventual failure to recruit these resources after continued exposure or disease exhausts the brain’s ability to bring compensatory responses online.”

Organophosphates, which include chlorpyrifos, are the most commonly used class of insecticide in agriculture. They are endocrine disrupting compounds that can affect children’s neurodevelopment, possibly due to neurotoxicity induced by acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibition, and may affect boys more than girls. Exposure to OPs is widespread and occurs primarily via ingesting food contaminated with OP residues, but those who work in or live proximate to agricultural sites are also exposed through residue on clothing and in households, and through drift from sprayed applications. In 2018, a group of leading toxics experts called for a ban on OPs, primarily because prenatal exposures, even at low levels, threaten children with cognitive and behavioral deficits, and neurodevelopmental disorders.

Beyond Pesticides has called attention to the toxicity of organophosphates, and chlorpyrifos in particular, for many years. For example, in 2011, it noted links between organophosphate exposure and lowered IQ in children, and provided more evidence of risks of prenatal exposure and lower IQs in 2016. In 2018, it reported on the inadequacy of the evaluations used to justify EPA registration of chlorpyrifos — one in a series of examples of EPA’s poor oversight, corruption, and collaboration with industry to prioritize its concerns over the public’s safety and well-being.

The story of chlorpyrifos is illustrative. Pursuant to a lawsuit filed by environmental groups, in 2015 EPA proposed a rule change revoking food residue tolerances of chlorpyrifos — a move that would effectively have banned use of the pesticide in agriculture (residential insecticide uses had been proscribed in 2000). Then, early in 2017, with a new administration in place, then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt reversed the agency’s own proposal to ban the pesticide — a decision that happened just weeks after Mr. Pruitt met with the head of Dow Chemical Company, maker of the compound. Mr. Pruitt then claimed, without scientific justification, that the science on chlorpyrifos was “unresolved” and said EPA would study the issue — with no planned action — until 2022.

Next, in the summer of 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued its decision in a suit, brought by a plethora of health, environmental, and labor groups represented by Earthjustice, asking that the 2017 Pruitt EPA order reversing the ban be vacated. (The attorneys general of New York, California, Washington, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, and Vermont also filed their own appeal calling for a ban.) The court ordered EPA to finalize its proposed ban on chlorpyrifos. In July 2019, EPA declined to do so and, rather than offer justification for why the pesticide should remain on the market, as the court had ordered it to do, EPA attacked the science the plaintiffs had urged EPA to review and consider as “not . . . valid, complete, and reliable.”

Scientists and many regulators understand that chlorpyrifos (and other organophosphate pesticides) need to come off the market altogether, for food and non-food uses. Most recently, Beyond Pesticides reported on an announcement, from the European Union and the European Food Safety Authority, that essentially said that chlorpyrifos should no longer be used. Given the current administration and its EPA actions, states have been pursuing bans and other constraining actions: Hawai’i banned chlorpyrifos more than a year ago, and New York and California followed suit in spring 2019.

Chlorpyrifos is one of many toxic pesticides that are central to conventional, chemical-intensive agricultural practices that threaten human health and the environment. Beyond Pesticides has long sought a broad transition to organic practices, which disallow the use of toxic pesticides and synthetic inputs, and enact a systems-based approach that is protective of health and the environment. A transition to organic advances a viable, scalable path forward for growing food.

Clearly, members of the public cannot rely on this EPA to act in the best interests of children, all people, and the environment. But they can work to ban chlorpyrifos and other neurotoxic insecticides in a number of ways:
• learn more about impacts of pesticides and related developments with the Beyond Pesticides factsheet, Children and Pesticides Don’t Mix, and through its Daily News Blog and journal, Pesticides and You
• help support an organic agricultural system that does not rely on toxic chemicals by buying organic whenever possible

• insist that purveyors provide organic foods
• advocate for organic with elected officials and advocacy organizations in local communities and at the state level

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

Sources: https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/08/27/prenatal-pesticide-exposure-linked-to-changes-in-teens-brain-activity/ and https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/08/20/1903940116

(Beyond Pesticides, August 29, 2019) The Peoples Garden, located on the grounds on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on the national mall, has been renamed and remodeled to highlight genetically engineered (GE) crops and farming techniques that directly counter the organic movement. The new exhibit, entitled “Voice of the Farmer,” is part of the “Trust in Food” initiative of Farm Journal magazine. This marks a continuation of trends in the Trump administration: pushing for GE/GMOs and pesticides.

Since 2009, the USDA Peoples Garden has highlighted organic agriculture. It was originally envisioned by the Obama administration as a place where visitors could learn about what differentiates organic from conventional chemical-intensive food production, and the practices used in organic land management. The garden had several different exhibits: the Three Sisters Garden, the People’s Garden Apiary, three green roofs, a certified organic vegetable garden, a tool shed with a rain barrel and green roof, wildlife and pollinator friendly landscaping, and a bat house. With an emphasis on sustainable gardening practices such as cover cropping, storm water collection, and composting, the garden served as a headquarters for numerous Peoples Gardens founded between 2009 and 2016. The People’s Garden and other projects of the Obama administration, such as their personal White House organic garden (not advertised as organic after push-back from the pesticide industry) and highlight the organic movement and the importance of organic practices to critical environmental and public health protection.

However, over the course of Trump’s years in office he has made strides to undo this work and instead highlight GMO crops. The new garden, “Voice of the Farmer,” takes the emphasis off of garden practices and instead focuses on industrial agriculture under the guise of connecting Americans with their food system. The new garden features screen based kiosks, a mobile app, and an interactive website to show videos of farmers extolling technology and pesticides.

The modules on the website provide very one- sided information combining images of clip-art cows and pigs with farmers discussing their practices. While one module discusses the importance of soil health and acknowledges that soil health can be destroyed in minutes, there is no mention of the role that glyphosate and other pesticides play in this process. While the module discusses in-depth the importance of cover crops, it fails to mention the importance of other sustainable and organic practices, such as soil testing, use of compost, and the importance of a healthy soil microbiome. Another module highlights seed and herbicide technology, claiming that these innovations have been central to “reducing the use of natural resources and creating an abundant, affordable food supply” with  no mention of the downsides of pesticide drift or the increasing toxicity of U.S. agriculture to insects. Additionally, these products are not in fact essential to creating a food supply, as seen in numerous organic farms.

This shift in garden emphasis from organics to conventional large-scale agriculture is especially worrisome considering that an estimated 25 million tourists visit the area annually. That means that in the two years the exhibit will be on display, up to 50 million people will visit and interact with this new “farm” that hails pesticides and GMO seeds as integral to agriculture.

Beyond Pesticides supports the transition away from these conventional practices and toxic pesticides toward organic practices that promote plant resilience and decrease the need for toxic chemical use. As U.S. agriculture becomes increasingly toxic with increasingly lax regulations and the continued use of pesticides and other chemical-intensive practices, it is important to consume with a conscious and go organic in your own garden.

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

Source: Food Politics

(Beyond Pesticides, August 28, 2019) Salt marshes, areas of coastal grassland regularly flooded by saltwater, provide a major global service by sequestering and storing carbon in the form of organic matter. However, research finds that nitrate from synthetic fertilizers found in agricultural runoff could change the microbial composition of the salt marshes to encourage organic matter decomposition and, therefore, carbon release versus capture. The study, “Nitrate addition stimulates microbial decomposition of organic matter in salt marsh sediments,” was published in Global Change Biology.

Researchers from Massachusetts conducted their study on salt marsh sediments located in Plum Island Sound, MA. They took three core samples from the site, sectioning each one into shallow, mid, and deep sediments. The researchers set out to determine “the role of nitrate as an electron acceptor, and its effect on organic matter decomposition and the associated microbial community in salt marsh sediments.” In sum, they tested soil samples to see how a large amount of available nitrate would impact microbes, and therefore the carbon-sequestering constitution of the soil, versus a plain saltwater control.

The results indicate that nitrates stimulate the production of dissolved inorganic carbon, leading to decomposition of organic matter that would otherwise remain stable in salt marsh sediments. By changing the available resources and altering the function of metabolic pathways, nitrates shift the composition of the microbial community to taxa that drive breakdown of organic matter via denitrification. Even samples from the “deep” section of the core, generally noted as resistant to microbial degradation, showed organic decomposition when exposed to nitrate.

First author Ashley Bulseco, PhD, wrote, “Traditionally, we have viewed salt marshes as resilient to nitrogen pollution, because the microbes there remove much of the nitrogen as gas through a process called denitrification. But this research suggests that when nitrate is abundant, a change occurs in the microbial community in salt marsh sediments that increases the microbes’ capacity to degrade organic matter. This potentially reduces the ability of the marsh to store carbon.”

According to Project Drawdown, a research organization that analyzes potential solutions to global warming, “While limited in area, coastal wetlands contain large carbon sinks; protecting them would secure an estimated 15 gigatons of carbon, equivalent to over 53 gigatons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) if released into the atmosphere.”

The global climate crisis requires that all mitigations to climate change garner attention and action. Nitrates from agriculture runoff are perpetrators of not only disrupting these carbon-capturing salt marshes, but also creating algal blooms and subsequent dead zones, destroying soil health, and threatening human safety. Further, the researchers of this study warn that by stimulating the nitrogen cycling process can lead to nitrous oxide (N₂O) production – a green house gas with 263 times the heat trapping potential of CO₂.

To reduce the use of synthetic fertilizers that threaten the environment, Beyond Pesticides recommends advocating for organic agriculture, purchasing organics to leverage demand in the marketplace, and encouraging organic land management at the local level (city, town, and/or county). For assistance with such advocacy in your community, contact Beyond Pesticides at [email protected] or 202-543-5450.

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

Source: Marine Biological Laboratory