No pesticide residue levels are safe

Poisoning Our Children: The Parent’s  Guide to the Myths of Safe Pesticides,

By André Leu, 2018,  

Published by Acres USA, 205pp.

Reviewed by Alan Broughton.

André Leu is an organic tropical fruit grower  at Daintree in North Queensland. He  is the former president of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements(IFOAM), the peak world organic farming body.

This book shows there is plenty of peer-reviewed science finding monumental faults with pesticide use and regulation, science that regulators do not use in their deliberations. André Leu uses this science to show that pesticide safety is based on data-free myths.

There are five myths: that pesticides are  rigorously tested, that residues in food are so small they are harmless, that pesticides quickly biodegrade, that regulations are reliable, and that pesticides are essential for agriculture.

A total of 232 chemicals have been found in placental cord blood of newborn babies  in the   United States. Many of these are endocrine disruptors, affecting the developing brain and hormones of children. No safety tests are done on the young – all are performed on adolescent or adult animals (usually rats). Even minute amounts are dangerous for foetuses and babies. Some pesticides, for example glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in theworld, have a greater effect on hormones in parts per billion than in parts per million. This is because the body can recognise higher amounts and reject them.

The Green Revolution: Effects in Asia and implications for Africa

by Alan Broughton 

Introduction

The term Green Revolution refers to the introduction of high-yielding varieties of staple food crops, particularly wheat and rice, into Third World countries, starting in the 1960s. Initially Mexico, India and the Philippines were targeted. The stated aim was to increase food production to end hunger and prevent uprisings. 

The Green Revolution did increase agricultural production, and no more successful revolutionary uprisings occurred, but it failed to reduce hunger and poverty, improve nutrition, or protect the environment. While some of these failures are now acknowledged by the proponents, the answer is that “there was no alternative”, and that for untouched areas of the world, particularly Africa, there is still no alternative. However, that alternative does exist: it is called agroecology. Science takes credit for successes but takes no responsibility for failures (Shiva 2001). 

The Green Revolution was promoted by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, the World Bank and the US government. The most immediate aim was to prevent revolution in the Third World. The Western world had lost China and Cuba and was in the process of losing Vietnam; there were insurgencies in Malaya and the Philippines and uncertainty about President Soekarno in Indonesia. It was decided to fight revolution with food (Cleaver 1972). “The only way to prevent a Red Revolution is to promote a Green Revolution” – Peer Maurin of Catholic Worker, and “Where hunger goes, Communism follows” – Rieff (Patel 2013). President Macapagal in the Philippines said: “We consider this institute [the International Rice Research Institute which developed the new rice varieties] as a potent weapon in the struggle against poverty and communism in Asia” (Patel 2013). 

An unstated secondary aim was to increase the penetration of agribusiness into the Third World. Profits could be made by selling the new varieties of seed and the fertilisers, pesticides and equipment (tractors, pumps) that were indispensable to their success. American fertiliser companies were looking for new markets after the Second World War when nitrate was less needed for bomb making; Norman Borlaug, the plant breeder who developed the first new high-yielding crop varieties, emphasised the importance of fertilisers to Indian politicians, and both the World Bank and US Aid for International Development (USAID) strongly pushed for increased fertiliser use (Shiva 2001). Part of the strategy of US AID funding was to increase chemical fertiliser use; this is now the strategy used in Africa, where in many countries the majority of department of agriculture spending is allocated to fertiliser subsidies (African Centre for Biodiversity 2016).

Chemical spray damage results in record $7m negligence court payout

A farmer has been awarded $7 million in damages for losses caused by a neighbour's negligent spraying.

For grape grower, Tony Caccaviello, it has been a four-year legal fight for compensation, after a mix of toxic chemicals destroyed his vineyard in northern Victoria.

In Spring 2013, Mr Caccaviello noticed his vineyard, near Swan Hill, looked different. The leaves were 'translucent' and covered in yellow spots.

He initially he thought the vineyard had been hit by a bad frost.
The Supreme Court of Victoria later heard a cloud of agricultural chemicals, all deadly to grapevines, had blown across the vineyard from his neighbour, Rodney Hayden's property.
In Mr Caccaviello's case, the chemicals involved; 2,4-D, glyphosate and metsulfuron-methyl, are toxic to grapevines and never used in vineyards.

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