Not all donuts come with a hole. Especially if the flours come from crops flooded with pesticides. The U.S. agricultural system is plagued by acute toxicity that has challenged the ecosystem and depleted soils. In spite of Big 4 ‘s false promises about GMOs and agrotoxics, which poison the farmers themselves as well as impoverish them. A recent scientific study confirms the ongoing disaster.
Acute pesticide toxicity and the crisis of the US agricultural system, the scientific study
On 9.8.19 PLOS ONE published research funded by Friends of Earth (FOE) USA, carried out with scientific contributions from Toxicology Research International (TRI) and Pesticide Research Institute (PRI). The scientific study analyzes the impact of the U.S. agricultural production system on the environment, with a focus on insecticide use from 1992-2014. Using an appropriate environmental toxicity index (AITL, Acute Insecticide Toxicity Loading).
The AITL index correlates the amount of pesticides used on individual crops and the acute toxicity of each product on pollinating insect populations(bees, in particular). The AITL thus makes it possible to estimate the potential mortality index of bees–relative to the toxicity and persistence in the environment of both individual molecules and agrotoxinmixes–in different crop groups.
In two decades , the environmental impact of insecticides used in the United States has increased 50-fold, with catastrophic effects (direct and indirect) on the ecosystem. The results thus disprove the theories of proponents of industrial agriculture based on the use of agrotoxics and GMOs specifically designed to resist them. (2) Even where the amounts of insecticides used have been effectively reduced, their environmental persistence and toxicity to pollinating insects has in fact increased.
GMO corn and soybeans have been identified as the main culprits in aggravating the venomous impact of insecticides on the ecosystem. With an added aggravation due to the high intensity and specialization of the aforementioned crops in the starry agricultural system. Neonicotinoids (Imidacloprid, Clothianidin, and Thiamethoxam, primarily), on the other hand, are responsible for the exacerbation of toxicity. Which in two decades has increased by 99% and 61% with regard to ingestion and contact toxicity, respectively.
Pesticides, reducing quantities is not enough
The study concludes with a concrete proposal, to apply a common method–such as the AITL, in fact–as an indispensable tool for prior assessment of the environmental impact of ‘pesticides’ in the permitting process. And it highlights how sustainability in agriculture cannot circumvent the concept of an integrated system. That is, a production model based on the simultaneous application of several tools.
The mere reduction in the amounts of agrotoxics-now being blandished by the advocates ofprecision agriculture, but conventional instead-must therefore come coupled with an effective reduction in the environmental hazard of the molecules used, in terms of toxicity and persistence. Lest it be reduced to a mere stylistic, reductionist exercise, far removed from the holistic approach that should instead be expressed through the model of agroecology. The only one that can save us from the current ecological crisis.
GMO Soybeans, Gene Editing and Pesticides. Buycott.
Agrotoxin and seed monopolists are relaunching the ‘smoke gray revolution’ under the very banner of ‘precision’. More ‘precise’ genetic manipulations, more precise irrigations. Once again, with the false promise of ensuring the availability of food for the planet’s population. Thus they propose the deregulation of new GMOs, smuggled under the nicknames of Gene Editing (GE) or New Breeding Techniques (NBT).
The goal of the Big 4 is evidently to increase market share and indeed dominate it altogether, with the help of biotech. Forcing farmers to become increasingly dependent on agrotoxics and new custom-manipulated seeds, in a no-win path that involves abandoning agronomic techniques and traditional knowledge. Moreover, the scenario is entirely devoid of assessments of the risks to public health, animals and the environment that occasionally, in careful studies such as the one under review, emerge in their tragic reality.
#Buycott! GMO soy and palm oil. It is precisely on these crops-first causes of global land robbery and deforestation-that the use of pesticides and other highly toxic substances is focused. Not on our plates or in our livestock feed or in our tanks. Let’s stop buying products from these toxic supply chains, #Enough!
#Égalité!
Dario Dongo and Donato Ferrucci
Notes
(1) Michael DiBartolomeis, Susan Kegley, Pierre Mineau, Rosemarie Radford, Kendra Klein. (2019). An assessment of acute insecticide toxicity loading (AITL) of chemical pesticides used on agricultural land in the United States. PLOS ONE 14(8): e0220029. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0220029
(2) See in this regard the free ebook ‘GMOs, the Big Scam,’ at https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/libri/ogm-la-grande-truffa
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
Agronomist, master in food law. He deals with certifications and quality systems in the agri-food chain. He collaborates with institutions and universities and is a member of the editorial board of rivistadiagraria.org.
