The hazards of pesticides
The
Tribune
February
27, 2020
The
hazards of pesticides
Amidst a hurricane of lawsuits that agrochemical multinational Bayer-Monsanto faces in
the US and elsewhere over its herbicides Roundup and Dicamba’s alleged link to
cancer, a joint investigation by Unearthed, a journalists’ research group
founded by Swiss NGO Public Eye and Greenpeace UK, found that India tops the global
chart with nearly 59 per cent of the sales being of ‘highly hazardous
pesticides’.
Japan
follows with 52 per cent; Brazil, 49 per cent; US, 36 per cent; and the UK,
only 11 per cent.
As
per a report in The Guardian, agrochemical companies have disputed this data.
Bayer has specifically termed it ‘misleading’, but has still not countered it
with its own data. Meanwhile, CropLife International, a powerful lobby group of
the agro-chemical industry, claims only 15 per cent of its products are ‘highly
hazardous’, 10 per cent that can be ‘used safely and responsibly’.
Nevertheless, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the UN Food
and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), highly hazardous pesticides (HHP) are
defined as “pesticides that are acknowledged to present particularly high
levels of acute or chronic hazards to health or the environment, according to
internationally accepted classification systems.”
This
reminds me of a discussion I had with Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug in the
mid-1980s. On what he had to say about Rachel Carlson’s path-breaking book
Silent Spring, considered to have spearheaded the environment movement, Borlaug
said she was an ‘evil force’ and ‘these are the kind of people who don’t want
hunger to go away’. He then explained that pesticides are like medicines.
Farmers have to use them carefully, taking all the precautions. What Borlaug
said could be debated at length, but it certainly formed the basic strategy for
the Green Revolution, wherein pesticides were used to save crops from pest
damage. But over the years, as pesticides became more pervasive in environment,
innumerable studies have shown the use and abuse of chemical pesticides leading
to environmental damages, ecological imbalances, pest resistance and contamination
of the entire food chain. More recently, the UN Human Rights Council has said
that
pesticides
have “catastrophic impacts on the environment, human health and society as a
whole.”
Hilal
Elver, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, told The Guardian: “It’s
a myth. Using more pesticides has nothing to do with getting rid of hunger.
According to FAO, we are able to feed 7 billion people today. Production is
definitely increasing, but the problem is poverty, inequality and
distribution.” The report further said: “Chronic exposure to pesticides has
been linked to cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, hormone
disruption, developmental disorders and sterility.”
After
the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) published a report
linking Glyphosate (the active ingredient in RoundUp herbicide) to cancer in
humans, a flurry of lawsuits in the US was unleashed against the use of the
toxic pesticide. While Monsanto (which has since been bought over by Bayer)
claimed that regulatory agencies worldwide, including European Commission and
US Environment Protection Agency, do not point to a link between Glyphosate and
cancer, a large number of cancer victims nevertheless began filing legal cases.
As per the latest count, an estimated 42,000 (and still counting) lawsuits have
been filed so far. Several legal sources say that the number of plaintiffs may
have already swelled to over one lakh by now.
The
lawsuits now have also moved on to another herbicide, Dicamba. On February 15,
a US federal court awarded a Missouri farmer $265 million in damages for the
destruction of his peach orchard. The farmer charged the two big agrochemical
companies — Bayer and BASF — for wreaking havoc on his orchard from Dicamba
herbicide sprays done by his neighbour that drifted to his field. The companies
face another 140 more or less similar lawsuits against Dicamba.
In
three trials against Glyphosate, the jury has awarded $2.3 billion in damages
to four plaintiffs. Although the damages were later reduced to $190 million,
the judgments mostly pertain to the failure of the company to adequately warn
consumers of cancer risks posed by the herbicide.
In
India, Down to Earth magazine says that on an average, 10,000 pesticide
poisoning cases are reported every year. The National Crime Records Bureau
(NCRB) had recorded 7,060 deaths from accidental pesticide poisoning in 2015.
The fact that the nearly Rs 20,000-crore pesticide industry is expected to grow
at a rate of 8.1 per cent till 2024, clearly shows how crucial it is to fix the
regulatory holes. The proposed Pesticide Management Bill 2020, expected to be
placed in Parliament, will perhaps not only tighten the regulations and make
the industry pay for the health damages it causes, but also look beyond,
keeping in mind the tens of thousands of lawsuits.
If
only the world had listened to forewarning that Prof David Pimental of the
University of Cornell had issued in the mid-1970s, perhaps much of the damage
could have been averted. His scientific paper was titled: ‘99.9% pesticides go
into environment. Only 0.1% hits the target pest.’ Knowing that pesticides are
poison, and with less than one per cent of chemicals effective against pests,
the world could have certainly evolved safer alternatives. Who will take the
blame?
But
equally important, if 90 per cent of all food eaten in the city of Copenhagen
is organic, there is no reason why city dwellers cannot opt for healthy,
pesticide-free food. That’s a true smart city.
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