Many people think going organic is part of sustainability. They think that the use of pesticides and herbicides must be bad because ORGANIC is GREEN and GREEN is GOOD. Sustainability is about meeting the needs of the present and it was the Green Revolution and the increased use of pesticides which allowed agriculture to keep up with population. Without pesticides, irrigation projects, synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and improved crop varieties hundreds of millions would have starved since 1945 when it began. Hundreds of millions more would have died of disease as a result of malnutrition.
However, one of the common mistakes in the use of pesticides is that “if some is good, more must be better.” Everything is bad is excess. It doesn’t take much of a poison, and that is what pesticides are, to be too much. The organophosphate pesticides, that the University of Buffalo will be studying under the $1.5 million grant from National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have the same action as the venom of the Black Mamba, widely considered the most deadly snake in the world. Death from a Mamba bite follows in about 20 minutes.
Research continues on the medicinal value of snake venom components. There is some evidence to believe that potential treatments for cancer and multiple sclerosis can be found among the components. So some may be good, but more is definitely not better. Pesticides are not really a lot different. Careful, judicious use will allow us to feed everyone on the planet. More will poison us and all the other living things on the planet
There are some people who think that allowing people to die of starvation or malnutrition is a good idea. They believe that if it can’t be grown organically then it isn’t natural and therefore bad. But nicotine is a natural pesticide produced by the tobacco plant to protect itself. Powdered tobacco is used as a pesticide in many places. Pyrethrum is produced by Chrysanthemum flowers as protection from insects, the petals are sold as an organic pesticide. Nature uses pesticides carefully and judiciously.
Nature understands that some is good, but more is definitely not better. Only a few species produce natural pesticides. Those species which do are protected from pests which might consume them. Then you get something like the Tobacco Hornworm which is immune to the effects of nicotine and can eat tomato plants and tobacco plants with equal ease. In nature, the tobacco plant relies on the fact that the more hornworms there are, the more hornworm predators there are. Increasing the predators’ works for organic gardeners too.
If pesticides were only used for food production and only when there was an infestation, then perhaps we wouldn’t need UB’s research on pesticides. But pesticides are used on fiber crops like cotton, lawns and forests. They are used to prevent infestations rather than to treat them once they occur. The result is that an area could be sprayed year after year with no actual pests on the plants. This is hardly careful or judicious.
From a sustainability stand point, this waste of energy and resources should be conserved for when it is needed. Pesticides are OK only when it is necessary to meet the needs of the present, meaning to feed the hungry, not to provide perfect looking produce for those that can afford it. But use of pesticides for other purposes, such as economic advantage, attractive landscaping, or overriding the natural ecology prevents the future generations from meeting their needs, largely by poisoning them and the world that they will live in.
Support for Buffalo Rising comes from:
Support for Buffalo Rising comes from: