Increased Use Of Chemicals In Agriculture Worldwide Seen As Major Environmental Threat

...those who are trying to farm sustainably are hit economically and it is often the more careful farmers who are squeezed out. "We need to rethink incentives for farmers...

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Subject:    Increased Use Of Chemicals In Agriculture Worldwide Seen As Major Environmental Threat.
 Date:        Tue, 17 Apr 2001 19:26:21 -0400
From:        Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization:     Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)

To:     Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
          Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide Regulation 

cc:    Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov

Dear Mr. Helliker,  I thought you might like to read an article from the University Of California, Santa Barbara (http://www.ucsb.edu/) - Posted 4/16/2001 - entitled: Increased Use Of Chemicals In Agriculture Worldwide Seen As Major Environmental Threat.

Santa Barbara, Calif. (April 12, 2001) -- Agriculture will be a major driver of global environmental change over the next 50 years, rivaling the effect of greenhouse gases in its impact, according to a new study published in this week's journal Science. "The global impact of agriculture will be at least as great as climate change," said lead author David Tilman, visiting researcher at the National Center for Environmental Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "We have to find wiser ways to farm."

As an NCEAS working group, the co-authors spent eight months gathering all the data they could find on the global impact of humans mediated by anything except climate change. Agriculture turned out to be the largest.

World population, expected to be 9 billion (double the present population) by the year 2050, will require the conversion of natural ecosystems covering an area larger than the size of the United States including Alaska, as demand for food doubles. This expansion of agricultural land is expected to occur mostly in Latin America and sub-Saharan central Africa. The authors also explain that additional natural habitat would be lost to urban and suburban development.

"During the first 35 years of the Green Revolution, global grain production doubled, greatly reducing food shortages, but at a high environmental cost," said the authors.

The increase in grain production was accomplished through adding nitrogen, phosphorus and pesticides to the soils which are then carried in run-off into the nearest bodies of water, explain the authors. These nutrients then cause large algal blooms to grow, which use up the oxygen, die, create scum and cause the fish in the area to die. Currently there is a "dead-zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, first discovered by fishermen.  This zone is about 50 by 100 miles and is caused by agricultural run-off from the Mississippi Delta. Such "dead zones" are expected to increase worldwide.

Use of fertilizers and pesticides and habitat destruction has also caused a "major extinction event," according to the authors who predict the trend to continue, thus lowering the world's biodiversity and changing its ecology. Ecosystem "services" such as clean drinking water and carbon storage continue to be lost.

"Neither society nor most scientists understand the importance of agriculture," said Tilman. "It's grossly misunderstood, barely on the radar screen, yet it is likely as important as climate change."

He said that those who are trying to farm sustainably are hit economically and it is often the more careful farmers who are squeezed out. "We need to rethink incentives for farmers," said Tilman.

The authors give a number of suggestions using existing knowledge to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture and still increase productivity. "Integrated pest management, application of site- and time-appropriate amounts of agricultural chemicals and water, use of cover crops on fallow lands and buffer strips between cultivated fields and drainage areas and appropriate deployment of more productive crops can increase yields, while reducing water, fertilizer, and pesticide use and movement to nonagricultural habitats," they explain.

They call upon international agencies to aid third world farmers in the transition. Nonetheless, they state, "If global population stabilizes at 8.5 to 10 billion people, the next 50 years may be the final episode of rapid global agricultural expansion. During this period, agriculture has the potential to have massive, irreversible environmental impacts."

Tilman explained that this research project could only have happened at NCEAS where working groups from many institutions are able to assemble and manage large computer data sets, and take the time to interpret them. "It's the only facility that allows this type of cross-disciplinary integration of data," said Tilman.

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Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University Of California, Santa Barbara for journalists and other members of the public. If you wish to quote from any part of this story, please credit University Of California, Santa Barbara as the original source. You may also wish to include the following link in any citation: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/04/010415223052.htm

Well Mr. Helliker, Once again I ask you when will it be "legal" (in your opinion) to use safe and far more effective (unregistered) alternatives to actually control pest problems?  Until alternatives are "legal", your "registered" POISONS will continue to POLLUTE on an ever increasing basis.  John Gofman once noted:  "If you pollute when you DO NOT KNOW if there is any safe dose, you are performing improper experimentation on people without their informed consent. If you pollute when you know there is NO safe dose, with respect to causing extra cases of deadly cancers, then you are commiting premeditated random murder. How would you really like to be remembered personally? The "registered" pollution is very obvious, what is not so obvious, is why you STILL insist that only your "registered" POISONS can be used to "control" pest problems?

Respectfully, Stephen L. Tvedten

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