Did you know it’s possible to grow crops without using poison?
But they don’t do it, because they forgot how.
And the people who sell the poison don’t want them to remember.
They don’t want us to remember that we used to grow beautiful corn and wheat without using any chemicals at all.
That’s why it’s important for you to know
that people and nature have to be friends.
If we harm nature, we end up harming ourselves. – Fabián Tomasi
Argentine farmworker Fabián Tomasi was an iconic voice against the use of pesticides until his death from cancers caused by pesticide exposure in 2018. He was, as many have been and continue to be, a literal body of evidence of the dangers of pesticides.
Research has shown that more than 90 percent of Americans have traces of pesticides in our bodies, most of which comes from the food we eat. Yet, despite the mass amounts of evidence of the dangers of pesticide use, the world has never used as many pesticides as it does today. The United States uses more than any other country, including some of the most dangerous pesticides that are banned in other countries.
With the release of the US edition of the Pesticide Atlas, a powerful compendium on the state of pesticide use and why it matters, leaders at prominent US civil society organizations working for common sense pesticide action (including Pesticide Action Network (PAN) North America, the Center for Biological Diversity, Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action, and Real Food Media) highlight the alarmingly persistent use of toxic pesticides in the United States—and what we can do about it.
In community and solidarity,
Tiffani, Christina, Tanya, and Anna
