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

Read Issue No. 62 of the Real Food Scoop

Download the Pesticide Atlas

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The world has never used as many pesticides as it does today, and 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 a 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. 

The US edition of the Pesticide Atlas is one of five published around the world as part of the Germany-based Heinrich Boell Foundation’s series. Other editions include Germany, EU, Kenya, Italy, and Nigeria.

New chapters in the US edition include:

• A snapshot of pesticide use in the United States and the connection between pesticide production, use, and the climate crisis from Margaret Reeves and Asha Sharma of Pesticide Action Network North America;

• A look at how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has failed to properly regulate pesticides and how this has led to the heavy use of dangerous pesticides, and subsequent devastation to biodiversity from Nathan Donley and Lori Ann Burd of the Center for Biological Diversity;
• An overview of pesticide industry PR tactics to deter and delay action on pesticides from US Edition editor, Anna Lappé, and journalist and co-founder of US Right to Know Stacy Malkan;
• A story of dedicated organizing for common sense pesticide regulation on the Hawaiian islands from Executive Director of Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action, Anne Frederick.

“Sixty years after Rachel Carson warned us of the terrible toll of overuse of pesticides here and around the world, the United States continues to use more pesticides than anywhere else on the planet, including some of the most hazardous pesticides banned in other countries. With rising rates of cancer, infertility, and metabolic disorders alongside a biodiversity crisis, taking action on pesticides has never been more important. This report arms us all with the facts, and inspiration, to do so.” — Anna Lappé, editor of the Pesticide Atlas-US Edition and author, funder, and sustainable food advocate   

“With a billion pounds of pesticides used each year in the US, the American public reasonably expects that these chemicals made to kill living things are tightly regulated by the US Environmental Protection Agency. But unfortunately that’s not the case. As a result, Big Ag in the US relies on pesticides that many other nations have banned because of their severe dangers. Tragically, that regulatory failure causes the greatest harm to farmworkers and their children and our nation’s most endangered wildlife, particularly pollinators.” — Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity.   

On April 26, 2023 at 10:30amPT/1:30pmET join Anna Lappé in conversation with contributors to the US Edition of the Pesticide Atlas in a webinar to share key highlights from the Atlas and their implications. The conversation will center on how we can collectively better understand the connections between pesticide use and public health, the climate crisis, and biodiversity as well as dive deeper into how to understand the policy barriers and opportunities for action on pesticides here in the United States.  Register for the free webinar. 

Contact Info

Anna Lappé

Editor, Pesticide Atlas-US Edition

Food Sovereignty Fund Director, Panta Rhea Foundation

Founder, Strategic Advisor, Real Food Media

anna@realfoodmedia.org 

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As coauthors Stacy Malkan (US Right to Know), Kendra Klein (Friends of the Earth), and I wrote about in our report Merchants of Poison: A Case Study In Pesticide Industry Science Denial On Glyphosate, many folks have been raising concerns about the potential health risks of exposure to glyphosate. Now, a new study from UC Berkeley researchers who have been studying the communities living in the nation’s “salad bowl”—the agriculturally rich Salinas Valley—should raise even more questions for all of us: The study found that children who had glyphosate exposure levels fairly typical for the average American were at higher risk for liver inflammation and metabolic  disorders.  As one researcher noted: “The study’s implications are troubling,” said Dr. Ana Maria Mora, a CERCH investigator and coauthor, “as the levels of the chemicals found in our study participants are within the range reported for the general U.S. population.”

The post More Bad News on Glyphosate appeared first on Real Food Media.

In the wake of this year’s global climate summit, advocates are raising the alarm about how industry continues to distort climate policy with public relations spin.

Indeed, one of the most critical challenges of our times is the need to confront corporate disinformation. While the stakes of Big Oil’s climate denialism and greenwashing are ever clearer — as wildfires tear through communities, entire nations are threatened by rising sea levels, and farmlands are ravaged by extreme weather — a more stealthy set of devastating impacts hides behind the lies fabricated by Big Pesticide corporations.

Like Big Oil, pesticide companies spend hundreds of millions every year on deceitful PR strategies to keep their hazardous products on the market, even as evidence mounts that many pesticides still used today are tied to certain cancers, damage to children’s developing brains, biodiversity collapse, and more.

In a new report, Merchants of Poison, we document a case study of just such pesticide industry disinformation, revealing a PR playbook similar in strategy, institutions — and at times the very same individual players — as that of the fossil fuel industry. As nearly all agricultural chemicals are derived from fossil fuels, this interconnection should come as no surprise.

Increase in genetically modified crops

 

Today, more than 98 percent of genetically modified crops planted in the U.S. are glyphosate tolerant. 

Credit: Merchants of Poison

Merchants of Poison shows how pesticide giant Monsanto (purchased by Bayer in 2019) spent millions on deceptive communications strategies over decades to promote the narrative that its bestselling herbicide glyphosate, better known as Roundup, is safe – as safe as table salt, as Monsanto once claimed.

This messaging encouraged lax regulations that led to widespread use, especially as genetically modified corn and soy engineered to withstand being sprayed with the herbicide came to dominate farm acreage beginning in the mid-1990s.

Today, more than 98 percent of genetically modified crops planted in the U.S. are glyphosate tolerant, and glyphosate is the most widely used agrichemical in the world. In the U.S. alone, nearly 300 million pounds are used each year on farms, public parks, school grounds, and in home gardens. This despite the fact that, as far back as 1984, glyphosate was flagged as potentially causing cancer by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientists. And, in 2015, glyphosate was designated as a probable carcinogen by the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Recent science has also linked the chemical to lower birth weights among babies, reproductive health impacts, and other serious health concerns.

Manufactured doubt about glyphosate’s cancer link

 

Pesticide companies spend hundreds of millions every year on deceitful PR strategies to keep their hazardous products on the market.

Credit: Merchants of Poison, data from Food Barons, ETC Group 2022

So how did Monsanto thwart science-based regulation and mislead the public for over three decades? Thousands of pages of internal corporate documents brought to light through recent lawsuits over the cancer risk of Roundup reveal some answers. The documents show a PR machine in overdrive to manufacture doubt about the science linking glyphosate to cancer, and they reveal the many strategies Monsanto used to manipulate the scientific record over decades — from ghostwriting studies to running aggressive campaigns to discredit scientists who raised concerns about the pesticide.

The documents also expose how the company carefully cultivated a legion of front groups and other third-party allies that included top universities, scientific organizations, and professors who claimed to be independent even as they worked behind the scenes with Monsanto to protect sales of Roundup.

The documents also reinforce just how much the “disinformation industry” funded by pesticide companies has become a big business itself. Our analysis found that just seven of the front groups named in Monsanto’s internal strategy documents spent a total of $76 million over a five-year period, starting in 2015, pushing a broad range of anti-regulatory messaging. In addition, six industry trade groups named in the Monsanto documents spent more than $1.3 billion during that same time period, which includes defense efforts for agricultural chemicals including glyphosate.

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We are pleased to announce a new report out this week from Stacy Malkan and US Right to Know, with support from Anna Lappé and Kendra Klein, PhD, of Friends of the Earth. 

Based on a comprehensive analysis of documents released in litigation against Monsanto—and many more obtained in a years-long investigation by US Right to Know—Merchants of Poison: How Monsanto Sold the World on a Toxic Pesticide tells the tale of pesticide industry disinformation, including science denial techniques, attacks on scientists, astroturf strategies, online domination of industry messaging, and other spin tactics. 

Since our founding at Real Food Media, we’ve tried to help expose the ways corporations bend the truth to line their pockets, not protect the public good. This report is another piece of that work, showing how pesticide companies—like Big Oil and Big Tobacco—use spin tactics to shape the story about food and farming, pushing the twin messages that pesticides are safe and that we need them to feed the world.

We hope this report adds to the multifaceted, growing effort to expose industry PR tactics and promote the public good. 

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Drawing on thirty years of research, Goulson has written an accessible, fascinating, and important book that examines the evidence of an alarming drop in insect numbers around the world. “If we lose the insects, then everything is going to collapse,” he warned in a recent interview in the New York Times—beginning with humans’ food supply. The main cause of this decrease in insect populations is the indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides. Hence, Silent Earth’s nod to Rachel Carson’s classic Silent Spring which, when published in 1962, led to the global banning of DDT. This was a huge victory for science and ecological health at the time.

Yet before long, new pesticides just as lethal as DDT were introduced, and today, humanity finds itself on the brink of a new crisis. What will happen when the bugs are all gone? Goulson explores the intrinsic connection between climate change, nature, wildlife, and the shrinking biodiversity and analyzes the harmful impact for the earth and its inhabitants.  

Meanwhile we have all read stories about hive collapse syndrome affecting honeybee colonies and the tragic decline of monarch butterflies in North America, and more. But it is not too late to arrest this decline, and Silent Earth should be the clarion call. Smart, eye-opening, and essential, Silent Earth is a forceful call to action to save our world, and ultimately, ourselves.

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It’s time to take action on every sector, including food.

As I wrote in Diet for a Hot Planet, food systems are at once climate casualties, culprits—and a key to the cure. The food system is responsible for an estimated third of greenhouse gas emissions, particularly a significant source of nitrous oxide and methane emissions, gases with many times the heat trapping qualities of carbon dioxide. Research in the intervening years has only underscored the need to rethink food systems if we are to get the climate crisis under control. As a recent study exposed, even if we got everything right in terms of limiting emissions from other sectors; we ignore food at our peril. But how? Here are some of our ideas!  

As our Twitter feed fills with grief and alarm about the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report, we can heed the call of labor organizer Joe Hill: “Don’t Mourn, Organize.” We might amend this sentiment in an era of climate grief amidst an acute pandemic: we can mourn and organize.

1. Decarbonize the Food System, Fund Agroecology: All around the world public and private funders are stepping up to support the research, advocacy, and learning necessary to unlink food production from an addition to energy-intensive synthetic fertilizer, petrochemicals, and unhealthy monocultures. Knitted together under the umbrella of “agroecology,” you can find these efforts in every corner of the world. Learn more at www.agrecologyfund.org or watch this short video with voices of agroecology from around the world. 
2. Take on the Petrochemicals in Food: Some of the biggest players in the food system are agrochemical giants like Bayer and Syngenta. Pushing antiquated and toxic pesticides, their products are destroying biodiversity and contributing to the climate crisis. Join Pesticide Action Network North America to be part of the movement of people around the world calling for the abolition of petrochemicals on our farms. 
3. Target Agribusiness: Big Oil companies deserve our wrath, for sure. It’s clear that these companies have known for decades that their practices would lead us off this climate cliff, but agribusiness companies too need to feel the force of our fury. Companies like ADM and Cargill have been driving deforestation in climate-critical regions for decades. Learn more about taking on these food giants at RAN. Industrial meat giants, like Tyosno and JBS, are also deadly contributors to the climate crisis—not to mention animal welfare and human rights abuses. Learn more about factory farming and the environment at Foodprint.org. 
4. Focus on the Financing. These companies are only able to keep operating because they’ve got the immense reserves of the world’s banking and insurance industries behind them. For years advocacy groups have been working to undermine this financial support. Rainforest Action Network, where I’ve served on the board for 10+ years, is just one of these groups. Learn more about Banking on Climate Chaos here.  
5. Support Farmers Doing it Right: Thankfully, there are countless organizations and thousands of farmers who are embracing a way of farming that’s good for people and planet. Here are some of the fabulous groups doing this essential work: SAAFON, Practical Farmers of Iowa, Black Farmer Fund, Soul Fire Farm, and so many more. 
6. Eat with the Climate at Heart: On September 21st, my mother’s new edition of her 1971 classic, Diet for a Small Planet, will be published. A celebration of planet- and plant-centered cuisine and a call to arms that if you care about fixing food you have to engage in democracy, the book will hopefully inspire you to think differently and (filled with 85 recipes) to cook!  
7. Bust the Myth that We Need Industrial Agriculture to Feed the World: An oldie but a goodie, our Food MythBusters video takes on this entrenched myth.  

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Soil policies should be driven by science—not agrochemical companies.

The last time soil health was perceived as a pressing public concern was at the peak of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. Now, for the first time in nearly a century, it has once again piqued policymakers’ interest as awareness grows that the ground beneath our feet is a crucial carbon sink, making the soil a potentially powerful tool to fight the climate crisis. Speaking at an Earth Day summit last month, President Joe Biden said, the “soil of our Heartland [is] the next frontier in carbon innovation,” reflecting the momentum behind an idea known as “regenerative agriculture.” But just as the nation is waking up from its long slumber about the importance of soil, new research shows that the pesticides so commonly used in American agriculture are devastating the very organisms that ensure dirt becomes healthy soil and not just dust. 

As a set of chemical poisons, pesticides pose an undeniable hazard to the life of soil. This new study—from Friends of the Earth, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the University of Maryland—is the first comprehensive review of the impact of pesticides on soil organisms. Researchers (including one of us) analyzed nearly 400 studies focused on the effect of pesticides (a term that includes insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides) on 275 species or groups of soil invertebrates, from beetles and earthworms to mites and ground-nesting bees. In 71 percent of cases, pesticides either directly killed the organisms being tracked or significantly harmed them; for example, by impairing their growth and reproduction or decreasing their abundance and diversity. These findings parallel previous research that illustrates pesticides’ impact on vital soil microorganisms like bacteria and fungi. 

Other research reveals troubling trendlines: A recent study found that pesticides’ toxic impact on many invertebrates has nearly doubled in the past decade because of the increasing use of two specific classes of pesticides: neonicotinoids and pyrethroids. Some neonicotinoids are 1,000 times more toxic to bees than the infamous pesticide DDT, and they linger in the environment for months or years, creating a compounding toxicity in the environment. Another study found that since neonicotinoids were first introduced in the 1990s, US agriculture has become 48 times more toxic to insect life. Scientists warn that the loss of invertebrates threatens the collapse of ecosystems—and that biodiversity loss is a crisis on par with climate change.

The findings of this new study should alarm us not only because they further underscore the starring role pesticides play in the decline of insect populations, but also because the life of soil is at the heart of its ability to capture and store carbon. What do we mean by the “life of soil”? Plants breathe in carbon from the air, then store it in their bodies and exude it through their roots. Hidden from our view, a teeming ecosystem of microorganisms transfers carbon from roots to soil. Invertebrates such as earthworms and springtails feed on fallen plants, breaking them down and excreting carbon-rich casts and feces, mixing organic matter into the soil as they go. 

The aliveness of soil also bolsters farmers’ resilience in the face of climate-change-driven weather extremes like droughts and floods. Invertebrates are ecosystem engineers: With their tunnels and burrows, they craft soil structures, enabling the flow of nutrients, air, and water below ground. This allows the land to readily absorb water during intense rains and retain it during times of drought, much like a massive sponge. 

In short, healthy soil is living soil. So it should be no surprise that chemicals designed to kill are at odds with the objectives of regenerative agriculture. Research shows that the very farmers who are not using hazardous pesticides are among the most successful at capturing carbon. Organic farmers—who are expressly prohibited from using over 900 agricultural pesticides and who have long championed regenerative approaches like cover cropping, crop diversification, and composting—can sequester up to 25 percent more carbon in soil and achieve deeper and more persistent carbon storage than farmers using chemical approaches. 

Yet some of the loudest voices in the national conversation on soil are the companies behind the world’s most toxic pesticides. Last month, pesticide giants including Bayer-Monsanto and Syngenta were among the prominent backers of the reintroduced Growing Climate Solutions Act (GCSA), a bill that would channel interest in regenerative agriculture into soil carbon markets. 

That means farmers would be paid to sequester carbon—and then those “carbon credits” would be sold to polluters, allowing them to keep polluting. There’s no doubt that farmers should be supported in shifting to regenerative methods. But the evidence shows that using carbon markets to do so is an oversimplified and dangerous approach that will “let big polluters off the hook and fail the needs of family farmers,” says the National Family Farm Coalition. Carbon markets have repeatedly failed in their primary goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They have been plagued by fraud, and in many cases they have worsened pollution in low-income communities and communities of color, even resulting in human-rights abuses across the globe. Moreover, measuring soil carbon in a uniform way to ensure integrity in soil carbon markets will likely remain an elusive goal because soil carbon fluctuates based on the seasons, and samples taken even from the same field can lead to very different results. 

In light of this new study’s findings, another fundamental flaw of carbon markets is particularly concerning: They can be gamed by powerful players. Hence, the support from pesticide giants. Bayer, for instance, is pushing the passage of GCSA because the company stands to win big. If the bill passes, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) would facilitate farmers’ participation in private schemes like the new Bayer Carbon Initiative. Farmers would enroll in Bayer’s digital agriculture platform, Climate FieldView, and implement certain practices—dictated by Bayer—to receive compensation. Bayer would then sell credits for farm-sequestered carbon to polluters. But programs like Bayer’s are designed to accommodate the largest industrial-style farms and depend on use of the company’s patented seeds and toxic pesticides like glyphosate, a weed killer with known impacts on soil organisms like earthworms. Even more perverse, Bayer may pay farmers in the form of credits to be redeemed in the Bayer PLUS Rewards Platform—credits that are most efficiently spent on more Bayer products. 

While we celebrate that the conversation about soil and climate change is becoming mainstream, it’s imperative that the resulting policies are driven by science, not by the interests of agrochemical companies. The successful conservation programs that emerged from the Dust Bowl era can show us the way. Rather than spend billions of federal dollars creating market mechanisms that will enrich pesticide corporations and further entrench their power at the expense of family-scale farmers, the environment, and our health, we can invest in long-standing but under-resourced programs like the USDA’s Conservation Stewardship Program, Environmental Quality Incentives Program, and National Organic Program. And, we can update these programs to facilitate equitable participation of BIPOC farmers and to reflect the latest science on ecologically regenerative practices. 

During the Dust Bowl, the crisis was visible: Plumes of dust from the plains swept across the country and darkened the skies in Washington, DC. Today, the soil story is hidden in the ecosystems beneath our feet, but the crisis is just as pressing. This study is an urgent missive that the renewed national interest in healthy soil must result in policies that support truly regenerative efforts that build healthy, living farming systems. 

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