{"id":126,"date":"2019-05-02T12:51:05","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T16:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tbradsha\/?p=126"},"modified":"2020-03-16T09:27:58","modified_gmt":"2020-03-16T13:27:58","slug":"pesticides-remain-a-critical-tool-for-sustainable-agriculture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tbradsha\/2019\/05\/02\/pesticides-remain-a-critical-tool-for-sustainable-agriculture\/","title":{"rendered":"Pesticides remain a critical tool for sustainable agriculture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Agricultural pesticides are regularly in the news these\ndays. Whether it\u2019s another court\nruling<\/a> against a pesticide company for contributing to a victim\u2019s cancer\ndiagnosis, a contrary scientific safety review that declares\n<\/a>that same herbicide is likely not carcinogenic, or the impacts of a popular\nclass of insecticides\n<\/a>on bee populations, it seems that every day we hear more evidence that\nwould support just banning pesticides altogether. That sentiment is shared by\nmany supporters of the \u201cPoison-Free\nFood & Farming by 2030<\/a>\u201d campaign. There will be a public\nevent<\/a> on May 6, 2019 at the Vermont State House to commemorate and gather\npublic support for this pledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A move toward banning pesticides as a public policy\ninitiative would be disastrous, and would be counter to the great advances that\nhave been made in food security, environmental protection, and public health in\nthe past five decades since modern pesticide policy began to address the harms\ncaused by unregulated use of pesticides and other agrichemicals, particularly\nfrom the 19030s-1960s. In light of legitimate and well-documented environmental\nand human health problems caused by a lack of pesticide regulation, the Federal\nInsecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) was passed in 1972 which\ngave the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency power to license and regulate\npesticide sales and use. Almost immediately, several noteworthy pesticides were\nbanned in the U.S. The regulatory system established under FIFRA set\nscience-based limits on pesticide uses and calls for re-review of pesticides at\nregular intervals. Adoption of the Worker Protection Standard (WPS, passed\n1995, updated 2015) and Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA, 1996) continue to\nrefine pesticide policy in the U.S. for the better<\/a> (Reeves, McGuire et al. 2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, pesticides present less of a threat to workers,\npublic health, or the environment than at any time in the last half-century.\nPesticide use on a pounds per-acre basis peaked in 1980, and measures of both\nenvironmental persistence and toxicity have declined<\/a>\nsteadily in recent decades (Fernandez-Cornejo,\nNehring et al. 2014). Dr. Charles Benbrook, a frequent critic of\npesticide use, credited the FQPA with providing \u201cdramatic\u201d reductions<\/a> in\npesticide risk since the 1990s (Benbrook 2012).\nThe WPS and the recent revisions made to it are credited <\/a>as a \u201csignificant\nstep forward to a cleaner, safer and more just environment\u201d for farm workers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That does not mean that there aren\u2019t potential and real issues with pesticide use in the U.S. However, since the 1970s, substantial effort and investment in Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programs has been expended by state and federal <\/a>governments, University <\/a>and other public <\/a>scientists, industry groups (including agrichemical companies<\/a>), private consultants<\/a>, non-governmental organizations<\/a>, and farmers themselves. IPM is a holistic program that utilizes multiple levels of management including cultural, physical, and biological practices before chemical application to best manage<\/a> crops and pests, and is the ‘standard’ system used by conventional producers of many crops. The adoption of IPM across the food system in the U.S. deserves credit for the gains that have been made not only in ensuring that pesticides are applied responsibly and with the least non-target impacts, but also with producing the healthiest and most abundant food supply in human history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There remain many issues with the use of pesticides and other\nchemicals in agriculture, and everyone along the production and support chains\nis doing their part to address them. But pesticides are a critically important\ncomponent to maintaining a safe and affordable food supply while promoting\nfarmer livelihood. Work needs to be done to improve systems, especially in\ncountries where little to no protections or other regulatory instruments to\nprotect workers and the public are available. But despite pest management\npractices that are used on farms, yield losses of 17-30% are common<\/a> for staple\ncrops worldwide, with losses greatest in the countries that can least afford to\nlose that food. (Savary, Willocquet et al. 2019).\nWithout crop protection, including the responsible use of pesticides, we could\nexpect 50-80% losses<\/a>\n from pests for many crops (Oerke and Dehne 2004). That is unacceptable in\na modern society, especially when memories of widespread food shortages and\nfamines are only a few decades in our past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agricultural systems that produce our food are much refined\nfrom the 1950s and 1960s when the conflation of modern farming and cheap,\neffective, and, yes, often dangerous pesticides combined to rapidly increase food\nsupply and security in the U.S. and worldwide. Fixation on chemicals from 60\nyears ago blinds us to the incremental progress that has transformed the food\nsupply in that time. Denigrating important tools as \u201cpoisons\u201d ignores the\nprotections that have been developed that have increased pesticide safety to\nworkers by several orders of magnitude while essentially eliminating consumer\nrisk from pesticide residues in our food supply. Our farmers and those of us\nthat support them in their efforts deserve better, and the consumers that rely\non the safe and abundant food supply available to them deserve facts, and not\nfear-based messaging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benbrook,\nC. (2012). “Impacts of changing pest management systems and organic\nproduction on tree fruit pesticide residues and risk.” Acta Hort 1001:\n91-102.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fernandez-Cornejo,\nJ., R. F. Nehring, C. Osteen, S. Wechsler, A. Martin and A. Vialou (2014).\n“Pesticide use in US agriculture: 21 selected crops, 1960-2008.” (USDA\nERS Bulletin Number 124).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oerke,\nE.-C. and H.-W. Dehne (2004). “Safeguarding production\u2014losses in major\ncrops and the role of crop protection.” Crop protection 23(4): 275-285.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reeves,\nW. R., M. K. McGuire, M. Stokes and J. L. Vicini (2019). “Assessing the\nSafety of Pesticides in Food: How Current Regulations Protect Human\nHealth.” Advances in Nutrition 10(1): 80-88.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Savary, S., L. Willocquet, S. J. Pethybridge, P.\nEsker, N. McRoberts and A. Nelson (2019). “The global burden of pathogens\nand pests on major food crops.” Nature Ecology & Evolution 3(3): 430.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Agricultural pesticides are regularly in the news these days. Whether it\u2019s another court ruling against a pesticide company for contributing to a victim\u2019s cancer diagnosis, a contrary scientific safety review that declares that same herbicide is likely not carcinogenic, or … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2208,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Terence Bradshaw","author_link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tbradsha\/author\/tbradsha\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7qRWT-22","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tbradsha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tbradsha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tbradsha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tbradsha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2208"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tbradsha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tbradsha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tbradsha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions\/129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tbradsha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tbradsha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tbradsha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}