Last week, the National Academy of Sciences hosted a summit to discuss “superweeds,” or the widespread problem of herbicide-resistant weeds currently afflicting millions of farm acres across the United States.

Superweeds—the “weeds that man can no longer kill!”—have been in the news for several years. All across the Midwest and Southeast farmers have been photographed and filmed standing in fields surrounded by the giant plants. They bemoan the cost of pesticides and point to industrial rows of crops that don’t have a chance when up against feisty weeds that grow up to three inches a day.

Superweeds have been especially likely to appear alongside genetically engineered (GE) crops, which are engineered to withstand large amounts of pesticide and herbicide use. And these weeds show no sign of going away any time soon.

That’s why scientists and researchers from land-grant universities, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and representatives from several industry and trade groups met at last week’s summit to strategize about the problem.

A few speakers boasted about the efficiency of modern-day farming and the fact that today’s agriculture requires fewer farmers on more acres. But missing from their analysis was the long list of consequences: from degradation of the environment, to health risks from increased chemical use and, ironically, superweeds themselves.

Those who did address the weeds tended not to see them as a result of that impressive modern agriculture. Take Michael Owen, an agronomist from Iowa State University, for instance. In his talk, he contended that superweeds are neither an herbicide problem nor a GE crop problem, per se, but a behavioral problem. This analysis puts the blame on farmers for overusing herbicides. Yet the resistance situation first arose when biotechnology companies pushed herbicides like glyphosate (or Roundup) on farmers as the silver bullet to weed management without educating them on the ramifications of their ubiquitous use. And the practice of using just one herbicide year after year would not have occurred if it weren’t for the aggressive promotion of the Roundup Ready line of GE crops (engineered to tolerate Roundup).

There was some talk of non-chemical solutions by Michael Walsh from the University of Western Australia, who spoke about that country’s serious problem with a weed that has developed resistance to several herbicides. Australian researchers designed a few different weed seed control methods that destroy the seed reserves, eliminating upwards of 95 percent of the seed before it is able to germinate. But it was made very clear by the U.S. farmers attending the summit that going back to traditional methods, like cultivation, would be tough. There was little mention of organic weed management techniques such as crop rotation or the use of cover crops.

But exhausting chemical tool after chemical tool in an arms race against herbicide resistant weeds is not only not sustainable, it’s not working. And despite the fact that chemical solutions are the cause of cross-resistance and multiple resistance in weeds, the need for more chemical solutions was still at the forefront of the discussion.

Strikingly missing from the conversation that day was any talk of the next round of GE crops now in the pipeline, like Dow’s 2,4-D corn and Monsanto’s dicamba soybean, which have both been designed to be resistant to more than one herbicide at once. A full 13 out of 20 crops in the queue awaiting USDA’s approval have what are called “stacked herbicide resistance traits.”

These crops, once approved, will likely result in the use of many more gallons of herbicides and the evolution of even more powerful superweeds that will be resistant to many different herbicides—making them harder and harder to manage. Formulating new varieties of crops to withstand applications of harsher chemicals may be business as usual for these scientists and the companies they work for, but it’s an approach that ignores the underlying issue.

The final speaker at the summit was Iowa State University President Steven Leath, who said he believed that using a “land-grant approach” involving public-private partnerships will help solve this complex problem. This approach is not surprising coming from Leath; Iowa State is known for its relationships with corporations (especially Monsanto), and its agronomy department received around half of its funding from private-sector donors from 2006 to 2010. Iowa State’s campus is even home to a Monsanto Student Services Wing in the main agriculture building.

The superweed problem is one that should be attacked with preventative strategies based in weed biology and independent, interdisciplinary creativity. But partnering with biotechnology companies will likely only result in biotech solutions.

We have the opportunity to see superweeds as a wake-up call and a strong argument for pulling agriculture off the chemical treadmill to which it is bound. But to do that, public research—free of private sector influence—must be funded in order to give farmers better alternatives and to shift the focus away from the current chemical arms race against weeds.

Originally published on Grist

In a three-part series, the Edible Schoolyard Project interviews the directors of sustainable agriculture and environmental stewardship programs at Center for Land-Based Learning.

The first interview with Nina Suzuki, Program Director of Student and Landowner Education and Watershed Stewardship (SLEWS), addresses the value of working with high school students and the long-term goals of Center for Land-based Learning. SLEWS engages California high school students in habitat restoration projects with a focus on classroom learning, leadership development, and hands-on environmental impact.

An introduction from Nina Suzuki

I was introduced to the Center for Land-Based Learning (CLBL) while I was studying Landscape Architecture and Landscape Restoration at UC Davis. For one of my classes, I was teamed up with CLBL and Audubon California to develop a farm conservation plan for their headquarters at the Farm on Putah Creek. Through that project I got to know the organization and staff. I stayed in touch and was really excited when they had an opening for the Sacramento Valley SLEWS Coordinator position. In this position, I would be able to plan and participate in habitat restoration (with lots of partners) while facilitating student engagement and learning in the process.

Edible Schoolyard Project: How did this program come about? Did it emerge from a need or a desire within the community?

NS: The SLEWS program emerged from our existing experience, a need, and a partnership. Our first program, FARMS Leadership, gave us experience working with teachers to plan year-long, field trip based programs for high school youth. The need came from landowners, mainly farmers and ranchers, who were interested in reintroducing native habitat on their property but didn’t have the expertise or manpower to plan or install such a project. And the partnership was with Audubon California, whose Landowner Stewardship Program was working with these landowners to plan and implement habitat projects, but wanted to include an educational component.

ESYP: Who is your target community and how large is it?

NS: We target high school students, primarily sophomores, for the SLEWS Program. About 700 students participate in the SLEWS program each year from our four SLEWS regions: Sacramento Valley, San Joaquin Valley, Napa, and Sonoma. SLEWS also recruits and trains about 70 natural resource professionals and college students as mentors each year. The program offers them the opportunity to share their knowledge with high school students and gain experience in environmental education and habitat restoration. They help SLEWS maintain a 5:1 adult-to-student ratio to ensure high quality experiences and restoration work, lead the same team of students for all their field days, and connect high school youth to related internships, majors, and careers.

ESYP: Why does SLEWS work with high school age children? What is the value of engaging high school students in habitat restoration?

NS: There are very few experiential programs for high school students. Additionally, high school students are at the time in their lives when they are thinking about college majors and careers. The SLEWS program connects high school students with graduate students and natural resource professionals, and teaches skills that a wildlife biologist or habitat restoration planner or water quality engineer would use every day. We hope to inspire these students to explore natural resource and agriculture careers and infuse those career fields with highly motivated, ethnically diverse young people. Another value of the SLEWS program is that the concepts we explore in SLEWS are in line with the California state science standards for high school biology. SLEWS is a way to teach those concepts in a real world, local setting that students connect with and understand.

ESYP: How is the program structured?

NS: Students participate in SLEWS for the length of their school year. SLEWS coordinators meet with the teacher and project team to develop the plan for the year including restoration tasks and learning activities that connect to classroom curriculum. The coordinator provides an in-class watershed presentation to prepare students for their field experience. Students make three to five, all day field trips to their adopted restoration project. The trips are spread out throughout the year, allowing for a variety of activities (since many are seasonal) and for students to develop a connection to their site. Most of the student training happens on-site by our staff, restoration partners, and mentors – although we also take advantage of the opportunity to teach in the classroom to prepare students before coming out into the field. Each field day includes team building, training, restoration work, science learning, and reflection elements.

ESYP: What are the most popular activities and projects?

NS: The most popular activity is planting trees and shrubs. There is a great sense of accomplishment and camaraderie when you get together with a group of friends and plant 300 trees in two hours. Students tell us, “The best part is looking back and being able to see what you’ve done, that you’ve made a difference.”

ESYP: How do you pick your restoration sites?

NS: We use a rubric of criteria when we’re looking at a new site. The primary considerations are: proximity to the school and coordinator, potential for long term success, scale of the project, accessibility, ecological significance, diversity of tasks, and involvement of the landowner and restoration planner.

ESYP: How is the program funded?

NS: SLEWS is funded primarily through our restoration partners and landowners who contract with Center for Land-Based Learning to include SLEWS students in the implementation of their restoration projects. We are also supported by grants from state agencies, local businesses, and foundations.

ESYP: Are there improvements that you wish to make to the programming?

NS: We are always revising and developing new elements of the program with feedback from our participants and partners. From surveys and other student and teacher feedback, we learned that students got really excited about wildlife. So we now include more wildlife lessons that connect to the restoration work students are doing. We are building up our kit of demonstration materials like example mammal tracks, skulls, and skins. Right now we are borrowing museum specimens, but eventually we’d like to have our own set of materials.

We’re also always trying to find new ways of connecting these learning experiences back to students’ communities, and encouraging them to take action back at home to improve their local environment. We recently received a small grant from Cornell’s Celebrate Urban Birds program to support Grant High School’s student garden in North Sacramento, provide native plants for birds in an urban setting, and have students gather data on urban birds as part of a citizen science program of Cornell. These students were planting native habitat on a ranch in the foothills of the Coast Range for their SLEWS project, and then they got to go back to their school and plant native plants to support birds right in their backyard. We would like to be able to do more of these “Community Action Projects” with our SLEWS classes, but it takes a significant amount of planning and time from the teachers and our staff to make a meaningful project happen.

ESYP: How do you measure success?

NS: We evaluate success with students in the SLEWS program by tracking participation, engagement at field days, responses to written prompts at field days, and the pre- and post-program survey. The Center for Land-Based Learning has worked extensively with faculty at the UC Davis School of Education to develop effective evaluation methods for our programs. The pre- and post-surveys were developed in collaboration with the UC Davis School of Education to assess changes in student knowledge, attitudes, and actions over the course of the school year. The survey also captures student activities in their own communities, interest in post-secondary education and/or careers in environmental science, and resource conservation – as well as interest in similar programs in the future.

After each field day we evaluate the restoration and education accomplishments of the day as well as student engagement with input from the project partners and teachers. This includes student quotes that demonstrate student learning and attitudes toward the environment. Key indicators include: developing a connection to the land, seeing their potential to affect positive change and understanding the need for and effects of restoration. We record this information in our Coordinator Field Day Assessment, a tool CLBL used in a three-year research study with UC Davis to evaluate effective experiential programming.

ESYP: What do you find is the greatest value of land-based learning?

NS: It amplifies student learning, brings concepts to life, makes learning real and meaningful. It connects students to something bigger than themselves and opens them to a new world of careers and interests. Most of the students in our programs are from urban schools, and most of them have never set foot in a creek or put their hands in soil. I think the beauty of our programs is that they work on so many levels of engagement. They start at the very basic level of getting people outside and exploring the wonders of nature. They progress to teaching science, inspiring students to take positive action back in their own communities, and they launch them on paths of higher learning. These experiences are relevant to all students even if they don’t want a career in wildlife biology or resource conservation – we are all invested in clean water, air, and healthy food.

Originally published on the Edible Schoolyard Project

A new coalition is trying to throw sand in the gears of industrial agriculture’s chemical treadmill. And this one just may have what it takes to slow it down. I’m referring to the fight over USDA approval for Dow AgroScience’s new genetically modified corn seeds (brand name “Enlist”), which are resistant to the herbicide 2,4-D.

This is part of biotech’s “superweed” strategy, by which they hope to address the fact that farmers across the country are facing an onslaught of weeds impervious to the most popular herbicide in use, Monsanto’s glyphosate or RoundUp (and in some cases impervious to machetes as well!). Of course, this is a problem of the industry’s own making. It was overuse of glyphosate caused by the market dominance of Monsanto’s set of glyphosate-resistant genetically engineered seeds that put farmers in this fix in the first place.

One of the older herbicides, 2,4-D is a pretty nasty chemical—it’s been linked to cancer, neurotoxicity, kidney and liver problems, reproductive effects, and shows endocrine disrupting potential—which is one of the many reasons farmers prefer the more “benign” glyphosate. In fact, on the basis of the scientific evidence, especially related to human cancers, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) several years ago to withdraw its approval for 2,4-D. Earlier this month, the petition was summarily denied.

So it’s interesting to see this new coalition’s opposition to 2,4-D getting so much traction so quickly. Perhaps it’s because the group—dubbed Save Our Crops—isn’t made up of environmentalists and sustainable agriculture types, but rather Midwestern and Mid-Atlantic conventional farmers and large food processors (and Organic Valley, the organic co-operative organization which is both a producer and a processor).

The basis of their concern isn’t so much the health effects, but the fact that their farms may end up as collateral damage from the increase in the use of 2,4-D that will occur if Dow’s seed is approved. After all, the use of glyphosate went through the roof once Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready seeds took over the marketplace. These farmers expect 2,4-D to follow the same path. (Rodale News estimates a 60 to 80 percent increase.)

The problem has to do with pesticide drift—an issue with many pesticides, but a particular problem with 2,4-D, which unlike glyphosate is highly volatile. While its volatility was in one context considered a strength, at this point even Dow itself acknowledges that it’s a concern. In an article on the battle over the new seed’s approval, The New York Times offers an illustration of what these farmers have to fear:

To Jody Herr, it was a telltale sign that one of his tomato fields had been poisoned by 2,4-D, the powerful herbicide that was an ingredient in Agent Orange, the Vietnam War defoliant.

“The leaves had curled and the plants were kind of twisting rather than growing straight,” Mr. Herr said of the 2009 incident on his vegetable farm in Lowell, Ind. He is convinced the chemical, as well as another herbicide called dicamba, had wafted through the air from farms nearly two miles away.

As explained by Rodale News, 2,4-D-resistant plants will alter the way farmers use the chemical, encouraging them to apply it later in the season to more kill weeds (you normally wouldn’t apply a herbicide on a field full of mature plants). This fact makes it particularly problematic since, as Rodale News put it:

… not only are humidity and temperatures higher, but also neighboring tomato plants are leafing out, making them most susceptible to the drift. If the chemicals don’t outright kill plants like tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, peppers, and other favorites, they could cause severe twisting and other deformities to occur as the plants in the drift’s path grow, rendering the harvest useless.

Which is just what farmer Herr saw in his field. Indeed, it is tomato farmers who may be the most at risk. Rodale also reports on a study produced by scientists at Ohio State University, which simulated the effects of 2,4-D drift on tomatoes [PDF]:

Experts found that the migrating pesticide vapors sparked late bloom, which diminishes the marketable red part of the tomato and stimulated growth of unmarketable green growth, which can’t be sold. In fact, just tiny amounts—1/300th of what was applied to field crops—caused significant field loss on neighboring tomato farms.

Ohio researchers concluded that realistic drift from corn or soy fields treated with either dicamba or 2,4-D will result in a 17 to 77 percent reduction in marketable fruit for neighboring farms and gardens.

These are, of course, estimates from a simulation. But the farmers and processors behind Save Our Crops would rather not be the guinea pigs in the real-world version of this experiment.

For its part, Dow assures the USDA that its new version of 2,4-D doesn’t have the same volatility—and the company will “urge” farmers to use the new, branded version rather than the far less expensive generic version of 2,4-D that’s been on the market for decades. How reassuring.

Indeed that’s where I get worried. If I had to guess, I suspect that the USDA will approve Dow’s new seed but with restrictions on things like planting acreage and use of recommended formulations and so on (though there’s always the chance the agency will punt the final decision until after the election). In any event, restrictions are only as good as their enforcement, and the USDA doesn’t have an inspiring track record. Farmers have routinely violated planting restrictions on GM seeds in the past—while regulators have a history of acceding to industry’s demands to reduce the restrictions rather than enforce them.

The public comment period on the 2,4-D-resistant seeds ends today. According to the Center for Food Safety 365,000 people have already submitted comments to the USDA. An additional 143 farm, environmental, health, fisheries groups and companies will submit a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack expressing their opposition to the GMO seeds. Save Our Crops has also already submitted two petitions [PDF] while the consumer group Just Label It is sponsoring its own petition to protest USDA approval, so there’s still time for the public’s voice to be heard.

But the real fight appears to be between commodity farms who want a simple answer to the growing problem of superweeds and fruit and vegetable growers who don’t want to see their crops damaged as a consequence. The latter are often treated by the USDA as step-children while growers of the Big Five commodities—corn, soy, wheat, rice, and cotton—receive the overwhelming majority of federal farm subsidies.

I doubt that USDA approval of Dow’s new seed, if it comes, will be the end of the story. But it should tell us something that even some large conventional farmers are starting to get angry and scared by the direction industrial agriculture has taken.

Below is a video produced by Dow AgroScience advertising Enlist, or 2,4-D. Skip ahead to 2:35 to hear the company’s take on superweeds and to see some compelling images.

Photo: A still from a promotional video for the herbicide 2,4-D, which is being marketed as a solution for “superweeds” (picured), which have grown tolerant to other herbicides.

Originally Published on Grist

Recently pesticide manufacturer Arysta LifeScience agreed to stop selling the cancer-causing strawberry pesticide methyl iodide in the United States. It was a tremendous victory for the 200,000+ farmworkers, farmers, rural residents and environmentalists that worked over the past several years to pull a chemical that one scientist called “one of the most toxic chemicals on earth” off the market.

One of the central figures of this battle from the get-go, both behind the scenes and in the media spotlight, has been Paul Towers, Organizing & Media Director for Pesticide Action Network (PAN).

For the past decade, Paul has worked to protect communities from hazardous pesticides in their food, air, soil and water. He’s worked side-by-side with people that bear the brunt of industrial agriculture, and helped share their stories, grounded in science, with elected officials and policymakers. It hasn’t been easy. He’s gone up against the likes of pesticide and biotech corporations, oil and gas interests, and industrial food companies.

Highlighting food and environmental injustices has been a priority for Paul from an early age. He grew up in Tucson, Arizona, a state where the five C’s were imprinted on young schoolchildren: copper, cattle, cotton, citrus and climate. It didn’t take long to see that many of these industries, coupled with explosive growth, were incompatible with the desert.

Over the years, Paul has come to see his work on pesticides, food and agriculture as a means of unraveling the larger issues of building democracy and diminishing corporate control and influence. He’s focused a lot on breaking down the pesticide treadmill–the trap that farmers get caught on as they are forced to use more (and increasingly toxic) chemicals to control insects and weeds that develop resistance to pesticides.

Paul recently moved from Sacramento to the San Francisco Bay Area, but still remains connected to neighborhoods and issues in the political hub of the state. Paul was a key leader of a multi-year effort in Sacramento aptly entitled CLUCK (Campaign to Legalize Urban Chicken Keeping) which eventually legalized keeping egg-laying hens in the city. He continues to be involved in efforts to create more local farmers markets in underserved neighborhoods, spur more urban gardening and strengthen community organizations that collect and deliver social services.

Every one of these efforts required building political pressure to put new policies in place to allow people to grow safe, healthy and local food.

What issues have you been focused on?

Bees and strawberries have been the main focus in recent months.

First, a word about bees. It’s widely understood that one in every three bites of food we eat is reliant on bees. In working with beekeepers across the country, including some of the largest commercial operations, I’ve learned about the dramatic losses they’re experiencing–over 30 percent of their hives each year. These losses are often termed colony collapse disorder. This is bad for all of us, especially if you like to eat things that require pollination like almonds, cherries, and blueberries–and dozens of other crops.

Increasingly, science points to this newer class of systemic pesticides called neonicotinoids as a critical factor in CCD. We filed a legal petition with over two-dozen beekeepers last month urging EPA to take action on these neonicotinoids. As you can imagine, pesticide corporations like Bayer are pushing back, trying to confuse the science.

Strawberries have been a big focus too. With strawberry season now upon us in California, many of us are getting excited to eat our share of the fruit. While the controversial fumigant pesticide methyl iodide is off the shelf, other strawberry pesticides are still widely used in California and across the country. Many rural residents and farmworkers are on the front lines of exposure, with these gaseous pesticides drifting into their homes and bodies. Many fumigants are known to be cancer-causing, neurotoxins and reproductive toxins. So we’re working with people across the country to bring their case to local, state and federal officials to phase out the use of these chemicals and invest in green, safe and cutting-edge agriculture.

What inspires you to do this work?

A lot of things inspire me to strive for an ecologically sound and socially just food system.

But more than anything it’s the injustices I see and the people who are taking incredibly courage steps to counter them. It’s the people I meet from all over the country–from Alaska to Florida, Illinois to California–who are working to ensure that their communities are safe and healthy. Last week, I had a chance to meet with a diverse group of Hawaiians who are actively working to take their food system back from pesticide and biotech corporations and the plantation system.

I’m also an expecting father. It is likely that our child is already being exposed to pesticides and other chemicals in utero. And that makes me angry. So I work to create protections and find solutions to ensure our child isn’t saddled with a toxic legacy of pollution.

As I look toward the upcoming adventure of fatherhood, the health and future of my child–very literally–is a big part of what inspires me to keep doing this work.

What’s your overall vision?

In the not so distant future, my vision is that we re-build our food and farming system to create a sustainable form of agriculture and lift up human rights to food, justice and self-determination.

What books and/or blogs are you reading right now?

I don’t spend nearly enough time reading books, including those on my nightstand. I do consume a lot of news, including newspapers and magazines from all over the country. I’m especially impressed by blogs by folks like Tom Philpott at Mother Jones, Twilight Greenaway and Tom Laskawy at Grist, Barry Estabrook, and so many others.

Who’s in your community?

Our community is large–we’ve got “network” in our name. It’s international and it’s farmers, beekeepers, farmworkers, rural residents, and everyone in between. PAN has five regional centers based in the major continents, representing tens of thousands of people and organizations. I am honored to be part of this global community of concerned and committed citizen activists.

On a day-to-day basis, I work closely with lots of people involved in coalitions like Californians for Pesticide Reform, the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition and Californians for a Healthy and Green Economy.

What are your commitments?

I’m committed to science, justice, and people, across the globe.

What are your goals?

Personally, I want my artichoke plants to thrive this year. Professionally, I want to be part of fixing our food and farming system to protect farmers, workers, communities–and children, include my own. Both are challenging, but of different magnitudes.

What does change look like to you?

It’s what Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers did and do, what Lois Gibbs and the Center for Health and Environmental Justice did and do and its what Luke Cole at the Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment did and do.

Change means organized, coordinated people pressuring elected officials and decision makers–including corporate leaders–to take steps to protect health and the environment, while advancing safe solutions. The good news is that people want their communities and environment to be healthy–we just need to reach decisionmakers with our collective voice.

Regarding the practicalities of enacting change, what planning is involved? What kind of outreach?

The success of our international network over the past 30 years has taught us a few things, especially as we’ve helped broker new protections through international treaties. Change requires organizing. Organizing people and partners requires patience, time and commitment. It requires online and offline engagement, meeting people where they are and creating collaborative opportunities to advance a shared vision.

What projects are affiliated with yours?

I already described my work around safe strawberries and healthy pollinators. I also work with PAN to hold the “Big 6” pesticide and biotech corporations–Monsanto, Bayer, BASF, Dow, Dupont, and Syngenta–accountable for human rights abuses. We concluded an international trial late last year in India, documenting harms to live, health and livelihood. And the final verdict should be issued soon, so this work will continue to unfold. In addition, we’re continuing to document the harm to Midwest communities from water contaminated by the Syngenta’s gender-bending atrazine, an herbicide commonly used in corn fields.

What projects and people have you got your eye on or are you impressed by?

I’m impressed by so many people and organizations. I respect organizations that shine a spotlight on the broken industrial agricultural system, finding policy solutions, and those that are helping us get out of it. Off the top of my head, I respect organizations like the Center for Food Safety, United Farm Workers and Food & Water Watch are doing a great job of advocating for change. I also deeply respect organizations like ALBA and the California Farm Academy, who are training the next generation of farmers with cutting-edge, green agriculture.

Where do you see the state of agriculture/food policy in the next 5-10 years? Is real policy change a real possibility? 

Farmers, rural residents, and consumers are demanding something different–whether it’s labeling of genetically engineered crops and products, phasing out the use of hazardous pesticides or investing in sustainable agriculture. We are in a moment of real possibility for a real shift in direction on our agriculture and food policies.

What does the food movement need to do, be or have to be more effective?

Political and organized. The challenges before us are large and profound, including the power of pesticide and biotech corporations. These corporations exert undue influence in the elections, lobbying, and through the revolving door with government regulators. So we, as a movement must gather our voices and be determined, creative and persistent. We can’t afford to be anything but political and organized.

What would you want to be your last meal on earth?

Anything my wife cooks. She’s got a real knack for pulling things together, including fresh ingredients from our yard and weekly finds at farmers markets. And she’d probably wrap it up in a fresh tortilla, a nod to those I use to get fresh off the line at the spot across the street after school growing up.

When it comes to the chemicals used in food packaging, there is much we still don’t know. After a recent U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) decision last month to not put further restrictions on bisphenol-A (BPA), a new report today in the Washington Post takes a closer look at studies that reveal that such endocrine-distrupting chemicals are not only ubiquitous, they might also be harmful at much lower doses than previously thought. 

The FDA allows around 3,000 chemicals, including BPA and phthalates–a family of chemicals used in lubricants and solvents and to make polyvinyl chloride pliable–at low doses, long considering them additives though they migrate from the packaging instead of being purposefully added by the food manufacturer. But these chemicals are notoriously hard to trace, and have not been studied for their cumulative effects.

“Finding out which chemicals might have seeped into your groceries is nearly impossible, given the limited information collected and disclosed by regulators, the scientific challenges of this research and the secrecy of the food and packaging industries, which view their components as proprietary information,” writes Freinkel, author of Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, who wrote this story in collaboration with the Food & Evironment Reporting Network. “Although scientists are learning more about the pathways of these substances–and their potential effect on health–there is an enormous debate among scientists, policymakers and industry experts about what levels are safe.”

What has scientists worried is the fact that endocrine disrupters like these interfere with the body’s natural hormone system. Animals studies on BPA, for example, have found that doses of the chemical below the FDA-approved threshold administered during critical stages of development can effect behavior, breast and prostate cells, and brain structure and chemistry. According to recent studies, around 90 percent of Americans have BPA inside their bodies.

Freinkel explains how plastic food packaging is a major source of these potentially harmful chemicals. Other studies have shown phthalates passing into food from processing equipment and food-prep gloves, gaskets and seals on non-plastic containers, inks used on labels–which can permeate packaging–and even the plastic film used in agriculture.

The report highlights an upcoming study that found a particular phthalate, called DEHP, in many of the 72 different grocery items evaluated. Studies have associated low-dose exposure to this chemical with male reproductive disorders, thyroid dysfunction, and subtle behavioral changes.

Last month, the FDA denied a petition to ban BPA, saying in a statement that while “some studies have raised questions as to whether BPA may be associated with a variety of health effects, there remain serious questions about these studies, particularly as they relate to humans and the public health impact.”

You can read the full report here on the Food & Environment Reporting Network’s Web site, which also features additional reporting on the topic.

Hats off to this mother of three who got fed up and took charge. Thirteen years ago, Sofía Gatica’s newborn died of kidney failure after being exposed to pesticides in the womb. After the despair came anger, then a fierce determination to protect the children in her community and beyond.

Today, she’s one of six grassroots leaders from around the world receiving the Goldman Environmental Prize, in recognition of her courageous—and successful—efforts.

Pesticide Action Network will host Sofía as she travels to San Francisco for tonight’s ceremony and celebration.

Pesticides drift from GE soy fields

Sofía lives in Ituzaingó Annex, a working-class neighborhood of 6,000 bordering commercial soy farms in the province of Córdoba in Argentina.

Argentina is the third largest exporter of soybeans in the world. It is also the third largest producer of genetically engineered (GE) crops worldwide, following closely behind the U.S. and neighboring Brazil. The explosion of GE soy production in Argentina has brought with it dramatic increases in pesticide use, and specifically aerial spraying of Monsanto’s weedkiller, RoundUp. Spraying of the antiquated insecticide endosulfan was also common until this year. Its use is now banned in Argentina as it moves toward a global phaseout under the Stockholm treaty.

RoundUp, long touted by Monsanto as all but harmless, has recently been linked to increased risk of birth defects when mothers are exposed during pregnancy. Endosulfan has also been linked to health harms in children, including birth defects, reproductive harm and autism.

Local mothers take charge

Here’s where Sofía’s story becomes truly inspirational.

After she lost her newborn, she realized that such losses were all too common in her small community. Building on Argentina’s powerful history of movements led by mothers, Sofía worked with other concerned moms to go door to door collecting stories about health problems in each family—essentially conducting the community’s first-ever epidemiological study.

Despite few resources and very real threats, Sofía led the Mothers of Ituzaingó to concrete victory.

“The Mothers of Ituzaingó” discovered the community’s cancer rate to be 41 times the national average. Rates of neurological problems, respiratory diseases and infant mortality were also astonishingly high.

The group then launched a “Stop the Spraying!” campaign, leading demonstrations and publishing materials warning the community about the dangers of pesticides.

Their efforts bore fruit. In 2008, Argentina’s president ordered an investigation of the health impacts of pesticides in Ituzaingó Annex; the resulting official study corroborated their informal door-to-door research. Sofía and the Mothers of Ituzaingó then won a municipal “buffer zone” ordinance, prohibiting aerial spraying less than 2,500 meters from homes.

Honoring leadership & courage

Each year since 1989, the Goldman Prize has honored grassroots leaders across the globe, unsung heroes who are campaigning for environmental justice and sustainability in their local communities. This global recognition of Sofia’s work couldn’t be more deserved.

Despite few resources and very real threats—including being held at gunpoint in her own home—Sofía led the Mothers of Ituzaingó to concrete victory: on-the-ground protections for the children in their community. The group also raised the profile of the broader issue of the health harms of pesticides to the national level, making room for a push for safer and more sustainable approaches to agriculture.

Sofía is now working with mothers in other Argentine communities, looking for ways to expand protections to families across the country.

Originally published by PANNA

One of the big challenges facing the globe in the next century will be access to clean water.

In America, federal agriculture policies are putting drinking water used by millions of people at risk. Perverse incentives such as farm subsidies and ethanol mandates have ushered in an era of fencerow-to-fencerow planting of chemical-intensive commodity crops, even as funding to protect water sources has been repeatedly slashed.

The result is that water running off poorly managed fields that have been treated with chemical fertilizers and manure is loaded with nitrogen and phosphorus, two potent pollutants that set off a cascade of harmful consequences.

Troubled Waters, a new Environmental Working Group report released on April 12, examines the water pollution caused by farm runoff in the upper Midwest and demonstrates that treating the problem after the fact is increasingly expensive, difficult and, if current trends continue, ultimately unsustainable. Because most farm operations are exempt from the requirements of the federal Clean Water Act and states have little authority to compel farmers to control water contamination, the burden of cleaning up agricultural pollution in drinking water falls mostly on municipal treatment systems – and the taxpayers who pay for them.

The city of Des Moines, Iowa has one of the largest water treatment plants in the world to clean agricultural pollution. Toledo, Ohio, estimates that it costs an extra $2,000-to-$3,000 a day just to deal with agricultural pollutants in the city’s water. USDA economists calculate that the cost of removing nitrate alone from drinking water is more than $4.8 billion a year nationwide. The capital costs alone of a system to treat water fouled by nutrient-fueled blooms of algae and the cyanotoxins they can produce can total $12 million to $56 million for a town of 100,000 people.

Taxpayers end up paying twice, once for the subsidies that encourage all-out production and again for the cleanup. Meanwhile, farm businesses reap year after year of high income and federal subsidies whether they are protecting or polluting drinking water.

The health risks of tainted water are severe. Infants who drink water with high nitrate levels can develop a life-threatening blood disorder called blue baby syndrome, and in adults nitrate increases the risk of thyroid cancer and other illnesses. The toxins produced by blooms of cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) can be deadly to pets, livestock, wildlife–and people.

Many American farmers are responsible stewards of land and water. But the list of drinking water sources and water bodies imperiled by agricultural pollution grows daily and now includes the Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers say fertilizer use on two-thirds of the nation’s agricultural land does not conform to science-based best management practices. Growers spread too much, spread it at the wrong times and use methods that are prone to losing nutrients into runoff. In addition, installation of “tile drainage,” which is common across the Midwest, promotes the movement of nutrients into streams.

Restoring a strong conservation title in the reauthorized farm bill now being drafted in Congress is the best non-regulatory approach to protect drinking water sources. Congress must also bring crop and revenue insurance programs back under the decades-old conservation compact that required farmers to use good conservation practices in return for a taxpayer-funded safety net.

Most Americans are in line with this thinking. A 2011 Packard poll found that 69 percent of those responding said that reducing use of agricultural chemicals that contribute to water pollution should be a top priority. A significant majority–57 percent–was against cutting funding for farm conservation programs. And 60 percent said farmers should be required to meet environmental standards–such as protecting water quality or soil health–as a condition of receiving federal farm program payments and subsidized crop insurance. That number jumped to 65 percent in the six biggest corn ethanol-producing states.

EWG senior scientist Olga Naidenko PhD, lead author of the Troubled Waters report, was clear about what needs to happen next:

“The only solution to preserve clean water is to tackle the problem of polluted agricultural runoff at the source.”

Photo: Dirty water by Shutterstock

But now I am wondering if I should put the cider press back up for sale. You see, my apple trees were in full bloom before the end of March when temperatures hit 90 degrees.

Then it dipped to 27 degrees earlier this week. A handy chart I found warns that fruit loss begins at 28 degrees, and if it hits 25 degrees, a near total loss occurs.

A lot of people are talking about the strange weather this spring. Come to think of it, a lot of people were talking about the weather last spring too.

That is when unexpected rain flooded thousands of acres of farmland along the Missouri river, and forced the closure of a key bridge between Nebraska and Iowa just 10 miles from my office at the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Nebraska. The cropland stayed under water all summer. The bridge stayed closed too, forcing many residents of the the small river town to add 60 miles to their daily commute.

To be sure, a mix of factors contributes to every weather event, and early research indicates that climate change was only one factor contributing to the warm temperatures this spring.

Taken together, though, these experiences are painting a picture of the sort of challenges we can expect to face as climate change intensifies.

The risks to our communities, and to agriculture in particular, are significant. Last year some corn and bean farmers in our county lost their entire crop to flooding. The two farm families who operate our local wineries were probably up late worrying about their fruit trees and grape vines as the temperatures fell on Tuesday.

When farmers we know suffer a crop loss from extreme weather, the political objection to acting on climate change seems dimmer in comparison.

There is a great moral risk in continuing to treat climate change as a political issue. Our communities and our farms are on the line. Out of respect for future generations, it is far past time to set politics aside and take reasonable action.

That is why it is time for farmers and rural people of conscious to step forward and lead. We know some farmers are already concerned. And a recent poll of farmers in Iowa found that 68 percent believe climate change is real and 45 percent believe human activity is a contributing factor.

We are stepping up our efforts too. In CFRA’s newsletter in June, we will run a feature on climate change, the challenges facing our communities and actions we can take. In early summer, we will issue a major new report on carbon, climate and agriculture.

We know that it will not always be easy. But the issue demands our leadership. For we must not allow political division to stand in the way of protecting our children and grandchildren from the risk of a changing climate.

Will you join us? To get involved as a leader on climate issues in your community, please get in touch. Shoot me an email at briand@cfra.org.

Originally published by the Center for Rural Affairs

The epidemic of autism in children in the United States may be linked to the typical American diet according to a new study published online in Clinical Epigenetics by Renee Dufault, et. al. The study explores how mineral deficiencies—affected by dietary factors like high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)—could impact how the human body rids itself of common toxic chemicals like mercury and pesticides.

The release comes on the heels of a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that estimates the average rate of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) among eight year olds is now 1 in 88, representing a 78 percent increase between 2002 and 2008. Among boys, the rate is nearly five times the prevalence found in girls.

“To better address the explosion of autism, it’s critical we consider how unhealthy diets interfere with the body’s ability to eliminate toxic chemicals, and ultimately our risk for developing long-term health problems like autism,” said Dr. David Wallinga, a study co-author and physician at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP).

Commander (ret.) Renee Dufault (U.S. Public Health Service), the study’s lead author and a former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) toxicologist, developed an innovative scientific approach to describe the subtle side effects of HFCS consumption and other dietary factors on the human body and how they relate to chronic disorders. The model, called “macroepigenetics,” allows researchers to consider how factors of nutrition, environment and genetic makeup interact and contribute to the eventual development of a particular health outcome.

“With autism rates skyrocketing, our public educational system is under extreme stress,” said Dufault, who is also a licensed special education teacher and founder of the Food Ingredient and Health Research Institute (FIHRI). As part of the current study, the authors found a 91 percent increase in the number of children with autism receiving special educational services in the U.S. between 2005 and 2010.

Key Findings:

• Autism and related disorders affect brain development. The current study sought to determine how environmental and dietary factors, like HFCS consumption, might combine to contribute to the disorder.
• Consumption of HFCS, for example, is linked to the dietary loss of zinc, which interferes with the elimination of heavy metals from the body. Many heavy metals like mercury, arsenic and cadmium are potent toxins with adverse effects on brain development in the young.
• HFCS consumption can also impact levels of other beneficial minerals, including calcium. Loss of calcium further exacerbates the detrimental effects of exposure to lead on brain development in fetuses and children.
• Inadequate levels of calcium in the body can also impair its ability to expel organophosphates, a class of pesticides long recognized by the EPA and independent scientists as especially toxic to the young developing brain.

“Rather than being independent sources of risk, factors like nutrition and exposure to toxic chemicals are cumulative and synergistic in their potential to disrupt normal development,” said Dr. Richard Deth, a professor of Pharmacology at Northeastern University and a co-author of the study. “These epigenetic effects can also be transmitted across generations. As autism rates continue to climb it is imperative to incorporate this new epigenetic perspective into prevention, diagnosis and treatment strategies.”

The picture of how and why a child develops autism is a complicated one influenced by many different factors. The authors of this study have given insight into the complex interplay between several of the factors that may lead to the development of this debilitating neurodevelopmental disorder. In order to curb the epidemic of autism in the U. S., continued analysis of the impact of the industrialized food system and exposure to environmental toxins on ASD must be key areas of research moving forward.

The Food Ingredient and Health Research Institute (FIHRI) is a non-profit organization devoted entirely to food ingredient safety, education, and research. foodingredient.info

Originally published by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. IATP works locally and globally at the intersection of policy and practice to ensure fair and sustainable food, farm and trade systems.

Photo: bbaltimore

“I’m going to see ‘The Hunger Games’ on Thursday night with Eli. It opens at midnight,” announced my fifteen year old son, Owen.  “On a school night?” I respond incredulously, “how about waiting until Friday night?” “Mom, this is a really important movie. I’ve been waiting for it to come out for two years.”

For those of you not yet in the know, “The Hunger Games” is based on Suzanne Collin’s eponymous best-selling book aimed at the young adult market. Owen devoured the book (which has now sold over 10 million copies) in his seventh grade English class. Not drawn to dystopian fiction myself, I listened in quiet horror as he explained the plot:

It takes place in the future when there is almost no food because of global warming and most people are starving. Teenagers representing different states in Panem are randomly chosen to compete in games, kind of like the Olympics, only they have to fight each other to the death. A girl named Katniss volunteers to compete in the place of her little sister Primrose. If she survives and wins the Games her people will be rewarded with enough food for a year.

Now, over the years, I’ve enjoyed reading what my children are reading in school. When it comes time to write the inevitable essay, I can then offer up l prompts like, “Why do you think Red Scarf Girl hates her bourgeois grandfather?” or “Why does Arnold Spirit Jr. refer to himself as a ‘part-time Indian?’” Although “The Hunger Games” clearly struck a chord with Owen, to me it sounded like “The Lottery” meets “Schindler’s List,” and to avoid the parental pain inherent in the “sacrifice the children” motif, I decided to pass.

Whereas I may avoid the fictionalized account of a society surviving in a world ravaged by climate change, in real life I am not so timid. As a parent, I believe it our responsibility to work proactively to ensure that our children will indeed have a future that is as free from the ravages of climate change as possible. Fortunately, I am not alone. In recent years, interest in joining the good food movement has exploded, and a broad spectrum of people now understand that food which is healthy for people and the planet is a strong lever we can use to catalyze positive social change.

Right now, we can harness the power of the good food movement in order to energize the currently-flagging climate movement. We must educate ourselves about the connection between daily food choices and their climate ramifications.  In a nutshell, there are certain agricultural practices—and by extension certain food choices—that contribute vast amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. From production of pesticides and fertilizers to long-distance transportation, excessive packaging to rotting food waste, greenhouse gasses are produced along the entire “life cycle” of industrial food.

In total, approximately 30 percent of global emissions leading to climate change are attributed to agricultural activities, according to a 2009 report initiated by the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization. In the United States, with our large swaths of industrial agriculture and livestock production, these emissions include high levels of nitrous oxide and methane, two of the most potent greenhouse gases. Thankfully there is a climate-friendly alternative. If adopted, sustainable agriculture methods (including organic, agro-ecological, local, and biodynamic farming) can provide powerful solutions to the climate crisis. Sustainable agriculture works in sync with natural processes to reduce both the energy-intensive inputs and the climate-expensive outputs.

Both adults and young people have a narrow window in which to jolt ourselves out of on-going complacency and tackle the climate crisis with purpose.   Bolstered by midnight throngs of teenagers on opening night, the success of “The Hunger Games” is inevitable, but a real-life, climate-induced future of resource scarcity doesn’t have to be. By making careful and informed choices about our food now, we can ensure enough food, as well as a livable planet, for generations to come.