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Click here to read about how the pesticide industry was consulted during the making of Toxic Trail.
The
Asia Pacific Crop Protection Association (APCPA) which represents such multinationals as Bayer, Cyanamid, Dow
AgroSciences, DuPont, Novartis and Zeneca, claim their products are reducing famine by minimising crop damage by insects and weeds, and that they are saving lives through controlling disease-carrying insects. The global pesticide market is dominated by ten companies, which between them take 80% of
more than $30 billion worth of sales. The leading pesticide companies have merged with, or taken over other agrochemical corporations and expanded into seed industry and into genetic engineering.
These pesticides, however, are poisons that, when used improperly or without sufficient knowledge of their effects, endanger humans, animals and the environment. Moreover, hazards are created by residues from persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that build-up in the food chain and contaminate the environment. The chemical companies insist that pesticides, when they are used appropriately, can be safe and provide an inexpensive way to protect crops.
The conditions of use in most developing countries make it practically impossible to guarantee appropriate use. The availability of highly toxic chemicals, lack of information and knowledge of their hazards, aggressive marketing by industry as well as poverty, illiteracy, and lack of health facilities in the rural areas ensure that pesticides are a major threat to food security, health and the environment. In these conditions, farmers use what is available rather than what is appropriate.
73% of the imports into Thailand are WHO categories Ia and
Ib, extremely toxic and highly toxic. In Cambodia, 84% of pesticides are moderately to extremely hazardous to human health. In developed countries these chemical are either banned, or they can only be used by licensed specialists who must carry out a number of stringent precautions. In SE Asia, however, the chemicals are freely used without precautions. Labels are often written in a foreign language or they fail to provide data on the active ingredient, application, date of manufacture or safe handling of the chemical.
Many of the pesticides that are used in developing countries are banned in the developed countries where they are manufactured. Between 1992 and 1994, more than 344 million pounds of hazardous pesticides were exported from the US -at least 25 million pounds of which were forbidden for use in the country- the majority of which went to destinations in the developing world. There are many loopholes in the regulatory system. According to European legislation, only end products permitted in Europe can be exported. However, it is legal to export the starting product, the active ingredient, which is then manufactured into the end product in developing countries.
In places like Cambodia, struggling to rebuild its society after decades of civil war, the government is unable to regulate the flow of pesticides. Corporations like the German company Bayer say it is their policy not to export dangerous chemicals to countries lacking proper regulations. Bayer also claims it abides by the laws of the importing country and ensures that it does not export products that are outlawed in those countries. But how are banned category Ia chemicals still available across Asia?
| "The German chemist Gerhardt Schrader in 1944 introduced a whole new class of insecticides, the organophosphates, with the discovery of parathion (or schraden, as it was known in Germany); work on parathion actually derived from Nazi chemical warfare work on neurotoxins but the discovery came relatively late during the war and organophosphates found no significant use for chemical warfare purposes"
Berenbaum, M.R., 'Bugs in the System: Insects and Their Impact on Human Affairs', p288, Addison-Wesley, 1995 |
Methyl parathion is officially banned or restricted in Cambodia, China, the US, Japan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. See the links below for an example of a Methyl parathion disaster in USA, 1996 which cost $50 million. The situation is some Asian countries, however, is that the chemical is widely used on a frequent basis. Folidol, the Bayer brand name for methyl parathion, is perhaps the most popular insecticide on the Cambodian market. Cambodia has over 50 kinds of dangerous pesticides: organophosphorous compounds such as methyl parathion, mevinphos, methamidophos and monocrotophos are being illegally exported to Cambodia through Thailand and Vietnam. Cambodia serves as a dumping ground for products that cannot be sold in its neighbouring countries. The multinational firms that manufacture the chemicals say that they are not responsible because they do not directly market to Cambodia. Methamidophos, which according to WHO is category Ia, can be fatal if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Manufactured by Bayer and marketed as Monitor, methamidophos is a restricted chemical in the US and New Zealand but it manages to be another favourite of Cambodian farmers.
The pesticide industry should be held responsible not only for their exports, but also for the way their products are used. Chemical companies say that it is not their responsibility if there are lax safety conditions in the countries that use their products. The multinationals blame smaller regional producers making generic versions of their products with little to no safety training and also resellers who smuggle products over the border from Thailand. While officials and corporations argue about who is responsible, pesticides continue to flow, poisoning millions of farmers, their families and their environment.
The misuse of pesticides, particularly on rice crops, has caused huge pest outbreak as the chemicals not only kill the pests, but beneficial insects as well. The insecticides do not always kill the eggs of the pests, however, so they are able to emerge and reproduce without any hindrance from predators. Incessant spraying, causing pest resistance to particular chemicals, has led to an estimated over-dosing in rice by up to 8 times the recommended rate. Much of the research in tropical rice cultivation supports the idea that insecticides are really unnecessary. It has also been stated that over 50% of all pesticides used for global crop protection can be suppressed without significant consequence on world food production.
In relation to human health, while most of the reported ill effects are acute cases of pesticide poisoning, chronic long-term effects such as cancer and endocrine disruption are of increasing concern. Various kinds of water supplies become contaminated with pesticides, not only impacting on the safety of drinking water, but also killing aquatic life and birds, and other animals which survive on these water sources. (For more information, see fact sheet on Pesticides and Poisoning).
Major manufacturers say they try very hard to encourage responsible use of the chemicals; they call it 'product stewardship'. There have so far been a number of global industry initiatives - including the Safe Use Campaign and the Responsible Care Initiative. Both aim to raise standards of understanding and practice throughout the distribution chain, from production through to disposal. However, the highly toxic nature of some of the chemicals and the conditions for users in developing countries renders both of these initiatives inadequate. If international efforts to control pesticides are to have a significant impact then governments will need to start agreeing on targets and strategies to reduce pesticide use and to invest in sustainable pest control methods like IPM.
The site of the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) includes a report of the 1996 methyl parathion disaster in Mississippi: http://www.igc.org/panna/resources/_pestis/PESTIS.1997.10.html
Three UN organisations, ILO, WHO and UNEP, produce a series of 'International Chemical Safety Cards'. The card for Methyl parathion is at: http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ipcs/ipcs0626.html Cards are also available for other extremely hazardous chemicals used by farmers in Cambodia such as Mevinphos (ipcs0924) and Monocrotophos (ipcs0181)
The World Wildlife Fund has a Global Toxics Initiative. The website includes general information about agricultural pollution. http://www.worldwildlife.org/
The site of the Asia Pacific Crop Protection Association, now called Crop Life Asia, is at: http://www.croplifeasia.org/
'Toxic Trail', 2001, produced by TVE for BBC. Copies available in a number of languages from the organisations listed at this page.
Made in Denmark', 1997, produced by TV94 for the Global Labour Summit , focuses on Cheminova, a Danish producer of Methyl parathion (involved in the Mississippi disaster).
Lorring, D, Struggling to Keep Cambodia off the Pesticide Treadmill Global Pesticide Campaigner, Vol 5, No. 4, December 1995
Pesticide Action Network, Asia &Pacific: panap@panap.po.my