RE: Pesticide analogies revisited

Harris, Craig (Craig.Harris@ssc.msu.edu)
Thu, 11 Jun 1998 12:21:14 -0400

i share the vision of the future that has been described by dawn, doug
hinds, susan snow and others in this thread . . . but i am reluctant to see
that vision tied to a possibly flawed view of the past . . . crop losses due
to insects have been significant for u.s. agriculture since the late 1800's
. . . in fruit and vegetable production, these losses were reduced by the
applications of compounds of arsenic, lead, copper and sulphur . . . while
these compounds may have been natural, they certainly were not safe for farm
operators and laborers, consumers, or the environment . . . abandoned fruit
orchards in the eastern united states still manifest the residual effects of
these compounds in their soil biota . . . food safety hazards were
sufficiently great that the use of these materials was widely attacked by
the reformers of the early 1900's . . .
all that is not to say that the decades before the 1940's were just like the
decades following . . . during that earlier period the usda supported a
program of classical biological control research and implementation, which
identified beneficial predators around the world for the pests which had
come to north america
cheers,
craig

craig harris
dept of sociology
michigan state university

> ----------
> From: gardenbetty@earthlink.net[SMTP:gardenbetty@earthlink.net]
> Reply To: gardenbetty@earthlink.net
> Sent: Wednesday 10 June 1998 6:45 PM
> To: sanet-mg@shasta.ces.ncsu.edu
> Subject: Pesticide analogies revisited
> Just a quick point: Up until roughly the 1940s we grew all our food
> without synthetic chemicals and had agricultural productivity equal to or
> greater than we currently have. Crop losses due to insects have only
> increased since we started using pesticides. (studies by Cornell
> University and USDA) Agriculture has been "organic" for most of human
> existence. The use of agrichemicals (and other chemicals of other types)
> and the corresponding exponential rise in cancer have occurred in only the
> past 50-60 years. We did fine without chemicals for millennia. Is it too
> late to reverse the trend?
> dawn
> garden resources of washington
>
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