"Researchers should take time out from their hectic scramble of
trying to concoct new chemicals or ransacking the pharmacopoeia
for old ones that will destroy all kinds of pests, and ask
themselves whether they are making any real progress or merely
chasing a phantom.
"There may be, in our present policies, the danger of creating
agricultural and nutritional problems with such far-reaching
results that we cannot simply return to some previous stage and
start over again.
"It could happen that posterity will condemn the present
generation as despoilers on account of [our] indiscriminate
dissemination of poisons.
"Finally, [I] believe we should accept as a fundemental concept
the proposition that crops should be grown primarily for the
purpose of satisfying [our] food requirements, and not as a means
of making particular human activities commercially profitable,
regardless of the overall effect on human welfare."
A.D. Pickett, Officer-in-charge, Dominion Entomology, Canada
Department of Agriculture, 1949
from Canadian Entomologist (1949), Vol 81, No 3, pp 1-10.
"Of the approximately 500 million kg [1.1 billion lbs] of
pesticides applied in the United States, often less than 0.1% of
those applied to crops actually reaches target pests. Thus, over
99% moves into ecosystems to contaminate the land, water, and
air."
David Pimentel, Department of Entomology, Cornell Univ.
from BioScience (1986), Vol 36, No 2, pp 86-91
Currently, an estimated 37% of all crops is lost annually to pests
(13% to insects, 12% to pathogens, and 12% to weeds). Fifty years
ago (1942) losses totalled 31% (7% to insects, 11% to pathogens,
and 13% to weeds). Crop losses to insect pests have nearly
doubled, in spite of a more than tenfold increase in insecticide
use.
David Pimentel, Department of Entomology, Cornell Univ.
from CRC Handbook of Natural Insecticides (1985), Vol 1.
A number of my colleagues in Kansas have pointed out that the Farm
Bureau in that state is notoriously dogged in clinging to its
particular view of agriculture.
It strikes me that if sustainable agriculture ii eliciting such
clearly irrational responses as those of Mr. Avery (or a certain
Texas A&M document forecasting 50-70% drops in production under SA)
then the message is getting out there. We should probably be more
amused than threatened by these obviously rear-guard eruptions.
Bart Hall-Beyer,
Fayetteville, Arkansas