In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night.
Ms. Bendrick,
I have a question about pesticides and organic food. I buy organic both to encourage the right kind of farming and to avoid eating nasty chemicals. I was listening to the Food Chain Radio podcast (MP3) and suffice it to say that this show’s guest expert questioned whether the pesticides organic growers are allowed to use (!) are any better for us than the ones conventional farmers use. He said that Rotenone and others are just as toxic and noxious, and that in the supermarket where you can’t ask the farmer, it’s probably just as well to buy conventional and save the buck.
Where do you stand on this slippery slope?
With best wishes,
More Toxic Than I’d Like to Be
Dear Mr. (or Ms.) More Toxic,
Please, call me Lou. Thanks for the great question. I can see by your use of punctuation (!) that you might be shocked that organic produce isn’t pesticide-free. Pesticides are allowed under USDA organic standards, given that they are from organic (i.e., naturally occurring) substances rather than synthetic (lab-made) ones.
Is industrial organic produce—the stuff from large-scale operations, which some critics say is to small-scale organic as Twinkies is to homemade cupcakes—just as bad as the conventional stuff when it comes to pesticides? Well, that is a slippery question indeed.
In terms of keeping bad stuff out of your food, the USDA’s organic-certification program represents a move in the right direction. But it doesn’t guarantee that your food will be grown or raised using what you call the “right kind of farming,” if what you mean by that is free of toxins.
Ideally, organic farmers control critters without critter-cides: through crop rotations, crop diversity (not planting too much of one thing in one place, so there’s not an endless feast for an insect like, oh, the cabbage looper), and by providing comfy habitat for beneficial insects (read: cultivating flowers amid the crops to attract insect-scarfing insects to sic on plant-scarfing ones).
But for farms of all sizes, in the fog of the growing season and under pressure to pay the bills, the ideal sometimes flees out of reach (as the pesky ideal tends to do in this fallen world). Hence the availability of organic insecticides.
How much of a problem are they, in practice? Before we get deeper into it, there is one thing I can ease your mind about, More Toxic. According to both of the experts I contacted for this article, organic farmers have voluntarily stopped using the nasty (though natural) pesticide you mention, Rotenone.
That’s a good thing. Rotenone is a broad-spectrum insecticide, meaning it kills beneficial insects as well as crop-eating ones. Worse, it can be quite deadly to aquatic life when it seeps into waterways and causes symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease in rats—so you probably wouldn’t want it sprayed on your food.
That said, to get a grip on just how bad the organic-pesticide problem is, I talked to two experts—one a conventional-ag scientist who works at a land-grant university (which get lots of agribiz research dough), the other a sustainable-ag scientist who works at a research group funded partly by Big Organic companies. Here’s what they told me.
Organically groan
Organic growers, if they want to, can use environmentally insensitive organic pesticides irresponsibly, warns Jeff Gillman, an associate professor in the department of horticultural science at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches courses on nursery management and pesticide use. (More Toxic, you may recognize Gillman’s name—he’s the expert from the podcast you listened to).
Gillman said that when he goes to a large grocery store such as Wal-Mart, he chooses conventionally grown stuff over the big organics. To explain why, he used apples as an example. Apples, he says, are a high-maintenance crop prone to pest problems and difficult to control without sprays.
“Most of the time the large organic orchards are going to need to apply organic pesticides,” he says. “These organic pesticides need to be applied more frequently than the synthetics, in most cases.”
The repeated applications of these different organic compounds, contends Gillman, can have a worse environmental impact than synthetic compounds. Note that Gillman’s assessment applies to large orchards. On small, diversified farms, apple pests are much less likely to gain enough of a foothold to cause big problems.
Gillman also believes that some of the organically sanctioned pesticides are just as bad as the synthetic ones in terms of environmental impacts. “Copper Sulfate ... is one that builds up over the years, and you have copper building up in the soil,” he told me. “It’s a bad player and one that you don’t want to see used a whole lot.”
Then there’s Spinosad, which is toxic to bees, those vital pollinators that are already imperiled.
Because my word count is mounting and my editor is frowning at me over the rim of his fair-trade, triple-certified, raw-milk double latte, let me recommend Gillman’s book, The Truth About Organic Gardening for more information, including EIQs (environmental impact quotients) for both synthetic and organic pesticides.
Don’t panic about organic
However, before you turn your back on the organic produce at your supermarket, know that not everyone agrees with Gillman. Charles Benbrook, the chief scientist at the Organic Center, who travels to organic farms throughout the U.S., says that it is unlikely that organic farmers are going to overdo it when it comes to organic pesticides.
One practical reason: organic pesticides are just too expensive to overuse.
“If you’re going to be a commercial organic farmer you may think you can farm like your chemical neighbors with organically acceptable products,” he says. “But you soon find out that that’s a prescription for bankruptcy, in effect, because it just won’t work.”
Moreover, the naturally occurring substances used in organic pesticides are generally much less toxic then the synthetic stuff, Benbrook says. He points to sulfur, which he says is, pound-for-pound, the major pesticide used by both conventional and organic farmers. “It’s also a natural element and it’s really not terribly risky,” he says. “It can cause skin rashes —I’m not saying it is not without risk, but it’s not even in the same ballpark as the conventional fungicides that are applied for the same reasons on certain crops.”
Solid ground
Where am I going to stake my ground on this slippery question? After talking to these experts, I’m more committed than ever to buying sustainable and local produce from growers I can look straight in the eye.
When I can’t buy locally, I will sometimes buy industrial, conventional produce that’s not on the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen List and scrub the heck out of it. Otherwise, I’ll pony up for the certified big organic stuff even though I remain unimpressed by its trucked-in taste, skeptical of its nutritional value (produce starts to lose nutrients as soon as it is harvested), and regretful about its carbon footprint.
Of course, I am particularly cautious because I have young children. Benbrook told me that the science is “very strong” on the ill effects of conventional pesticides on children and women of child-bearing age. Read more about that here.
I hope this helps, and good luck with lessening your toxicity. I hear an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Just make sure it’s the right apple. Or scrub the heck out of it.
I am,
Lou Bendrick
GoodGuide scanner makes healthy food shopping point and click
Ask Umbra’s video advice on composting
Will Africa’s farmland become a ‘resource curse’?
Comments
View as Threaded
Craig Allen Posted 11:32 am
26 Feb 2009
And then there is the more slippery modern common-use definition meaning 'natural'. Many things now marketed as 'organic' are not chemically organic (e.g. organic water).
Natural compounds are not necessarily less toxic than synthetic chemicals. For example compare the toxicity of the (chemically) organic, but natural molecules that make up snake venom to, say, the toxicity of chemically organic, but synthetic saccharine (although admittedly I don't know what saccharine would do to you if you injected it).
All pesticides are by definition poisonous. Every pesticide should be rigorously assessed for it's toxicity on health and the environment, and it's use permitted or restricted on the basis of such tests. If a synthetic pesticide is found to be less harmful than a 'natural-organic' pesticide, then it should be used in preference. To instead use the 'natural-organic' pesticide would be a marketing ploy designed to dupe consumers and in my opinion would be unconscionable.
Permalink
Erik Hoffner Posted 11:47 am
26 Feb 2009
But it made me wonder about selling the stuff at the farmers market, whether these folks knew what was on some of this...few asked.
And this was a 6 or 7 acre certified organic (and diverse) market garden. Imagine what an enormous organic farm may need to use. So caution I think is warranted.
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more
Permalink
Ted Clayton Posted 12:26 pm
26 Feb 2009
Rotenone comes from plants. Tobacco plants too are toxic to insects, and insecticides have been made from the tobacco plant. Tobacco is of the same family as tomato, and potato ... and peppers and eggplant, and of course, Nightshade, their parent-family.
All of these plants contain toxins. We don't eat the greens of any of them: They're poisonous!
There are more mild-mannered preparations that can be used to control insects, especially soft-bodied kinds and insect-eggs. Simple-soap solutions are damaging to soft insects, and oil suffocates eggs. Combinations of soap & oil produce emulsions, which provide both properties.
Emulsions can be given more 'authority', with toxins, and more 'breadth', by including fungicides, especially sulfur compounds.
The key thing to realize is that pesticide can be locally-produced, and can start from a base that can used to bath in, safely. The stock-base solution can then be 'doctored' for special or acute needs. This cuts into the slippery slope of market-driven toxin-products.
The major redeeming thing about plant-poisons (all of which evolved in the natural world, many specifically to mess up insects) is that they typically decay rather quickly and do not become entrained in the food-chain or habitat.
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 1:28 pm
26 Feb 2009
But how do you do all this complicated planting and hand work and remain productive enough to provide affordable food?
You do the predator atractant planting and the careful repellent plant planting and bug removal with ag robots. And then mulch the repellent plants and add them as repellent layers on the soil.
No more extracted "natural" presticides or chemical ones would be necessary. And labor costs would actually drop as planting, cultivating, mulching, fertilizing, watering, and harvesting is done with robotic efficiency, powered by solar electricity.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
Inoculated Mind Posted 3:17 am
27 Feb 2009
I'm interested to know what/who your source is for your statement that organic farmers have stopped using Rotenone?
It would also be good to note that there are maximum allowable residues for conventional pesticides, and to my knowledge there are no maximum allowable residues for 'organic' pesticides.
I think it would also be good to mention newer bio-pesticides (Bt is an older example of that), which are a very promising area of research and development.
Permalink
brian caldwell Posted 5:16 am
27 Feb 2009
I'm glad you point out that organic farmers don't use rotenone.
Sad to see so much space given to Jeff Gillan's views. Of course organic growers have some difficult pest problems to deal with and may have to go beyond cultural approaches like crop rotation. But, to equate the toxicity of organically-approved pesticides as a whole with that of conventional ones defies good sense. Instead of comparing the worst organic pesticides with the least toxic conventional ones, let's compare worst to worst--for instance copper to guthion. Then let's talk.
The EIQ formula that Gillan uses in his book has been rejected by many due to its inherent flaws. Too bad it is being revived. For instance the flaws in this formula cause "Surround", an organic pest repellant made of clay, to appear more toxic than almost any chemical pesticide because more pounds per acre are used. Any rational assessment would welcome the use of this non-toxic material as a pest control.
See Dushoff, J., B. Caldwell and C. L. Mohler. 1994. Evaluating the environmental impact of pesticides: a critique of the environmental impact quotient. American Entomologist 40:180-184.
Make no mistake, conventional produce that you get in the supermarket has been heavily sprayed, and often with products far more toxic than rotenone.
For a real overview of organic pesticides, warts and all, please see
http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/pp/resourceguide/
Best wishes!
Permalink
nereid Posted 8:31 am
27 Feb 2009
Permalink
John former Marine Posted 1:12 am
02 Mar 2009
Il faut cultiver notre jardin.
Permalink