Organic Farming's Pesticide Problem

Philosophy and emotion have their place in our society, but it is dangerous to use deductive reasoning and feelings as the means of assessing something as complex as the sustainability of our agricultural system. People who narrowly define agricultural sustainability as "Slow, Local & Organic," often do so because they believe that these structures or means are superior without knowing the full scientific story.

Take the issue of pesticides . . . for a majority of the public, "organic" likely means "no pesticide was used" in their minds, but this is not the case. Life, and chemistry, is a bit more complicated than that.

Many organic crops use pesticides; some are quite toxic and their use can have more negative environmental impacts than some synthetic ones. The only thing that makes an “organic” product different than a conventionally grown crop, pesticide-wise, is a conceptual bright-line drawn between chemicals that were synthesized by a non-human organism versus ones made by mankind.

The problem with this bright-line is that when an agricultural chemical is made by people for human use, you can be pretty confident that the people making it have peoples’ interests in mind. When it is made by a different species, you can be pretty sure those things are not a priority at the time they were synthesized.

Now, I’m not trying to say that all organically produced crops have more or more dangerous pesticides in them. Blueberries, for instance, are now notorious for absorbing at least some pesticides -- but blueberries that are raised “wild” like lowbush varieties in Maine use virtually no pesticides. In cases like this, if you are worried about pesticides, buying Organic may make sense.

In many other cases, it does not.

Not yet at least. This is because of that conceptual bright-line mentioned above. Instead of organic growers asking Is this chemical more dangerous to humans? And does this chemical persist in the environment? -- they are asking first Was this chemical made by man, or by “nature?”

This is a philosophical and unscientific distinction.

In fact, it is a vestige of a materialistic vitalism wherein al-chemists believed that certain chemicals contained “vital force” that could not be synthesized by chemists. Oddly, the area of chemistry called “organic chemistry” also gets its name from these beliefs, and the name has stuck even well after scientists have discovered that one could synthesize these chemicals (one of the first of these was, coincidently, the fertilizer urea which is non-toxic and identical no matter where it comes from), and that many “organic” chemicals are in fact anything but life-bringing. (Such as VOC’s, Volatile Organic Compounds, the things that give you a headache when you paint a room.) So, while people have a mysterious “vital spark” that makes them live, chemicals do not, and chemists today consider the “organic” designation rather arbitrary, since they know they can synthesize any “organic” chemical from “inorganic” precursors.

Now, indeed, there are certainly things to fear about a world that is unregulated and ignorant of the dangers of chemicals. Up until the 1950s, arsenic (!) was the most widely used pesticide in the United States. Oh, it killed bugs all right!

And, don’t worry, it’s not man-made, it occurs naturally.

But the fact that arsenic is both persistent and also deadly to mammals eventually made it cede the ground to DDT when it gained in popularity in the 1950s due to the fact that DDT was much less toxic to humans than arsenic. In fact, Paul Hermann Mueller received a Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering how effectively DDT kills bugs; it was well-earned.

Not that I’m suggesting DDT is the safest choice. It has negative effects on humans and animals as it bioaccumulates. But for the time, it was a giant step forward.

Today’s pesticides are, according to the EPA, safe in the levels we ingest them, no matter whether it is an inspected crop from agribusiness or from a small organic farm. That is, if they fall under the same regulations, which small organic farmers have resisted falling under.

Why is this? Why should we assume that organic farmers that use Rotenone, a substance first used by South American Indians to paralyze fish to make them float to the surface -- and also a substance that a study showed small amounts caused Parkinson’s disease in rodents, are bringing a safer product to market? A more “natural” product, perhaps, to a tinieth degree, and most likely a safe one, but probably not a safer one.

And I care why? Because the organically grown one is a more expensive product, and people have a history of being fooled by deceptive marketing. If American consumers are spending more for products that are safer and better for the environment then I want those products to be safer and better for the environment.

See, meanwhile, many people are making the claim that "industrial ag" as they call it, is spewing chemicals and fertilizer all over the place. Bad Chemicals. Perhaps the most toxic they can find. The technological advances that they are sure are beneficial on a college campus are somehow a bad thing in the fields. Improving just about anything is just fine except when it comes to the chemicals we use to deal with life, these people are saying in effect.

Of course, the farmer is not their chosen villain in this story; it’s the dastardly chemical and fertilizer companies who have tricked the unwitting farmer into paying for these wasteful, unnecessary and environmentally damaging inputs. This belief forms the underpinning for why buying organic and local is so beneficial in their minds. Were these people all mere counterculturists of some kind, the effect of this ignorance would be limited. Unfortunately, many of these people are very competent in their chosen fields, mostly outside of farming and the hard sciences. Worse, sometimes they are even scientists and professors who are teaching our future leaders. This has a big impact on the world-view in our cities.

A chemist knows that chemicals produced inside living things do not have a soul or a halo of health about them that synthetic chemicals do not have. Chemicals are often dangerous. Period. A plant does not care if a chemical it produces is toxic to humans (or, it might even be pleased…) nor does it want the chemical to break down quickly. The truth that any microbiologist knows is that the most dangerous toxins known are produced by these natural, organic “chemists”; nothing is more toxic, by weight, than the toxins that cause tetanus or botulism, and both are made naturally within organisms.

In fact, the top ten most toxic chemicals are all made organically by organisms; ricin is made by a bean, others are made by coral, fungi and fish. But a human chemist wants something highly effective AND highly safe, since he is competing with all the other plant and human chemists who came before him.

The result of ignoring this basic science is a class of farmers who get a sort of “free pass” (organic farmers) regarding the environmental impacts of their pesticide use (because the chemicals they use, while toxic to a degree, are “natural”), and another class who are encumbered only by efficacy, safety and environmental impacts, not by ideology. So in effect proponents of organic farming are asking that farmers use “accidental” chemicals that can be less effective, used in larger quantities and have greater impacts on the environment and human health. We don’t restrict ourselves to “accidental” organic medicines, like penicillin; if a chemist comes up with a more specific or more effective antibiotic, we say “bravo!”

There are studies out there that illustrate these very points. Here’s one that shows that many more applications of a cocktail of organic pesticides must be made to achieve the effect of just one application of a low-impact synthetic pesticide:

And here, a study showing that some organic pesticides not only don’t work as well, but also had greater environmental impacts when compared with some synthetic pesticides:

Another issue proponents of local agriculture in particular fail to consider is an entirely different kind of toxin. A toxin that is rather unacknowledged but is especially relevant to the “local” part of the SLO (small, local, organic) movement, because “local” usually means “near urban centers” since that is where we find big markets for food.

This “stealth” toxin is lead. Urban garden plots are often full of it. When Michelle Obama planted her garden outside the White House, things got off to a slow start because someone had the foresight to check for lead. There were elevated levels --nothing too scary -- but still over the legal limit in the Netherlands. This is sometimes a far more dangerous problem for local gardeners whose urban plots have lead levels damaging to small children.

Lest you think differently, I am all for the evolution of conventional agriculture to move more towards “working with nature,” which they often are already doing. Absolutely. I think all farmers look forward to continuing to learn and adjust towards this goal in the coming years. I just want this process to be real progress, and not just some brand of reheated mysticism.

Ultimately, the point here is the same resounding point I usually try to drive home: it is about finding a balanced approach, not a short-cut (like only buying organic) that assumes one system is always inherently better than another without the facts to back up that belief.

In terms of the sustainability issue, if we are looking for ways that enable us to feed the world with the least impact on the planet, why would we take highly scientific, targeted chemical tools off the table in favor of accidental "natural" options that may cause more damage? Is that really sustainable?