Pesticides // Current

Obama Picks Pesticide Lobbyist For Agri-Trade Rep

The Obama administration has nominated a senior executive from the pesticide... more

The_Global_Report
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9 comments

Sorry Monsanto, You're Wrong: More GE Crops Mean More Pesticides | PEEK | AlterNet

The whole 'green revolution' is a sham being played out on us by Monsanto and our... more

Monkey_Films
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4 days ago
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Biotech crops cause big increase in pesticide use-report

And just how much of it is in your stomach? These companies don't care. The only thing... more

JanforGore
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5 days ago
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8 comments

Pesticide attack in Paraguay

This is what GM soy farming is doing to Paraguay. It is now getting violent.

JanforGore
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5 days ago
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2 comments

10 Cordblood samples yield wide array of toxins

"We all know pollution and toxins are bad for you, but the Environmental Working Group... more

ii386
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12 days ago
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0 comments

Groups and environmentalists protest Obama agriculture trade nominee Siddiqui

JanforGore
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14 days ago
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3 comments

What are the Best Organic Fruits and Veggies?

***Go to the link and click on "Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides" for a list of 47... more

ajrmy
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16 days ago
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1 comment

EPA's Flawed Regulation of GMOs Examined

Industry bias, lax scientific standards, exemption of food crops containing pesticides... more

Deniza_Gertsberg
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1 month ago
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Study Says Organic No Better:

Read the truth here“The review rejected almost all of the existing studies of... more

franksalot
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The epitome of ridiculousness: 7-11 selling bananas that are individually wrapped in plastic

7-Eleven knows one thing that drives customers bananas: brown bananas wilting on the counter next to the cashier.

"Our customers want yellow bananas — not brown," says CEO Joseph DePinto.

So, today, the nation's largest convenience store chain will test at 27 Dallas-area locations a new plastic wrap developed by supplier Fresh Del Monte Produce to keep single bananas yellow and firm for five days — more than double the two-day shelf life for an unwrapped banana.

If it's a success, 7-Eleven could roll out plastic-wrapped bananas to most of its 5,787 stores by early 2010. Fresh Del Monte created the wrap, which slows respiration by keeping most oxygen and moisture out. The bananas, green when wrapped, will ripen more slowly.

For 7-Eleven, which is increasingly dependent on fresh food sales as cigarette sales spiral downward, this is no small matter. The chain will sell more than 27 million bananas this year. Folks who walk in for milk or a banana are critical customers the chain cannot afford to disappoint with fruit that looks like grocery store rejects. Selling yellow — not brown — bananas "is one small example of what we need to do to reinvent ourselves," DePinto says.

The move would give the chain a competitive advantage, says Dean Dirks, a consultant in the $623 billion convenience store industry. "That's why just about everyone in business stays away from fresh fruit at the counter."

Not everyone applauds the effort.

"More plastic packaging is not a sustainable solution" says Jenny Powers, Natural Resources Defense Council spokeswoman. "There are better ways than adding a plastic wrapper around something that comes naturally wrapped in the first place."

7-Eleven recognizes that the wrapper could be an environmental issue and has asked supplier Fresh Del Monte to come up with a wrapper that's biodegradable. "We're working at identifying more sustainable packaging," says Dennis Christou, marketing vice president at Fresh Del Monte.

But extending banana shelf life cuts the carbon footprint by reducing store deliveries, he says.

Fresh Del Monte also is using the technology in new fruit vending machines in the Southeast. "Consumers tell us they'll eat more fruit if it's available."

That's what they're telling the entire convenience industry, Dirks says. "But the problem is, what's healthy in a convenience store?"7-Eleven knows one thing that drives customers bananas: brown bananas wilting on the... more

Chod77
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1 month ago
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2 comments

Going chemical-free in your clothing is getting easier

Your clothes may have a chemical-dependency problem. The cotton in your shirt was... more

julesrs007
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1 month ago
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3 comments

On-the-job pesticide exposure is linked to Parkinson's disease

(NaturalNews) According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Parkinson's disease (PD) belongs to a group of conditions called motor system disorders which are the result of the loss of brain cells that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine. That's the critical key in the development of PD because dopamine's many functions in the brain include voluntary movement, cognition, learning, sleep, mood and more. So when PD strikes, it means dopamine in the body is disrupted and tremor, trembling, muscle rigidity, slowness of movement, sleep disruptions, dementia and a host of other problems can develop over time.

But what causes PD to strike in the first place? What happens to those dopamine producing brain cells that causes this cascade of symptoms? For most cases, doctors usually just say it is idiopathic -- meaning no one knows. But a growing body of research has accumulated over the past year that points to a particular class of toxins that seem to be behind at least a significant portion of Parkinson's disease suffering. The culprit? Pesticides.

Parkinson's disease and pesticides
Now comes yet another study showing an association between PD and pesticides. This one, just published in the Archives of Neurology, shows people whose occupations put them in contact with pesticides appear to have a dramatically increased risk of Parkinson's. It had some surprises -- occupations involving agriculture, education, health care, or welding were not associated with an increased risk of PD in this study but ever working in business and finance, legal occupations, construction or transportation and material moving was especially associated with a subtype of PD marked by gait disturbances.

Dr. Caroline M. Tanner of the Parkinson's Institute in Sunnyvale, California, and her research team studied 519 people suffering from with PD along with 511 controls who were the same age and sex and lived in the same location. The research subjects were questioned about their work history and exposure to toxic chemicals, including solvents and pesticides. The results showed that among people with Parkinson's disease, occupational pesticide exposure was associated with a significantly increased risk of the disease. Forty-four (8.5 percent) PD patients reported pesticide exposure on the job compared to 27 (5.3 percent) of the people in the control group.

The researchers point out in their study that while there is growing evidence suggesting a cause and effect association between pesticide use and PD, the term "pesticide" is broad and includes many chemicals and mechanisms of use. "Because few investigations have identified specific pesticides, we studied eight pesticides with high neurotoxic plausibility based on laboratory findings. Use of these pesticides was associated with higher risk of parkinsonism, more than double that in those not exposed," the scientists wrote. They found three specific, individual compounds that tripled the risk of PD: an organochloride (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid), an herbicide (paraquat) and an insecticide (permethrin). What's more, all three of these chemicals have already been shown in previous laboratory research to impact the dopamine producing brain cells that are affected by Parkinson's disease.

"This convergence of epidemiologic and laboratory data from experimental models of Parkinson's disease lends credence to a causative role of certain pesticides in the neurodegenerative process," the authors conclude. "Other pesticide exposures such as hobby gardening, residential exposure, wearing treated garments or dietary intake were not assessed. Because these exposures may affect many more subjects, future attention is warranted."

As previously covered by NaturalNews, another study earlier this year found the pesticide B-hexachlorocyclohexane (B-HCH) also appears to be a strong trigger for PD(http://www.naturalnews.com/026842_d...). In addition, a University of California at Los Angeles cont(NaturalNews) According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and... more

mae37
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Action alert: Save the bees!

A new documentary seeks to unravel the mystery of why billions of honey bees have been... more

JanforGore
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1 month ago
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10 comments

Documentary: As We Sow /And On This Farm

As farmers leave the land in record numbers, agribusiness and the associated... more

JanforGore
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1 month ago
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Gene mutation and food

Dr M.S. Swaminathan, considered the Father of the Green Revolution in India, finally stated his views on genetically-modified (GM) crops in an opinion piece published on August 26, 2009, in this newspaper. GM crops are produced by inserting foreign genes, mostly non-plant genes (bacterial, viral and animal genes) for obtaining hitherto non-existent, new characteristics in a crop. For instance, the Bt class of GM crops like Bt cotton and Bt brinjal, have been engineered at the genetic level by the insertion of a bacterial gene so that the plant produces its own poison against chosen pests that feed on the crop.

Dr Swaminathan, who headed a task force on agri-biotechnology which gave its report in 2004 to the ministry of agriculture, began his report by reiterating what many of us believe: That "if agriculture goes wrong, nothing else will have a chance to go right". The report emphasises that the bottomline with regard to any policy on agri-biotechnology is "the safety of the environment, the well-being of farming families, the ecological and economic sustainability of farming systems, the health and nutrition security of consumers, safeguarding of home and external trade and the bio-security of our nation".

After presenting such a comprehensive requirement around any policy-making on GM crops in that report, it was surprising to see this recent article hype up the so-called benefits of GM crops and play down valid concerns.

Let me begin with some fundamental issues that Dr Swaminathan did not touch upon:

l Genetic modification by insertion of new genes is now known to cause mutations all along the genome of an organism and at the site of insertion.

l We have not yet understood the full complexity of the genomic regulation in an organism and, therefore, the changes brought about by genetic modification are unknown and also unpredictable. This is where the primary concern about this technology stems from — scientific evidence exists to show that the changes made are unsafe from an environmental and human health perspective. A fundamental flaw in Dr Swaminathan’s article was to make it appear that what is inherently unsafe can be made safe through regulation!

At another level, Dr Swaminathan talks about various GM crops and their benefits — it is interesting to note that except for the insect-resistance trait that he expands upon, none of the other crops actually exist! In reality, two kinds of GM crops exist — those that produce a pesticide from within the plant, like Bt cotton and Bt brinjal (sought to be introduced in India for the first time in the world, developed mostly by American agencies), and those that assimilate application of more pesticides and confer herbicide-tolerance characteristic to a crop. In fact, herbicide tolerance is the trait in nearly 81 per cent of the GM crop cultivation in the world today. Dr Swaminathan’s report talks about how this should be of low priority given the large number of agricultural labourers in various regions of the country. Today, several field trials of GM crops in India are centered around this trait — does it make sense to destroy existing opportunities of employment in agriculture and then create more and more budgets for National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) kind of programmes?

Coming to crops like Bt cotton and Bt brinjal, where pesticide is now inside the plant, the central question is why such solutions are needed when safer ways of pest management are known and practiced. Within the National Agricultural Research System (NARS), from where recommendations to be carried to farmers about various desirable practices emerge, there are numerous examples of successful non-chemical pest management practices. In addition, hundreds of farmers practicing organic/ecological farming have their own successful experiences and innovations to share about non-chemical pest management.

more at the link.Dr M.S. Swaminathan, considered the Father of the Green Revolution in India, finally... more

JanforGore
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1 month ago
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20 comments

Natural hormone enables plants to rid themselves of pesticide residues

Scientists in China have discovered that a natural plant hormone, applied to crops,... more

JanforGore
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1 month ago
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1 comment

EPA Seeks to Disclose Hazardous Pesticide Inert Ingredients

A few excerpts: "The Environmental Protection Agency is moving forward with a plan to... more

lookatmypix
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1 month ago
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2 comments

Call for research into pesticides implicated in deaths of honeybees: Video

Campaigners today called on the government to commission research into pesticides that... more

bansheewail
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1 month ago
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5 comments

New film blames drug firm for plight of honey bees

"It's a question that has baffled the worlds of agriculture and science – what is it... more

lookatmypix
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1 month ago
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3 comments

Industrial agriculture and the organic alternative: Rachel Carson's contribution

Carson complimented her federal service with an increasingly well received career as a freelance writer on marine ecology capped by the phenomenal response to her 1951 book The Sea Around Us. The work earned the National Book award, remained on the New York Times best seller list for 86 weeks and was eventually translated into thirty languages. Financially stable for the first time, Carson relocated to her beloved Maine coast and dedicated herself to communicating not just her wonder at the natural world but also her concern that humans were increasingly jeopardizing its survival. Along with an extended network of ecologists, conservationists and epidemiologists, Carson grew alarmed that the widespread and largely indiscriminate application of persistent synthetic pesticides threatened to fray and soon sever the interconnected web of life on Earth.

As we all know, Carson’s undertaking produced the crowning achievement of her career – Silent Spring, published in 1962. In contrast to the lyrically descriptive prose with which she had written about sea life, Silent Spring was a data intensive, densely footnoted work constituting the most comprehensive cost/benefit analysis yet conducted on a host of recently introduced synthetic pesticides. Many a budding environmentalist turning to the book for inspiration has put it down soon after completing the evocative introduction – “And No Bird Sang” – that led to the title. Carson advanced the most scientifically rigorous and technically detailed case possible because she correctly anticipated that challenging the new synthetic status quo would elicit a withering rebuke from powerful and deep pocketed interests. That criticism persists to this day and it is possible with contemporary analytical tools to poke holes in some of Carson’s assertions, though her fundamental conclusions are tragically all too accurate. Of greater significance than the fine print behind the science in Silent Spring is the spirit within its vision that launched both the mass organic movement and the sweeping environmental consciousness of the 1960s.

Like the great naturalists John Muir and Aldo Leopold before her, Carson popularized the understanding that human beings are an intrinsic part of the natural world which they could neither dominate nor control. And like those geniuses, Carson warned that extremely adverse consequences would result from ignoring this principle of universal reciprocity. Specifically, she documented that the new generation of synthetic pesticides such as DDT, dieldrin and heptachlor persisted long after their application and accumulated in the fat tissue of organisms exposed to them. The movement of these toxins through the food chain resulted in their concentration in longer-lived species and posed severe if unpredictable health risks. Carson was deeply disturbed that citizens were kept ignorant of these risks with comforting assurances that powerful technologies in the hands of responsible authorities would necessarily contribute to progress. Rather than advocating the prohibition of synthetic pesticides, she argued for a more realistic appraisal of the costs and benefits of specific applications and for an accelerated effort to study and employ alternative, environmentally friendly, systems-based, biological controls for pest problems.

The massive public attention that Silent Spring received became an extraordinary catalyst for Americans to reject the industrial agricultural model and seek out – and grow, if necessary – chemical-free food. Within a few years, J.I. Rodale’s Organic Gardening magazine had several million subscribers and spurred the back-to-the-land youth movement from which many pioneering organic farmers emerged. Carson’s powerful message had clear connections to Howard’s organic paradigm: Nature, not mankind is in charge, and everything is connected to everything else, in a closed system.

end of excerpt.Carson complimented her federal service with an increasingly well received career as a... more

JanforGore
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1 month ago
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1 comment

tagged w/ Pesticides

Obama Picks Pesticide Lobbyist For Agri-Trade Rep

Sorry Monsanto, You're Wrong: More GE Crops Mean More Pesticides | PEEK | AlterNet

Biotech crops cause big increase in pesticide use-report

Pesticide attack in Paraguay

10 Cordblood samples yield wide array of toxins

Groups and environmentalists protest Obama agriculture trade nominee Siddiqui

What are the Best Organic Fruits and Veggies?

EPA's Flawed Regulation of GMOs Examined

Study Says Organic No Better:

The epitome of ridiculousness: 7-11 selling bananas that are individually wrapped in plastic

Going chemical-free in your clothing is getting easier

On-the-job pesticide exposure is linked to Parkinson's disease

Action alert: Save the bees!

Documentary: As We Sow /And On This Farm

Gene mutation and food

Natural hormone enables plants to rid themselves of pesticide residues

EPA Seeks to Disclose Hazardous Pesticide Inert Ingredients

Call for research into pesticides implicated in deaths of honeybees: Video

New film blames drug firm for plight of honey bees

Industrial agriculture and the organic alternative: Rachel Carson's contribution

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