sri lanka
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VOX NO LNX
Sri Lanka’s economy is in free fall. Runaway inflation reached 54.6 percent last month, and the South Asian country is now headed toward bankruptcy. Nine in 10 Sri Lankan families are skipping meals, and many are standing in line for days in the hope of acquiring fuel.
The dire situation culminated last weekend in an uprising in which an estimated 300,000 protesters took over President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s home and offices and set fire to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s home. Rajapaksa resigned after fleeing the country, leaving Wickremesinghe as interim president.
There’s no singular cause for the crisis, which had been building for years due to political corruption and right-wing authoritarian politics that weakened democracy. In April 2019, the crisis accelerated after suicide bombings at churches hurt the island nation’s critical tourism industry, which weakened its currency and made it more difficult for the government to import essential goods.
At the end of 2019, tax cuts slashed government revenue, while in 2020 the Covid-19 pandemic further decimated the tourism industry, with skyrocketing inflation pouring more fuel on the fire.
Pandemic aside, that’s not an atypical set of conditions for the collapse of a developing country like Sri Lanka. But in the spring of 2021, President Rajapaksa made an unusual decision: He banned synthetic fertilizer and pesticide imports practically overnight, forcing Sri Lanka’s millions of farmers to go organic. It proved disastrous, as a group of Sri Lankan scientists and agriculture experts had warned.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa standing behind a United Nations podium.
According to one estimate, the president’s agrochemical ban was poised to save Sri Lanka the $400 million it was spending yearly on synthetic fertilizer, money it could use toward increasing imports of other goods. But Rajapaksa also argued that chemical fertilizers and pesticides were leading to “adverse health and environmental impacts” and that such industrial farming methods went against the country’s heritage of “sustainable food systems.”
“There is a section of the Sri Lankan NGO society and civil society, which has been arguing for the spread of organic farming in Sri Lanka for quite a while. ... This has also been actively supported by many international groups,” R. Ramakumar, an agricultural economist at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in India, told me.
Instead of fixing the crisis, however, the move only worsened it.
“The organic policy was implemented to sort of ameliorate an ongoing crisis … ironically, what it did was that it ended up exacerbating the crisis,” Ramakumar said.
The agrochemical ban caused rice production to drop 20 percent in the six months after it was implemented, causing a country that had been self-sufficient in rice production to spend $450 million on rice imports — much more than the $400 million that would’ve been saved by banning fertilizer imports.
The production of tea, Sri Lanka’s literal cash crop — it’s the country’s biggest export — fell by 18 percent. The government has had to spend hundreds of millions on subsidies and compensation to farmers in an effort to make up for the loss of productivity.
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While agrochemicals cause a host of environmental and public health problems, which in part inspired the ban, they also help farmers grow more food on less land, which is critical for small, developing countries like Sri Lanka that rely on agriculture for both sustenance and export income. Moving away from an agrochemical-heavy food system makes sense in a lot of ways, but the Sri Lanka example underscores the importance of being mindful of the economic, political, and social context of any reform.
Around five months into the ban, farmers were allowed to begin using synthetic fertilizers on tea and a few other crops while keeping the ban in place for others, but by that point, much of the damage was done.
The blinkered organic rollout accelerated an economic crisis long in motion, but it also crystallized the stakes of the debate over conventional versus organic farming, demonstrating just how critical high-yield crops are in economies still based largely on agriculture.
Sri Lanka, which only recently emerged from a catastrophic civil war, had been a bright spot in international development: In 2000, 17 percent of Sri Lankans were undernourished and by 2019, that figure fell dramatically to 7 percent, lifting around 2 million people out of hunger. The economic crisis that has now reached a boiling point, caused in part by the organic farming disaster, will horrifically, and ironically, undo some of that progress.
Agriculture is all about trade-offs
Synthetic fertilizer makes crops grow faster and bigger than organic fertilizer, such as animal manure, and pesticides control insect infestations and diseases that can destroy crops. Experts say the widespread adoption of the two agricultural inputs since the mid-20th century, known as the Green Revolution, helped lift countries like Sri Lanka out of grinding poverty.
“Sri Lanka started subsidizing fertilizers in the 1960s and we saw that rice yields tripled,” says Saloni Shah, a food and agriculture analyst at the Breakthrough Institute, a US-based environmental nonprofit that advocates for technological solutions. “[Sri Lanka] became self-sufficient in rice ... that’s huge for all Asian countries, from the food security standpoint.”
That resulted in much of the labor force moving out of agriculture and into higher-paying jobs, Shah says, a story that played out across the globe over the past 60 years. But the expansion of conventional agriculture hasn’t been without steep costs; agrochemical use is also rife with serious environmental and public health problems.
Pesticide exposure is linked to a range of health issues, including respiratory and central nervous system symptoms, and around 1 in every 8 suicides worldwide is done by ingesting pesticides, with especially high rates in South Asia.
When synthetic fertilizer and pesticides leach into waterways, they can kill off wildlife and poison drinking water sources, and their production and application emit high amounts of greenhouse gases and degrade soil.
Many organic agriculture advocates also argue that low-income countries’ reliance on imported chemicals from high-income countries strips them of their own food security and makes them vulnerable to the kind of agrochemical price hikes that Sri Lanka experienced. A majority of Sri Lankan farmers supported an organic transition, but wanted more than one year to do so — and they needed more support than they were given to switch to organic.
In 2008, Indian farmers from the Farmers Heritage Movement show a canister to be used with natural fertilizer in the village of Chaina. Pedro Ugarte/AFP via Getty Images
As horrible as the effects of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are, they have to be weighed against the consequences brought to bear by crop yield loss: hunger, decreased export income, increased deforestation, and, if banned outright, as Sri Lanka has shown, political crisis. But there are ways to minimize the effects of agrochemicals without abandoning them altogether.
Minimizing the harms of industrial agriculture
The US-based environmental nonprofit World Resources Institute (WRI) says that it’s not enough to just maintain current yields — governments around the world need to increase yields per acre to feed 10 billion people by 2050, lest farmers be forced to clear more and more land to make up for lower yields, with massive environmental effects.
Meeting that inevitable demand — while also minimizing the environmental and public health issues brought about by agrochemicals while continuing to increase crop yields — is tricky but possible. Shah, the food and agriculture analyst, says a more sustainable approach requires making crops higher-yield through breeding, making nitrogen fertilizers more efficient, and instituting “precision farming” technologies, like drones and sensors, to more accurately analyze where fertilizer is being over- or under-applied.
A 10-year study in China, in which 21 million farmers were trained on how to better manage soil, water, and fertilizer, shows the progress that can be made. The program resulted in an 11 percent yield increase for maize, wheat, and rice, and a 15-18 percent reduction in nitrogen fertilizer use.
Practices popular among organic agriculture proponents would also help, like employing cover cropping, double cropping, adding organic fertilizer along with chemical fertilizer on fields, and planting trees and shrubs on farms, known as agroforestry.
“I think that in the Western world, we can get lost in the organic/conventional debate,” Shah said. “Agriculture is the backbone of economic development — for livelihoods, for food security. … It should be less so about ideology and which one is better, but more so what combination of technologies, practices, and market conditions will be helpful to spur development and to empower farmers.”
But implementing any of these practices in the near future won’t be possible in Sri Lanka, given that they’d all require money the government doesn’t have.
“It seems like it’ll be a long road to recovery,” Shah added. “It’ll depend on what type of financial aid package they’re able to negotiate with the [International Monetary Fund]. And if they’re able to reduce some of the debt burdens.”
“I’m speculating now at this point,” Ramakumar, the agricultural economist, said, “but if they follow the voice of science and reason, then it is not an irretrievable situation ... But it depends on who comes to rule Sri Lanka and what policies they adopt.”
In time, Sri Lanka may get some relief from the tension of its agricultural trade-offs. According to the economic theory of the Environmental Kuznets Curve, once countries reach a certain level of per capita income, economic growth and environmental pollution can decouple as the country can afford to implement stronger environmental regulations and practices without sacrificing economic growth, like crop yields.
Decoupling the two is far from guaranteed, but some countries have achieved it. As Sri Lanka gets richer, it’ll be more able to prioritize the environment and public health without millions going hungry, but the current crisis — made worse by the sudden, hastily executed organic transition — has made that day farther away.
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Sri Lanka's organic farming disaster, explained - Vox
Jul 15, 2022The agrochemical ban caused rice production to drop 20 percent in the six months after it was implemented, causing a country that had been self-sufficient in rice production to spend $450 million...
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https://foreignpolicy.com › 2022 › 03 › 05 › sri-lanka-organic-farming-crisis}:
In Sri Lanka, Organic Farming Went Catastrophically Wrong - Foreign Policy
Mar 5, 2022In Sri Lanka, Organic Farming Went Catastrophically Wrong A nationwide experiment is abandoned after producing only misery. March 5, 2022, 7:00 AM By Ted Nordhaus, the executive director of the...
https://time.com › 6196570 › sri-lanka-crisis-organic-farming
The Crisis in Sri Lanka Rekindles Debate Over Organic Farming - TIME
Jul 13, 2022Eranga Jayawardena/AP More than two million farmers, or around 27% of the national labor force, were left scrambling for natural fertilizers. The government failed to increase domestic production...
https://www.greenpeace.org › aotearoa › story › on-sri-lankas-fertiliser-ban
Sri Lanka’s fertiliser ban and why New Zealand can phase out ...
Intensive dairy farming is only possible due to massive quantities of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser. Greenpeace is calling for a ban on synthetic nitrogen fertiliser. It sounds radical, and it is, but it's also possible, and it would be a win-win for people and planet.
Sri Lanka rows back on chemical fertiliser ban, but yields may not ...
COLOMBO, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka rowed back on its goal to become the first country to fully adopt organic farming on Wednesday by removing the ban on the use and importation of chemical...
https://www.nytimes.com › 2021 › 12 › 07 › world › asia › sri-lanka-organic-farming-fertilizer.html
Sri Lanka's Plunge Into Organic Farming Brings Disaster
Dec 7, 2021Late last month, Sri Lanka's plantation minister, Ramesh Pathirana, confirmed a partial reversal of the policy, telling the country's Parliament that the government would be importing...
'It will be hard to find a farmer left': Sri Lanka reels from rash ...
Apr 20, 2022Yet for many of those who have farmed this land since the 1960s, mainly with rice and banana crops, the past year has been the toughest of their lives. "If things go on like this, in the future it...
](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=SRI%20LANKA%20NITROGEN%20FARM+site:sanh.inms.international&atb=v353-1)https://sanh.inms.international › sites › default › files › 2022-06 › national_n_policy_report_summary_sri_lanka_final.pdf}:
PDF Sri Lanka Nitrogen Policy Report Summary
Sri Lanka Nitrogen Policy Report Summary: This summary provides an overview of the full UKRI GCRF SANH policy report for Sri Lanka (2022). This report is the first of its kind providing a necessary step to understanding the current nitrogen policy landscape for Sri Lanka within the broader South Asian context.
(PDF) Sri Lanka Status Report on Sustainable Nitrogen Management
Use of nitrogen as a plant nutrient in Sri Lanka during the period 2002-2017 65 The annual average levels of NO2 in year 2018 72 Nitrous oxide emissions in Sri Lanka 78
Colombo Declaration calls for tackling global nitrogen challenge - UNEP
Pixabay. Spearheaded by Sri Lanka, United Nations member states endorsed a proposed roadmap for action on nitrogen challenges called the Colombo Declaration on Sustainable Nitrogen Management. Colombo, 24 October 2019 - At a time when the world grapples with the menace of air pollution killing 7 million people prematurely every year, Sri ...
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https://gmwatch.org/en/news/latest-news/18757-aaas-reassessing-award-to-public-interest-scientists
press release announcing award to Sri Lankan researchers is suppressed
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) says it's "reassessing" its previous decision to give the 2019 Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility to two Sri Lankan scientists who uncovered an association between glyphosate herbicide exposure and chronic kidney disease in farmers in areas with hard water.
In a series of peer-reviewed papers, Drs Sarath Gunatilake and Channa Jayasumana presented their hypothesis that glyphosate, marketed mostly by Monsanto as Roundup, was transporting arsenic, cadmium and other heavy metals to the kidneys of those drinking contaminated water, causing chronic kidney disease.
Just a few days ago, on 4 February, the AAAS announced it was giving the award to Drs Gunatilake and Jayasumana, whom it characterised as "Two public health researchers who battled powerful corporate interests to uncover the deadly effects of industrial herbicides, solving a medical mystery and protecting the health of farming communities across the world".
The AAAS press release continued, "Drs. Sarath Gunatilake and Channa Jayasumana faced death threats and claims of research misconduct while working to determine the cause of a kidney disease epidemic that has claimed tens of thousands of lives in their home country of Sri Lanka and around the world. Ultimately, their advocacy led to the culprit, a herbicide called glyphosate, being banned in several affected countries."
In a strange reversal, by 6 February, the AAAS had removed its press release from the Internet – but not before GMWatch republished it. You can read it here.
In response to a Twitter storm from defenders and foes of glyphosate, the AAAS tweeted, "We are taking steps to reassess the 2019 Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, after concerns were voiced by scientists and members. This award will not be presented next week as originally planned while we further evaluate the award selection."
Who exactly were the people who voiced these "concerns"? We know who one of them was: Kevin Folta, the University of Florida promoter of GMOs and pesticides, and a member of the AAAS. On 5 FebruaryFolta wrote a blog post which was republished on the website of the Genetic Literacy Project, under the heading, AAAS fumble? Prestigious scientists’ organization endorses ‘data-less’ study suggesting links between glyphosate and kidney disease in Sri Lanka.
Citing the Sri Lankan authors' first paper, Folta wrote, "The paper presented a hypothesis. There were no data. There were no experiments. It was a semi-well-crafted hypothesis that could be tested."
However, Folta's claim that there are "no data" in the paper is false.There are plenty of data in this and the authors' follow-up papers – from epidemiological and case-control studies, as well as geographical surveys – that support the idea that glyphosate herbicides should be withdrawn from use as a precautionary measure until they can be proven safe.
Are these data conclusive? No. They point to an association. It's true that the link between glyphosate exposure and chronic kidney disease will always remain a "hypothesis" until it is proven in controlled long-term animal feeding studies. Such studies would count as the "experiments" that Folta complains haven't been done. The truth is that they are unlikely to be done, due to the massive expense and the unwillingness of industry and governments to fund studies that could show that they were responsible for exposing people to poisons over many years.
Drs Sarath Gunatilake and Channa Jayasumana, asFolta admits, have in no way overstated their case. They are conservative and careful in forming their conclusions.
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The AAAS's press release likely overstated things in calling glyphosate herbicides "deadly" and "lethal", as such words tend to imply acute toxicants that kill with immediate effect. It would be more accurate to call them slow poisons, though there is little doubt that the end result of exposures can be "deadly".}:
But a less than ideal choice of words on the part of the author of a press release is an argument for modifying the press release, not reconsidering an award given to honest public interest researchers, particularly ones who have already been the victims of industry-linked intimidation.
And in the case of this particular award, the conclusiveness of the researchers' findings on glyphosate is irrelevant. As Prof Jack Heinemann of the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, said on Twitter, "Whether or not the link between glyphosate (or formulation) and kidney disease is right misses the point. A scientific freedom award is given for persecution. If you only give it for proven science, it would be delayed decades and it would only benefit those who persecute."
Folta's record
Now let's look at the record of their accuser. Kevin Folta took a $25,000 grant from Monsanto to promote GMOs and took steps to avoid disclosing it to the public, while all the time falsely telling the public that he had "nothing to do with Monsanto".
Folta has allowedan agrochemical industry PR firm to ghostwrite for him, but then denied it.The PR firm ghostwrote answers to questions on GMOs, which were then published on the industry's public relations website, GMO Answers, under Folta's name.
He had to stand down as Chair of his university department after his then wife accused him of violent abuse. She also accused him of taking money forconsulting for Bayer.He was deserted by several of his former close associates after that turned out to be true. He has also publicly defended drunk driving and published advice on how to get away with it.
Finally, although Folta has no known medical or toxicology background, he regularly pontificates on food and chemical safety as if he were an expert, often inaccurately. And in his defence of Monsanto's glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup, Folta has not only made a series of false claims,but irresponsibly, has even drunk it publicly, supposedly to demonstrate its "harmlessness”.
The AAAS's record
Let's hope the AAAS stands up to the likes of Folta – and stands by its decision to honour the Sri Lankan scientists, who have endured too much victimisation already for their brave work.
The AAAS has a mixed record when it comes to public interest issues. In 2013 the AAAS's board of directors issued a statement opposing the labelling of GM foods in the US. The statement argued that such labelling “can only serve to mislead and falsely alarm consumers”. The AAAS was at the time chaired by Nina Fedoroff, who has close ties to the GMO industry.
But in an incident that showed that the AAAS is not monolithic but contains scientists who do not toe the GMO lobby's line, a group of scientists and physicians that included many long-standing AAAS members condemned the AAAS board of directors’ statement as “an Orwellian argument that violates the right of consumers to make informed decisions”. They pointed to evidence showing that Roundup, the herbicide used on most GM crops, could pose risks that consumers might reasonably want to avoid.
Sadly, the AAAS board seems more likely than its membership to have the power to decide on the fate of the award that was to be given to the Sri Lankan scientists. Whatever they decide, the row kicked up by the antics of the likes of Folta has served to bring the risks of glyphosate herbicides to the notice of a wider public.
If the AAAS does decide to withdraw its award to the Sri Lankan scientists, that will send a clear message to the public about the suppression of science. Ironically, of course, it was the now-suppressed AAAS press release which noted that jeopardizing the profits of the glyphosate industry has come with serious “consequences” for Drs Gunatilake and Jayasumana.
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/us-corporations-a-driving-force-behind-unprecedented-wave-of-global-land-privatization-report/
a study released Tuesday by the Oakland Institute details an “unprecedented wave of privatization of natural resources that is underway around the world”—one that is largely being driven by the United States and its allies.
According to the progressive think tank’s report (pdf), “Driving Dispossession: The Global Push to Unlock the Economic Potential of Land,” governments around the world—particularly in developing countries—are often put under pressure by financial institutions and Western agencies to open up land for so-called “productive use” by miners, agribusiness interests, and other corporate entities intent on exploiting natural resources for profit.
The U.S. in particular, the report says, is a “key player in an unfettered offensive to privatize land around the world.”
With deforestation and fossil fuel extraction helping to fuel the climate crisis, governments are being pushed in a direction that’s “just the opposite of the drastic shift we need to win the struggle against climate change,” Frederic Mousseau, policy director of the Oakland Institute and lead author of the report, said in a statement.
“Most of the land on our planet, especially in the Global South, is public land or land held under customary tenure systems [and] is seen as an obstacle to exploitation and economic growth,” Mousseau said.
The Oakland Institute included in its report six case studies in Ukraine, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Zambia, Papua New Guinea, and Brazil, finding that global land privatization is often directly driven by U.S. interests.
[twt]
zambia has been affected by what the Institute calls a recent “surge of American and European startups attempting to apply blockchain technology to land registries,” referring to the digital ledger created for Bitcoin.
The Zambiangovernment is partnering with Medici Land Governance (MLG), a blockchain company and subsidiary of the U.S. online retailer Overstock.com, to assist with land registration and titling. According to former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, the use of blockchain “will help unlock trillions of dollars in global mineral reserves that are inaccessible due to unclear land governance systems.”
In Sri Lanka, a U.S. government entity known as the Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC) approved a five-year compact for the country in 2019, offering the Sri Lankan government $480 million to map and digitize public lands in order to “promote land transactions that could stimulate investment and increase its use as an economic asset.”
“The proposed MCC compact would shift control of millions of hectares away from the state towards private interests,” the report says, and was proposed by a U.S. entity formed in 2002 by Congress with the stated goal of “reducing poverty through growth.”
“In practice, poverty alleviation has taken a back seat to promoting private sector growth,” the report continues. “This has translated to countries shifting their policies in adherence to a neoliberal economic framework—including the privatization and commodification of land—in exchange for substantial financial grants.”
MCC compacts throughout Africa have “allowed investors to acquire land at bargain prices to facilitate large-scale industrial agriculture at the expense of smallholder farmers,” the Oakland Institute added.
The study also points to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s aggressive push to assume control of Indigenous territories in the Amazon Rainforest, appointing a member of one the country’s most powerful agribusiness families to head the Ministry of Agriculture. Illegal land invasions and massive fires driven by agriculture and mining interests have threatened Indigenous people while contributing to deforestation and the climate crisis.
As the Institute published the report while the Covid-19 pandemic is upending the global economy, the report points out that “returning to normal is not an option.”
Instead, the economic crisis “must be used as a catalyst to address the systematic issues surrounding the rampant overexploitation of natural resources that has driven the climate crisis to its current state.”
Rather than erasing local governance and negating individual autonomy, governments must instead build systems that incorporate a diversity of ownership and tenure systems, and focus on a development path that serves the people instead of one that takes the land away from them for corporate profits.”
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NEW YORK (March 25, 2015) — The World Health Organization, the U.N.'s public health agency, said on Friday that glyphosate, an herbicide widely used on genetically modified crops such as corn and soybeans, likely causes cancer.
Released by the WHO's cancer arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the report [3] presents the findings of 17 biochemists, toxicologists, epidemiologists, molecular biologists and environmental scientists from 11 countries, who evaluated the carcinogenicity of glyphosate as well as the insecticides tetrachlorvinphos, parathion, malathion and diazinon. A summary of the evaluation [4] has been published online by theLancet Oncology.
Glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in Monsanto's popular home and garden weed killer Roundup, was classified by IARC as "probably carcinogenic to humans." The scientists found that the chemical "induced DNA and chromosomal damage in mammals, and in human and animal cells in vitro." They concluded that there was "sufficient evidence" that the herbicide causes cancer in non-human animals and "limited evidence" that it also causes non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in humans.
The agency, headquartered in Lyon, France, said glyphosate "has been detected in the air during spraying, in water and in food," noting that primary exposure to the chemical is through diet, home use and living near sprayed areas.
The researchers reviewed studies on the effect of the herbicide on healthy male workers in the agricultural and forestry sectors since 2001. They also highlighted a study of community residents that reported "increases in blood markers of chromosomal damage after glyphosate formulations were sprayed nearby."
Glyphosate is part of a group of biochemicals called organophosphates, which includes insecticides and nerve agents like sarin that irreversibly inactivate acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme essential for nervous system functionality in insects, humans and many other animals.
Monsanto released a statement Friday [5] disagreeing with IARC's findings.
"There is no new research or data that was used; the most relevant, scientific data was excluded from review; the conclusion is not supported by scientific data; and there is no link between glyphosate and an increase in cancer when the full data set is included in a rigorous review," said Philip Miller, Monsanto’s vice president of global regulatory affairs. "We don’t know how IARC could reach a conclusion that is such a dramatic departure from the conclusion reached by all regulatory agencies around the globe."
On Monday, Monsanto’s chief technology officer Robert Fraley followed up with an encapsulation of the biotech giant's feelings on the matter: "We are outraged with this assessment [6]."
Evidence of health risks mounting; so is revenue
While glyphosate may be most known among consumers for being the key ingredient in Roundup, the IARC report noted that it is also used in more than 750 [7] different agricultural, industrial and residential products.
Its wide range of applications includes weed control in forests, rivers, lakes, parks, grass pastures, lawns, turf, gardens, greenhouses, fruit orchards, vineyards and olive groves. In the U.S., its largest agricultural use is on hay/pasture, soybeans and field corn. According to IARC, glyphosate "currently has the highest global production volume of all herbicides."
The herbicidal properties of glyphosate were first discovered and marketed by Monsanto in 1974. In 2001, it became the most used pesticide [8] in the U.S. agricultural market and the second most used [8] pesticide in the home and garden market.
While the debate surrounding its effect on health continues, sales of glyphosate are chugging right along, no doubt aided by Monsanto's release of Roundup Ready genetically modified crops that are resistant to the herbicide. In 2012, the global glyphosate market was valued at $5.46 billion. By 2019, it is expected to swell to $8.79 billion.
While glyphosate-driven revenues continue to grow, so does evidence of the chemical's health risks. The IARC assessment builds on existing studies indicating the potential health hazards of glyphosate, including cancer and renal disease.
A 2013 paper published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology found that glyphosate induces the growth of human breast cancer cells. The environmental toxicologists at Bangkok's Chulabhorn Graduate Institute who conducted the study concluded "low and environmentally [9] relevant concentrations of glyphosate possessed estrogenic activity."
In February 2014, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health published a paper by researchers from Rajarata University in Sri Lanka and California State University in Long Beach that investigated the potential role of glyphosate in Sri Lanka's chronic kidney disease (CKD) epidemic. Though glyphosate was ruled out as the lone causative factor, the authors said that when mixed with hard water or metals like arsenic and cadmium, the chemical "seems to have [10] acquired the ability to destroy the renal tissues of thousands of farmers."
One thing is certain: It will be decades before scientists fully comprehend all the things that can go wrong when humans and wildlife are exposed to glyphosate. A 2014 study published in theJournal of Organic Systems found a stunning correlation [11] between the rise of glyphosate-sprayed GMO crops and 22 diseases.
No agreement
IARC's conclusions contradict the official stance of the EPA, which maintains that glyphosate is safe. The agency originally classified it as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" in 1985, based on a study in which mice developed tumors after exposure. Then in 1991, the EPA changed its classification [3] to "evidence of non-carcinogenicity" after a re-evaluation of that study.
"EPA's worst case risk assessment of glyphosate's many registered food uses concludes that human dietary exposure and risk are minimal," the agency said in a 1993 glyphosate fact sheet [12]. "Existing and proposed tolerances have been reassessed, and no significant changes are needed to protect the public."
Some governments aren't waiting for another study. In September 2013, the legislature of El Salvador [13] approved a glyphosate ban, following the deaths of thousands of agricultural workers along Central America's Pacific Coast.
It only took a few weeks after the 2014 glyphosate paper on Sri Lanka's CKD epidemic was published for Sri Lanka [14] to ban glyphosate.
Also last year, the Dutch parliament [15] announced a federal ban on non-commercial sales of glyphosate that went into effect in 2015.
"In garden centers Roundup is promoted as harmless, but unsuspecting customers have no idea what the risks of this product are," said Dutch MP Esther Ouwehand, who brought the motion to Holland's legislative body. "Especially children are sensitive to toxic substances and should therefore not be exposed to it."
Monsanto and EPA: Perfect together, not for kids
So Dutch kids gained some protection from glyphosate. What about in the United States?
In February 2012, the EPA said [16] in its Budget in Brief that it would "continue to emphasize the protection of potentially sensitive groups, such as children," asserting that the federal pesticide program would "minimize exposure to pesticides [and] maintain a safe and affordable food supply."
Just three months later, on May 2, 2012, Monsanto challenged [17] this mandate and filed a petition with the EPA to increase the allowable amount of glyphosate on oilseed, sunflowers and a number of fruits and vegetables, including grapes, cranberries, strawberries, carrots, sweet potatoes and citrus fruits.
Environmental and public health activists rallied against the request. The nonprofit Food & Water Watch [18] responded with its own petition with more than 33,000 signatures, saying: "The EPA is failing to protect human health and the environment by neglecting to regulate the excessive use of herbicides; instead, it is just changing its own rules to allow the irresponsible and potentially dangerous applications to continue. Tolerance levels are put in place to protect human health—not the biotech industry."
One might think that, given the research pointing to health problems tied to glyphosate exposure, the EPA would take the time necessary to perform an extensive and thorough evaluation before amending the law. But that didn’t happen.
Instead of increasing protections against glyphosate's potential negative health effects, the EPA went in the opposite direction. On May 1, 2013, itapproved [19] Monsanto's request to increase glyphosate tolerance levels, in effect letting more of the chemical enter the American food supply.
The coziness between the EPA and Monsanto is concerning. Just six weeks after the EPA's pro-Monsanto ruling, the Gulf of Mexico Program awardedMonsanto [20] with the First Place 2013 Gulf Guardian Award. This program—a non-regulatory consortium of state and federal government agencies and corporate representatives from the agricultural and fishing industries—is underwritten by, you guessed it—the EPA.
It is difficult to understand how Monsanto can be considered a "Gulf Guardian" considering the company's central role in the acidification of the Gulf: Synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, the major cause of the more than 400 oceanic dead zones around the world, including the Gulf of Mexico, is used on Monsanto's [21] GMO corn more than any other crop.
Timing is everything
What is more puzzling is the fact that the agency awarded the glyphosate tolerance victory to Monsanto after only conducting preliminary reviews of the studies it was provided, blaming "the timing of the submission." In its ruling [19], the EPA said it "does not believe that further review will result in different conclusions concerning the neurotoxic or immunotoxic potential of glyphosate."
The EPA is hoping the American public will believe that an agency which earmarked $129 million [16] of its 2013 fiscal year budget specifically to "support the EPA pesticide review processes" received a request from Monsanto to raise glyphosate tolerance levels and one year later, it was only able to conduct a preliminary review.
EPA also said it didn't believe that a further review would turn up different results. Isn't that another way of saying it's not absolutely sure?
The EPA also seems to have forgotten that a "different conclusion" is exactly what it came to back in 1991 when it changed its original 1985 glyphosate classification as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" to "evidence of non-carcinogenicity"—precisely because it made a re-evaluation of a single mouse study.
Clearly one year isn't enough time for EPA to conduct more than a preliminary review. Give it seven years and it can conduct a re-evaluation that brings it to a different conclusion. Seven years is also a long time to make sales of—and be exposed to—glyphosate.
The EPA has a fresh opportunity to reach yet another different conclusion, as the agency is currently conducting [6] a scheduled glyphosate review with its Canadian counterpart.
"We will give full consideration to the IARC study and all the other information we have before we reach a final decision," an EPA spokeswoman said.
Side of glyphosate to go with that GMO corn?
With Vermont and Maine passing America’s first mandatory [22] GMO labeling laws in 2014 (and 22 other states considering it), consumers are increasingly concerned about how food is affected by herbicides like glyphosate. This concern may grow along with the increased use of glyphosate-resistant GMO crops.
But it's not just the potential negative health effects of glyphosate that are worrisome. Its massive use on U.S. crops has given rise to glyphosate-resistant "superweeds.
"More than half [23] of all U.S. farms have some Roundup resistant 'superweeds'...that now infest 70 million acres of U.S farmland, an area the size of Wyoming," said Andrew Kimball, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Center for Food Safety.
"It's long past due that our government required real and rigorous science when regulating GE crops," he said. "It's time for them to say 'no' to these herbicide-promoting crops, and prevent the looming agronomic disaster they will inevitably bring with them."
With GMOs present [24] in 80% of processed foods in the U.S., Monsanto, as a primary producer of both GMO crop seeds and pesticides, has become a main target for environmental and public health activists. The average consumer also plays a central role in this rapidly evolving drama, not only by purchasing Roundup and foods sprayed with glyphosate, but also by ingesting the chemical.
In addition to glyphosate's links to cancer and other deadly diseases, it may also play a role in not-so-often-deadly ailment that has nevertheless become a major health concern in recent years: gluten sensitivity. Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at MIT, has co-authored two papers proposing aconnection [25] between glyphosate and gluten sensitivity. She and her colleagues found that glyphosate binds to gluten, "causing the gluten to stay in the form that is known to be more allergenic."
Cancer, chronic kidney disease, gluten sensitivity and agronomic disaster. The complex glyphosate-fueled web Monsanto has spun over the world's food system for the past four decades may take another four decades for scientists to untangle. But while the debate on glyphosate's numerous potential health effects rages on, one thing is fairly certain: It is a part of most Americans' diets.
Ronnie Cummins, the national director of the nonprofit Organic Consumers Association, put it bluntly: "If you eat [24] foods that contain genetically modified organisms, you are consuming glyphosate."
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@alternet.org'. [26]
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Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/food/why-did-govt-give-big-thumbs-notorious-monsanto-pesticide-we-now-believe-causes-cancer
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/reynard-loki
[2] http://alternet.org
[3] http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/pdf/MonographVolume112.pdf
[4] http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045%2815%2970134-8/fulltext
[5] http://news.monsanto.com/news/monsanto-disagrees-iarc-classification-glyphosate
[6] http://www.wsj.com/articles/monsanto-bites-back-at-glyphosate-findings-1427147273
[7] http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045%2815%2970134-8/abstract
[8] http://www.epa.gov/opp00001/pestsales/07pestsales/usage2007_3.htm#3_7
[9] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23756170
[10] http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/2/2125
[11] http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/study-shows-dramatic-correlation-between-gmos-and-22-diseases
[12] http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/reregistration/REDs/factsheets/0178fact.pdf
[13] http://sustainablepulse.com/2013/09/19/el-salvador-government-bans-roundup-over-deadly-kidney-disease/#.VRHTG1xIC9o
[14] http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/03/13/14418/sri-lanka-bans-monsanto-herbicide-citing-potential-link-deadly-kidney-disease
[15] http://sustainablepulse.com/2014/04/04/dutch-parliament-bans-glyphosate-herbicides-non-commercial-use/#.VRHHWFxIC9p
[16] http://yosemite.epa.gov/sab%5CSABPRODUCT.NSF/2B686066C751F34A852579A4007023C2/$File/FY2013_BIB.pdf
[17] http://www.regulations.gov/#%21docketDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2012-0132
[18] http://www.regulations.gov/#%21documentDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2012-0132-7668
[19] http://www.regulations.gov/#%21documentDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2012-0132-0009
[20] http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/C38ABBC4C09BC77D85257B87006C2AF5
[21] https://www.organicconsumers.org/essays/ten-ways-monsanto-and-big-ag-are-trying-kill-you-and-planet
[22] http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/vermont/2014/11/29/vermont-gmo-fight-nears-court/19639519/
[23] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kimbrell/gmo-science-deniers-monsanto-and-the-usda_b_6904606.html
[24] http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/50865/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1314397
[25] http://www.alternet.org/food/meet-controversial-mit-scientist-who-claims-have-discovered-cause-gluten-sensitivty
[26] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Why Did Gov't Give Big Thumbs Up to Notorious Monsanto Pesticide We Now Believe Causes Cancer?
[27] http://www.alternet.org/
[28] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
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