Being a seed saver, autumn is my favorite season. Hardly a roadside flower escapes my attention in the summer, but I rarely slow down for them. I’m waiting for the beauties to turn brown, set seeds that might be fluffy or pointy or merely round, but ready for my scissors and envelope to collect them. It’s all about anticipation, as I imagine how the so-called weeds will fit into my favorite places on the farm.
But, this year especially, I am distressed by how many flowers fail to set seeds. The number of non-seeds increases every year and, yes, it’s a matter of government policy, reversible with some intelligent legislation. Bottom line: When politicians bend to the giant chemical corporations, nature loses. Poisons intended to kill pests on crops or playgrounds have killed pollinators. The helpful bugs and birds are suffering from the willful poisoning that comes along with industrial agriculture’s desire to wipe out corn borers, soybean nematodes, wheat maggots and other pests that attack well-subsidized Midwestern cash crops.
And this comes back to bite us in more ways that just my loss of wildflower seeds. Fruit happens because seeds are ready for distribution, so pollinators are responsible for more than a third of our food supply—pears, apples, pecans and other nuts, vegetables, soybeans. Each plant requires a relationship with a certain pollinator. Honeybees, native in Europe but beloved here, don’t tell the whole story. Some plants are pollinated by birds, butterflies, wasps, flies, beetles and even lizards. Each plant has its special partner, developed through evolution over millions of years.
In some thoroughly poisoned systems, farmers are turning to pollinating by hand. Like the pollinators, workers visit each flower with a Q-tip, carrying pollen from one to another. Another system uses drones to puff pollen on each flower. And now there’s mechanical pollination by tiny drones that visit blossoms just like real pollinators.
But pollinators do more than create food. They themselves become food for animals. So, when a bird or toad eats a poisoned bug, the eater itself is poisoned. And so on up the food chain. To us.
Now for the political part of this column. Back in August, the EPA made a giant step and banned a particularly wicked poison—chlorpyrifos—from use on food crops. This change came about because thousands of farm workers, environmentalists, moms, dads, teachers and others got together with the help of environmental non-profits to insist that the poison be banned. In an Aug. 18 press release, EPA announced it was “revoking all ‘tolerances’ for chlorpyrifos, which establish an amount of a pesticide that is allowed on food.”
Now, I know you caught the giant loophole—this ban is only for use on food crops, so chlorpyrifos can still be used on golf courses, parks, school yards and other public areas. Still, for EPA to step back from its earlier approvals is huge, and it was only done because common citizens like you and me made it happen.
A story from Civil Eats describes the scene at a typical community meeting on the subject: “Everyone there knew someone who had a child with a learning difficulty. Some worked in the fields, some had been dealing with pesticide drift around their homes, and others had simply moved into developments on former farmland where chlorpyrifos had been sprayed in the past.”
Despite this triumph, industry’s war against pests continues with all its unintended consequences. Still, the abuse of insecticides can be reversed with a few intelligent policies. One next step would be for the EPA to ban use of neo-nicotonoids (“neo-nics”), a particularly lethal neurotoxic poison used on crops, forests, and outside areas like your local park, golf course or kids’ playground. While several European countries have banned neo-nicotonoids, the US continues to drag our feet despite lots of work by non-profit groups publicizing the problem.
When the feds won’t work, bans can be enacted by state governments or even by cities or counties. In 2018, Hawaii, California, New York, Maryland, Oregon, and Maine banned nearly all uses of chlorpyrifos. In April, Maine banned neo-nics from being used on “lawn, turf or ornamental vegetation.” There are exemptions that make this law weak, including allowing neo-nics as a seed coating. This rather insane process allows coating seeds with a lethal insecticide, which is carried through the entire plant as it grows. Most growers selling to big-box stores and garden-supply stores use coated seeds for the plants they send out and any plant eaters get a dose when they ingest the plant or its fruit.
Besides organizing against the corporate bullies, consumers must reject all the lethal systems invented by Bayer, Syngenta and any other manufacturer. If you must remove an insect pest, try to find pheremones that attract the bad bugs and trap them in water or a sticky trap.
So, yeah, once again, it depends on us and we have options.
Margot Ford McMillen farms near Fulton, Mo., and co-hosts “Farm and Fiddle” on sustainable ag issues on KOPN 89.5 FM in Columbia, Mo. She also is a co-founder of CAFOZone.com, a website for people who are affected by concentrated animal feeding operations. Her latest book is “The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History”. Email: margotmcmillen@ gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2021
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