On Pests, Weeds And Terrorists: Weaving Harmony Through Diversity

While pesticides are creating more pests by increasing disharmony, they are
killing people who were to be protected by pesticides

Vandana Shiva, Znet

December 01, 2002

Lack of harmony characterizes our times - There is disharmony between humans and
nature, between religions, between cultures, between genders.
Non-sustainability, injustice, war are different expressions of disharmony which
has its roots in a world view that blocks out relationships and essentialises
characteristics and properties that are relational properties.

Insects become pests in agriculture when monocultures encourage an increase in
their populations, and chemical farming and industrial breeding produce plants
vulnerable to pests. Pests are a product of a disharmony within plants and in
ecosystems. Weaving harmony in agriculture implies bringing back the diversity
which creates pest - predator balance and organic methods of breeding and
production which produce resilient plants.

However, in the dominant paradigm of agriculture, pests are not seen a product
of disharmony but as reductionist, essentialised, absolutised undesirable
entities which must be exterminated with the most potent and toxic methods.
This non-relational absolutised approach aggravates the problem instead of
solving it because it deepens the disharmony which creates pests instead of
recovering harmony, the only lasting solution for preventing insects from
becoming `pests'.

The violence of the inappropriate methods is justified by essentialsing
"pestiness", creating images of fear of attack. Fear of attack calls for a
counterattack, even if the pesticides kill people instead of bringing down pest
problems.

While pests are not a problem in ecologically balanced agriculture, in an
unstable agricultural system, they pose a serious challenge to agronomy. The
metaphor for pesticide use in agriculture then becomes war, as an introduction
to a textbook on pest-management illustrates:

The war against pests is a continuing one that man must fight to ensure his
survival. Pests (in particular insects) are our major competitors on each and
for the hundreds of thousands of years of our existence they have kept our
numbers low and, on occasions, have threatened extinction.

Throughout the ages man has lived at a bare subsistence level because of the
onslaught of pests and the diseases they carry. It is only in comparatively
recent times that this picture has begun to alter as, in certain parts of the
world, we have gradually gained the upper hand over pests.

The war story described some of the battles that have been fought and the
continuing guerilla warfare, the type of enemies we are facing and some of
their manoeuvres for survival; the weapons we have at our command ranging from
the rather crude ones of the "bow and arrow" age of pest control to the
sophisticated weapons of the present day, including a look into the future of
some "secret weapons" that are in the trial stages, the gains that have been
made; and some of the devastation which is a concomitant of war.[1]

But the `war' with pests is unnecessary. The most effective pest control
mechanism is built into the ecology of crops, partly by ensuring balanced
pest-predator relationships, through crop diversity and partly by building up
resistance in plants. Organic manuring is now being shown to be critical to
such a building up of resistance.

The Green Revolution strategy fails to see the ecology of pests as well as that
of pesticides because it is based on subtle balances within the plant and
invisible relationships of the plant to its environment. It therefore
simplistically reduces the management of pests to the violent use of poisons.
It also fails to recognize that pests have natural enemies with the unique
property of regulating pest populations.

In de Bach's view,
The philosophy of pest control by chemicals has been to achieve the highest kill
possible, and per cent mortality has been the main yardstick in the early
screening of new chemicals in the lab. Such an objective, the highest kill
possible, combined with ignorance of or disregard for, nontarget insects and
mites is guaranteed to be the quickest road to upset resurgences and the
development of resistance to pesticides.[2]

De Bach's research on DDT-induced pest increase showed that these increases
could be anywhere from thirty-six fold to over twelve hundred- fold. The
aggravation of the problem is directly related to the violence unleashed on the
natural enemies of pests. Reductionist science which fails to perceive the
natural balance, also fails to anticipate and predict what will happen when that
balance is disturbed.

While pesticides are creating more pests by increasing disharmony, they are
killing people who were to be protected by pesticides. Three thousand people
died in one night in Bhopal, thirty thousand people have died since then because
of a leak of a toxic gas from the plant of Union Carbide now owned by Dow.[3]

Thirty thousand people were killed in Punjab due to terrorism resulting from the
non-sustainability of chemical agriculture, named the Green Revolution.4,
twenty thousand farmers have committed suicide by drinking the pesticides that
got them into debt.[5]

As our generation of pesticides based on a war mentality fail, a new generation
is being offered in the same reductionist approach, with the new techniques of
genetic engineering. Putting Bt. toxins into plants to control the Bollworm is
one of the two dominant products of genetic engineering in agriculture.

However, Bt. crops create pests, they do not control them. The experience of
Bt. cotton in the first year of its commercial planting in India confirms that
an approach that deepens disharmony instead of recovering harmony will deepen
the pest problems arising from disharmony.

In three major states Bt. cotton has been wiped out completely leaving farmers
in great economic and livelihood crises. Not only have new pests and diseases
emerged, the Bt. cotton has failed to even prevent bollworm attack for which it
has been designed. While Bt. cotton is sold as pest resistant seed in India, it
has proved to be more vulnerable to pest and diseases than the traditional and
conventional varieties.

Madhya Pradesh, the heart of the cotton-growing belt in India, witnessed total
failure of genetically engineered Bt. cotton. The farmers of Khargoan district
where Bt. is a 100% failure are up in arms against Monsanto-Mahyco that supplied
these GM seeds and are demanding compensation from the company for the failure
of their crop. The failure of the Bt. cotton has devastated the farmers since
they have spent five to six times to buy seeds of Bt. than the normal seed. The
economics that was worked out by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research
(ICAR), Genetic Engineering Approval Committee and Monsanto-Mahyco to promote
this unsustainable technology has turned out to be untrue.

Bt. cotton has been afflicted with the 'leaf curl virus' in the whole of
northern states of India. Dr Venugopal, ex-project coordinator of the Central
Institute for Cotton Research (CICR), Coimbatore told Business Line that while
some of the private hybrids and varieties released earlier were resistant to
LCV, Bt cotton was found susceptible to LCV.

In Maharashtra, the adjoining state of Madhya Pradesh, the same story has been
repeated. In Vidarbha, primarily cotton growing area in Maharashtra, Bt. cotton
crop has failed miserably. The first GE crop has been failed in 30,000 hectares
in this district alone, completely devastating the already poor farming
community. The farmers of the area are demanding a compensation of Rs. 5000
million (500 crores rupees) to meet their economic loss lest they would take a
legal action against the Government of Maharashtra and Monsanto-Mahyco for
allowing sale of inadequately tested GM seeds.

The Bt. cotton crop in Vidarbha has been badly affected by the root-rot disease,
a disease of roots. It is believed that this disease is caused due to wrong
selection of Bt genes developed in America and brought to India. Many farmers
have recorded only upto 50% germination of seeds and many others had poor
germination, which is suspected to be caused by both, drought and poor seed
quality. While other cotton varieties have also been adversely affected by the
drought, they report a failure rate of only around 20%.

President of the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, Mr. Kishore Tiwari, gave a legal
notice to Ministry of Agriculture demanding the recovery of loss of Rs. 500
(5000 million rupees) crore incurred by the farmers due to sowing of Bt. cotton
seeds.

The main idea behind approving genetically engineered Bt. cotton as a commercial
crop was that this would increase farmers' income by reducing expenditure on
chemical pesticides, which accounts for 70-80% of the total expenditure on
hybrid cotton due to the heavy infestation of pest, mainly American Bollworm in
last 3-4 years and the increased evolution of resistance to the chemical
pesticides.

However, in Gujarat there is a heavy infestation of bollworm on the Bt. cotton
in the districts of Bhavanagar, Surendranagar and Rajkot. Initially Bt. Cotton
was found resistant to Bollworms in the early phase of plant growth, but as soon
as the formation of boll has started, the worms started attacking them. The
Department of Agriculture, Government of Gujarat has written to the Gujarat
Agricultural University to submit a status report providing detailed
information about the kind and intensity of the damage.

Instead of yields going up they hae come down. Instead of farmers incomes
increasing by Rs. 10,000/per acre, farmers are running losses of Rs.
6000-7000/per acre.

GMOs are creating superpests instead of controlling pests.

Just as pests are products of disharmony, plants become weeds which threaten
crops in a context of imbalance. Planting mixtures, rotating crops in effect,
preserving biodiversity is the most effective approach in preventing plants from
becoming "weeds". Instead, the reductionist, essentialised approach declares
useful plants as essentially weeds and creates a toxic arsenal for the
extermination of biodiversity. Instead of approaching weed control in the
context of creating harmony, a war is declared against "weeds" - often plants
which are used by Third World women for food, medicine, fodder.

The most widespread application of genetic engineering in agriculture is
herbicide resistance i.e. the breeding of crops to be resistant to herbicides.
Monsanto's Round up Ready Soya and Cotton are examples of this application. When
introduced to Third World farming systems, this will lead to increased use of
agri-chemicals thus increasing environmental problems. It will also destroy the
biodiversity that is the sustenance and livelihood base of rural women. What
are weeds for Monsanto are food, fodder and medicine for Third World Women.

In Indian agriculture women use 150 different species of plants for vegetables,
fodder and health care. In West Bengal 124 'weed" species collected from rice
fields have economic importance for farmers. In the Expana region of Veracruz,
Mexico, peasants utilize about 435 wild plant and animal species of which 229
are eaten.

Monocultures and monopolies symbolize a masculinization of agriculture. The war
mentality underlying military-industrial agriculture is evident from the names
given to herbicides which destroy the economic basis of the survival of the
poorest women in the rural areas of the Third World. Monsanto's herbicides are
called "Round up", "Machete", "Lasso" American Home Products which has merged
with Monsanto calls its herbicides `Pentagon', `Prowl', `Scepter', `Squadron',
`Cadre', `Lightening', `Assert', `Avenge'. This is the language of war, not
sustainability. Sustainability is based on peace with the earth.

After monocultures created weeds, and weedicides increased their resilience,
genetic engineering of "herbicide resistant crops" is being offered as the new
miracle of weed control. However, GMOs are creating super weeds instead of
reducing weeds.

What is happening in nature is happening in society. Economic globalization is
creating economic inequality and exclusion. It is increasing inequality,
disharmony and conflicts in society. Just as insects and plants are not
essentially pests and weeds (under all conditions) but are transformed into
pests and weeds because of ecological imbalance, people are not essentially
terrorists and extremists. Terrorists are made, not born. Terrorists are the
symptoms of societies in imbalance due to injustice, exclusion and inequality.

Creating sustainability and justice is the only effective strategy for
controlling the emergence of terrorism. The war mentality has failed to reduce
pests and weeds in agriculture. The war mentality will fail in preventing youth
from becoming extremists and terrorists. It will in fact create more resilient
super terrorists just as pesticides, herbicides and genetic engineering have
created super pests and super weeds.

It is time to learn from the mistakes of monocultures of the mind and the
essentialising violence of reductionist thought. It is time to turn to
diversity for healing.

Diversity creates harmony, and harmony creates beauty, balance, bounty and peace
in nature and society, in agriculture and culture, in science and in politics.

The violence and disharmony in our world today that threatens both the
ecological and social web of life is arising from the destruction of diversity
- and diversity is being destroyed because the dominant worldview based on
"monocultures of the mind" sees diversity as a threat, and its eradication as
the pre-condition for peace and security. However, the destruction of diversity
creates disharmony and instead of creating peace and security, it deepens
violence, discordance and insecurity.

References:

1. W. W. Fletcher, "The Pest War", Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974, p1

2. De Bach, "Biological Control by Natural Enemies", London: Cambridge
University Press, 1974

3. Dominique Lepierre, "5 minutes after midnight in Bhopal"

4. Vandana Shiva, "The Violence of Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture,
Ecology and Politics", Zed Books, London and The Other India Book Store, Goa,
1991

Vandana Shiva, Afsar H. Jafri, Ashok Emani, Manish Pande, "Seeds of Suicide: The
Ecological and Human Costs of Globalizatin of Agriculture", Research Foundation
for Science, Technology and Ecology, New Delhi, 2000






[As partes desta mensagem que não continham texto foram removidas]