Health & Fitness
Round-up vs. Hyssop: Why We Should Think Twice About Chemical Pesticides
Why we have good reason to be washing our produce thoroughly.
Did you hear? When you buy a certain amount of lawn fertilizer, you are entitled to three whole free gallons of farm giant Montsanto’s Roundup pesticide!
I’m not entirely sure how we arrived at such incentives. I understand that there is a lot of pressure in certain communities to keep the lawn well-trimmed, weed-free, and immaculately green, but from an agricultural perspective, it hardly seems necessary to pour so many chemicals on the ground. After all, we managed to survive for hundreds of years without help from synthetic sources in our production of food.
The “Third Agricultural Revolution” is a recent phenomenon. It describes the massive increase in food production over the past three decades, spurred by developments in genetic engineering of crops and livestock, new mass-production methods of irrigation and harvest, and, today’s topic, an onslaught of brand-new pesticides. In effect, it means that we have become a chemical culture.
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This reliance on pesticides has had more than a few negative effects. To start, the toxicity of these substances is a major harm to the health of a variety of animals, humans included. One such species is the humble honeybee. Bee populations have fallen drastically since 2006, and with them, pollination levels. This is not only bad for our personal gardens, but world health. Bee expert Marla Spivak attributes Colony Collapse Disorder, the cause of the bee population decline, to a number of factors, including bee parasites, disease, and flower shortages. Prominent among these factors, however, are pesticides; the few flowers that bees find are contaminated, causing lethal or sub-lethal effects.
Insects are not the only victims. A series of independent studies in New York and California links high levels of pesticide exposure in pregnancy to lower IQs in children. Each tenfold increase in prenatal exposure to organophosphates, pesticides commonly used in the production of fruits and vegetables, was found to correspond to a 5.5 point drop in child IQ. The women affected in this particular study also proved to have genetic predispositions that limited their ability to metabolize the pesticides. A cockroach and termite killer called chlorpyrifos was also deemed responsible to IQ drops of 2.7 points and poorer performance on memory tests in the top 25% of exposure levels. Though organophosphate use has fallen drastically in recent years and residential use of chlorpyrifos has been banned, both types of pesticide are still widely used agriculturally.
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Round-up, too, has been proven to have toxic effects on placental cells at relatively low levels of exposure. Its damage to hormonal and reproductive health is thought to be facilitated by the unique brew of “inerts”, or additional chemical components, which increase toxicity and penetration of targets for the herbicide. Furthermore, its prevalence has led to the engineering of “Roundup-ready” crops, which allows gallons of the stuff to be sprayed over fields. A problem emerges with a new class of “super-pests” that have evolved to be roundup-resistant as well.
The EPA notes that different pesticides have different potential effects, among them nervous and endocrine damage, carcinogenic properties, and irritation of the skin and eyes. But it doesn’t have to be that way. A number of natural pesticides exist, including rubbing alcohol dilutions, tomato leaf brews, and nicotine. Thyme, sage, rosemary, white clover, hyssop, and daisy (pyrethrin) extracts are also effective at warding off pests. And when in doubt, spice it up: garlic, onion, red pepper, horse radish, vinegar, paprika, and ginger in various combinations and concoctions repel insects as well by their strong scents. Alternately, simply planting garlic between rows of vegetables is said to be effective. In addition to these homemade remedies, commercial organic pesticides have also become increasingly available.
Another important consideration is that not all bugs found in the garden are harmful; some actually destroy parasites and other pests. So don’t be alarmed to see a few creepy-crawlies after applying natural pesticides. Keep in mind however, that such pesticides may require higher dosages to be as deadly as their commercial counterparts, though mnn.com recommends spot treatment only.
And the honeybees? Herbs (or any other plants, really) such as hyssop with blue flowers can draw bees to your garden for greater pollination: bees go to blue first.
I guess Home Depot can keep those extra gallons of Roundup.
For natural pesticide recipes: http://www.comfycountrycreations.com/bugspray.htm
References:
http://splendidtable.publicradio.org/listings/110528/
http://www.comfycountrycreations.com/bugspray.htm
http://www.mnn.com/your-home/organic-farming-gardening/stories/organic-pesticides
AP Human Geography course material
Scientific American magazine
