permaculture

[Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network <lakinroe@silcom.com>]

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2016/11/circle-poison-pesticides-developing-world-161115084547144.html
 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2016/11/circle-poison-pesticides-developing-world-161115084547144.html>

FULL MOVIE/Circle of Poison A look at the powerful pesticide industry, its 
effect on the developing world and how small farmers are fighting back.

Filmmakers: Evan Mascagni and Shannon Post
In recent decades, harmful pesticides spread around the world's less 
developed nations have caused immeasurable damage to populations and 
ecosystems.
What I have found in my 25 years of working with biodiversity, working to 
build ecological agriculture systems, is that chemical-free, poison-free 
agriculture systems, which intensify ecological processes, which intensify 
biodiversity, produce more food per acre and more nutrition per acre: that's 
the way we must go.
Vandana Shiva, activist and author of Poison in our Food 

In 2013, data from the US Environmental Protection Agency showed that 
pesticides, which are banned, restricted or unregistered in the United 
States, were manufactured in 23 states for export to other countries.
Used for growing coffee, fruit, tea and other products, these pesticides are 
likely to make their way back to the US as residue on imported food.
Only about 2 percent of imported produce is inspected by the Food and Drug 
Administration. It is a circle of poison.
"The environment doesn't know any boundaries. You know, dust and pollution 
from China settles in the US ... nuclear radiation from Chernobyl went over 
Iceland. What goes up into the environment goes around the world," says David 
Weir, a journalist and co-author of Circle of Poison: Pesticides and People 
in a Hungry World.
The documentary Circle of Poison examines how pesticides proliferated after 
World War II, the legal loopholes which allow the manufacture of insecticides 
- deemed unsafe for the American people - for export to developing countries, 
and the devastation caused by these toxic substances.
"Anything that was banned or heavily regulated or restricted or unregistered 
in the US was being allowed by the US government and in fact encouraged to be 
sent overseas, almost as compensation for the companies for losing the US 
market," says Weir, describing how the US started exporting dangerous 
pesticides.
The documentary takes us to Kasaragod, a town in the southern Indian state of 
Kerala, where decades of spraying the pesticide endosulfan on cashew farms 
have caused deformities in hundreds of children. Many countries have banned 
this dangerous insecticide. In 2010, the US took action to ban the 
60-year-old substance. It is still legal to manufacture it in the US, but 
only for export.
We meet children with pesticide-related illnesses and speak to activists with 
the environmental activism group Thanal, which raises awareness about these 
health problems and fights for access to safe food.
"Pesticides are pushed on the grounds that it's a very modern way to do 
farming. I remember years ago reading a book that India is underdeveloped 
because it doesn't use pesticides," says the pioneering Indian 
environmentalist Vandana Shiva. 
"We've made poisons the measure of progress."
In Yaqui River Valley in Mexico, we see how pesticides have caused illnesses 
in the children born to women working in the fields. In the Argentinian city 
of Ituzaingo, where the use of agrochemicals on soy crops has increased 
exponentially over the years, cancer rates are reportedly 41 times the 
national average. But local activists are fighting back. The group Mothers of 
Ituzaingo succeeded in getting a local ban on aerial pesticide being sprayed 
within 2,500 metres of homes.
The US hasn't been immune to pesticide exposure. In the state of Louisiana, 
residents living along a corridor of industrial facilities where pesticides 
for export are manufactured have suffered from chronic exposure to chemicals, 
which has led to a high incidence of cancer.
The Circle of Poison delves into the political history of pesticides in the 
US and the machinations of big industry.
Today, at least 75 percent of the global pesticide trade is controlled by six 
large agrochemical companies - Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, Syngenta, Du Pont and 
BASF. These corporations form powerful lobby groups which drive and shape 
legislation that regulates farming and food production. This influence has 
protected the industry, particularly in the US. 
In September 2016, US seed giant Monsanto agreed to a takeover by German crop 
chemical maker and pharmaceutical conglomerate Bayer in a $66bn deal - the 
biggest corporate deal of this year. If approved by regulators, this will 
spawn the largest seeds and pesticides company in the world.
But people are fighting back by creating alternatives to the agrochemical 
industrial complex. 
Small farmers around the world are turning to sustainable methods of 
agriculture after witnessing the devastation caused by pesticide use. These 
range from organic farm co-ops in Mexico and Argentina to a growing farmers' 
market movement in India, but one of the most striking battles against 
pesticides is being fought by the Himalayan nation of Bhutan. It has set 
itself the challenge of becoming the first country in the world with a wholly 
organic agricultural system. 
In the US, a business structure for the organic farming industry is emerging 
with profitable results. 
"What I thought might happen, hoped might happen and, it turned out, did 
happen, was the organic farm bill. People started paying a lot more 
attention. And that hobby type thing that the detractors called it has now 
turned into a $30bn-a-year business in the United States, about the only 
agriculture business that's growing. But also, more importantly, people 
started asking questions," says Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy. 
Circle of Poison spans the US, India, Argentina, Mexico and Bhutan, with a 
wide range of interviews with activists in these countries, the people 
affected by crop-spraying, and experts and key figures who have led the fight 
againt pesticides, including former US President Jimmy Carter, Patrick Leahy, 
Noam Chomsky and Vandana Shiva. The documentary is an important look at how 
dangerous pesticides have been imposed on developing countries and how people 
are now fighting back.