Then came, what one of my elders have called, the Western Syndrome. For thousands of years there has been a syndrome (We call it a SYNDROME because the definition of the word describes it perfectly; syn•drome n, a group of things or events that form a recognizable pattern, especially of something undesirable) that has moved around the earth consuming intact cultures by replacing our rooted stories with distant tales and a commerce that carries no responsibility for the land that sustains it. And now, the story of broken-hearted people who have no origins place who move continually west to flee their oppressors only to find they have become the oppressor themselves of the intact peoples they encounter in their flight. This story has repeated itself in untold ways for millennia and it runs deep in most of our blood and bone as it plays itself out in our daily lives and worldviews around the world. This syndrome is not just carried or transmitted by one particular grouping of people defined by race, creed, or color but has affected and been purported by us all and continues to do so.

In my Permaculture education and design work in the West African country of Liberia, I have found myself often in a face-off with the Western Syndrome in its quest to cull life from communities to gain a profit, mostly for large western corporations. I soon found that one of my roles as a permaculture educator coming from the so-called “developed” world was to dispel the myth that the “western world” only leads to a glorious future. In Liberia, many of the people, young and old, will adopt nearly anything “western” as a personal sign of status and progressiveness. Where I was first confronted with the reality of this is when I went to visit one of the student’s midwifery clinics, which was close to where I was facilitating a permaculture design course.

When I arrived at the clinic, which was well made of mud bricks and palm thatching, there were women, some pregnant, others with babies and children all about on benches, playing, sitting next to a cooking fire, and others were weaving baskets as they they shared stories, laughed and tended to the little ones. One particular woman was walking about with a spray can pumping away to keep the spray mist constant on all the leaves of the plants that were all about. My curiosity hoped it was a compost tea she was using to fertigate the plants, yet my intuition knew differently, so I went to see what the magic concoction was that was so necessary to spray around this clinic for women and children. It was DDT. I was shocked. As I read the label on the can she was re-supplying her sprayer with, it only had the warning, “fatal if swallowed” and the name of an American Chemical Company. My heart sank in the dark reality of standing face to face with the Western Syndrome.

I asked the woman who was spraying the DDT, what her reasons for spraying were, and if she knew about the repercussions of using this biocide. She replied, “We have to use it to kill the bugger-bug which destroys our crops. They have got so bad since the war that we have no choice but to use most of the few dollars we make to buy this chemical or we lose our food.” She also shared that she knew it would make her sick if she drank the chemical, but nothing else.

Later that day in our Permaculture Design class, consisting of 25 students, some of whom were respected elders in their community, others who were barely adults, and all who are from a wide range of backgrounds in education, traditions, tribes, languages, and beliefs, I asked them, “what is this bugger-bug?” It was as if I had incited the devil itself as the translator shared in the common tribal language my question. Everyone stirred, some even grew fiery red in the face as they explained how the losses of their crops from this little beast could mean the difference between life and death for whole families and communities. They also shared how they were told that they should spray to kill mosquitoes that bring them malaria. When I asked them about the DDT they used, they spoke to it as a type of savior, yet a costly one for people who on average make $2 a day for 8-10 hours of hard labor. None of them knew anything of the long-term travesties that are caused by this chemical and why it is illegal to use in most “western” countries in the world including the country of origin of the spray found at the midwifery clinic – that being the USA.

I spent some time gathering some information about DDT to better inform them and myself of the chronic effects of this toxic substance. I shared the gamut of research that detailed how DDT is an endocrine disruptor and has other chronic effects on the nervous system, kidneys, liver, the reproductive and immune system, it is a carcinogen that contributes to cancer and is one of the nine persistent organic pollutants, which more importantly for the midwifery clinic, accumulates most intensively in mammals in the mother’s milk. Needless to say, they were horrified.

When everyone began to settle down a bit, one elder asked the very important and relevant question, “So what else can we do about the Bugger-Bug if we don’t use DDT?” I certainly did not have the answers, as often I don’t when it comes to regional knowledge of place. So in full Permaculture style, I replied, “Let’s go ask the Bugger-Bug?” So right then and there, with very quizzical looks abounding, we all got up from our makeshift classroom and went out into the adjoining landscape to ask the bugger-bug what can we do to survive together.

We all walked into a recently cleared area of rainforest where the debris had been burned-off and the land was laid bare and exposed except for patches of mono-cropped maize and cassava. The bugger-bug abounded, busily gathering leaf material from the crops and bringing it back to their growing mound in the middle of the clear-cut. We found that their mounds were rich in detritus and bird manures and seedlings of the native forest were sprouting all around it. Their growing mound looked like a miniature forest mountain, rich in diversity and nutrients.

We then left the middle of the clear-cut and went to the edge of this mono-cropped farm where the forest and the maize intermingled and to everyone’s surprise, the bugger-bug was significantly less prevalent and the damage to the crop was minimal. In-fact, anywhere we went that had diversity of plant species with a mulch layer on the ground there was minimal damage by the bugger-bug.

We finally ventured deeper into the forest to observe how the bugger-lived there in a natural setting and found that they were so diminished in numbers within the forest that we had a difficult time finding any damage at all from them on the understory plants. They seemed to only be feasting on the leaf drop from the canopy trees and had significantly less numbers than in the clear-cut areas.

In true detective fashion we then assembled our observations and clues that we gathered and low and behold, a story of true forest stewardship emerged. Our little bugger-bug was a “keystone” pioneer in the forest regeneration process. It seemed that this termite would live peacefully in the forest until the time where a complete devastation of the forest occurred, then it would spring into action to assist the forest in rebuilding its structure. Its numbers would increase and then they would search out plants, especially unhealthy stands of plants, to begin its soil building, mound-raising process. As their mounds grew from their efficient gathering, they would soon be the highest point in the landscape where birds of all sorts would perch. Thanks to the birds, their mounds were seeded with myriad types of plant life and from there, the forest would regenerate outward in concentric ring-like patterns.

The spell of the bugger-bug had been broken. We excitedly went back into class where we applied our new learning into the design of a food growing system that incorporated diversity in both annuals and perennials, layering in both space and time, and deep mulching that is most analogous to the structure of a natural forest. We then began building our demonstration farm using these practices learned from our bugger-bug teacher. One elder shared with me while pointing to their 150-foot high ancestral tree, “I will give thanks to these little bugs for I know without them we would not have our forests.”

At the very root of Permaculture is the knowing that we must live in integrity with the world which sustains us. The Western Syndrome cunningly distorts our ability to take responsibility for our lives through the many faces of globalization and often leaves us barren of integrity whether we are aware of it or not. The bugger-bug story illustrates that with our work as Permaculture teachers and designers, we have a duty to honestly read the pattern languages around us and incorporate them into the conscious design of how we live in support of that which gives life.

~~~~~~~~~

Warren Brush is a certified Permaculture designer and educator as well as a mentor and storyteller. He has worked for over 20 years in inspiring people of all ages to discover, nurture and express their inherent gifts while living in a sustainable manner. He is co-founder of Quail Springs Learning Oasis & Permaculture Farm (a few of their offerings include: Permaculture Design Certification courses for Youth called Sustainable Vocations, PDC for Adults and Sustainable Aid Courses among many other offerings), Wilderness Youth Project, Mentoring for Peace, and Trees for Children. He works extensively in Permaculture education and sustainable systems design in North America and in Africa through his design firm, True Nature Design. He can be reached through email at w (at) quailsprings.org or by calling his office at 805-886-7239.

www.quailsprings.org; www.sustainablevocations.org; www.mentoring4peace.com; www.treesforchildren.org; www.truenaturedesign.net

Further Reading:

• Which Came First – Pests, or Pesticides?
• Pesticides, and You

Our previous posts on the mysterious bee disappearances have been a very interesting exercise. We’ve had great feedback from farmers, amateur and professional beekeepers, scientists, and dozens of other interested/concerned observers. In the meantime, accumulating reports tell us that the problem is not constrained to the U.S. alone – but that, to one degree or another, empty hives are becoming common in Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, Poland, and now the UK.

Personally, I believe situations like this are an opportune moment for reflection – a time to humbly consider a few realities, and perhaps learn a few lessons. Of significance to me is the fact that scientists haven’t got this figured out as yet. It begs the question – which is easier, when dealing with the infinitely complex interactions of nature: 1) predicting specific consequences to our ‘tinkering’ before they occur, or 2) understanding how something happened after-the-fact? I would have thought the latter was the easiest – you know the old saying, “hindsight is a wonderful thing”. Looking back at the results, following the trail of clues, is a lot less challenging than postulating over what could happen. Or, to put it into a framework that might be better understood – if Sherlock Holmes, expert in crime scene deductions, were to turn his attention to predicting crimes rather than solving them, how would he have fared? Short of the kind of psychic predictive skills seen in Minority Report-type science fiction movies, I don’t expect he’d fare so well.

What am I on about, you ask? Simply this – too many people hand scientists the keys to the car, as it were, and bid them take it wherever their employer wishes. Our governments do this, and too many either encourage it, or stand by and let it happen. When the PR departments that front these scientists portray a glorious new world where man manages to, with perfect and meticulous coordination, juggle all the intricacies of the natural world in one hand, whilst cashing in on it and providing world peace and equality with the other – we believe it. Yet, how can we have so much confidence in their ability to read the future, when they are unable to decipher the past and present – a task that should be a damned sight simpler, no?

As Australians are benefiting from an export boom in bees to the U.S., and while the best recommendations from the groups that have been tasked with finding solutions to these problems are to advise which chemicals to use and which not to (PDF), I will list some of the possible causes for the present pollination crisis below (I call it a pollination crisis here, rather than a honeybee crisis, because there are other pollinators that would be lending us a hand – if we hadn’t already driven them into exile):

• Lack of diversity: This point, above all others, is a critical cause of natural imbalance. Diversity is stability. Mono-crop farming creates vulnerability. In fact, the dependence of our agricultural systems on just one species of bee for pollination is a perfect example of this vulnerability in action. In complete contrast to the natural order, where diversity is the rule, we plant gigantic fields of just one crop, leaving minimal borders, or ‘bio-corridors’ (woodlands, shrubs, wildflowers, hedges, etc.), for beneficial insects to take up residence, or none at all. Integrated bio-diversity is the future of farming.
• Pesticides & Herbicides: Crops (and even hedges, verges, and woodlands, where they remain), are often sprayed with pesticides or herbicides. These chemicals are the practical extension of an exasperating belief that nature is our enemy. Pouring poison on our food is a very simplistic way of dealing with our problems, and ignores the root causes. New genetically modified crops, designed to be immune to certain pesticides and herbicides, have resulted in the increased usage of these chemicals. Pesticides, particularly Bayer’s imidacloprid, a nicotine-based product marketed under the names Admire, Provado, Merit, Marathon and Gaucho, have been concretely implicated in the destruction of bee populations before. That other bees and insects are not raiding deserted hives to feed on the honey, as they normally would, lends some credence to the theory of toxic overload.
• GM Crops: GM Crops are widespread in the U.S., in particular, as is unintended contamination through horizontal gene transfer. Creating plants with built-in pesticides will kill insects. Bees, by the way, are insects. Additionally, it is known that inserted genes can combine in host DNA molecules to create unexpected proteins – that can be toxic or allergenic. It is impossible to know all the implications of how pollen from such plants will interact with the organisms they are in contact with.
• Direct Stress: Transportation, lack of natural food, and natural food diversity, pesticides sprayed directly into hives, antibiotics and GMOs in feed. Bees today are ‘factory farmed’ much in the way hens are. We take too much of their honey, replacing it with sugary water instead, and, like hens, stifle their instinctive habits – like swarming. These things, and other environmental factors, can cause a general weakening of pollinators’ immune systems. The few dead bees that have been located are often found to contain multiple pathogens and diseases – indicative of an AIDS-like syndrome.
• Varroa mites: Although some like to pin the blame on these mites, I’m dubious, and I’m not alone: “Many bee experts assumed varroa mites were a major cause of the severe die-off in the winter of 2005. Yet when researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, traveled to Oakdale, California, where Anderson and a number of his fellow beekeepers spend winter and spring, they could find no correlation between the level of varroa mite infestation and the health of bee colonies. “We couldn’t pin the blame for the die-off on any single cause,” says Jeff Pettis, a research entomologist at the lab.- The Vanishing. However, treatments against mites may be leaving hives open to the onslaught of powerful pathogens, much in the same way the overuse of antibiotics lead to super bugs in our hospitals.
• Artificial Insemination: “Rudolf Steiner gave lectures to the workers at the Goetheanum in 1923 in Dornach, Switzerland. Among the workers was a professional beekeeper, Mr Müller, who contributed to these lectures in the form of insights and questions. However, Mr Müller rebelled vehemently and showed no understanding when Steiner explained the intricacies of the queen bee, mentioning that the modern method of breeding queens (using the larvae of worker bees, a practice that had already been in use for about fifteen years) would have long-term detrimental effects, so grave that: “A century later all breeding of bees will cease if only artificially produced bees are used (November 10). . . . It is quite correct that we can’t determine this today; it will have to be delayed until a later time. Let’s talk to each other again in one hundred years, Mr Müller, then we’ll see what kind of opinion you’ll have at that point”. Seventy-five years have passed and the kind of queen breeding Steiner spoke of has not only continued, but has become the standard, and is now supplemented with instrumental insemination.” – Gibson, commenting on Celsias
• Weather: The hotter, dryer summers and wetter winters brought about by global warming.
• Mechanistic Mindsets: Last, but by no means the least, is the problem of our mechanistic mindset – reducing an infinitely complicated world of interactions to an overly simplistic viewpoint. This is the root cause of several of the issues outlined above. Where, in mathematics (adding numbers or inanimate objects) 1 + 1 = 2, in biology (i.e. the combination of two life forms), 1 + 1 may equal 3, or a billion and three. The term bio-engineering itself is a contradiction in terms – they are entirely juxtaposed. ‘Bio’ equates to ‘life’. ‘Engineering’ refers to design and manufacture, a blueprint of exactness. Biological forms (i.e. life-forms) can never be ‘engineered’ – i.e. predictably controlled or manipulated. Unlike a sheet of metal that can be machined with consistent results, organisms in natural systems are ever changing and adjusting. This makes ‘bio-engineering’, in the best-case scenario, a futile exercise and an enormous misallocation of human and environmental resources, and, in the worse case scenario, an ecological catastrophe with no chance for a product recall.
• Navigational Hindrances: There was also a miscontrued study on cellphone radiation and its effects on the bees ability to navigate – which turned out to be an over-zealous knee-jerk reaction by The Independent. CCD is occuring even in locations with no cell phone coverage. Some have also mentioned other navigational hindrances such as UV radiation, shifting magnetic fields and even quantum physics.

Researchers are desperately seeking the ’cause’ of colony collapse disorder. The reductionist mindset would be tempted to pull a single root cause out from amongst those above, but, I would propose that the items listed above, in combination, constitute a great load on the camel’s back – with one or two of the above being the final straw that broke it.

And, again, when considering the plight of the bee – let’s remove our blinders, and look around a little more. How are other creatures (some of them also pollinators, like butterflies and birds) being affected by our pesticides, our mechanisation, and our specialist systems? We focus on the honeybee only because of its direct and immediate threat to our livelihoods, and indeed our food supply – but, there’s a whole other world out there that’s suffering under our (mis)management. We’re just not paying attention.

Speaking before the U.S. House of Representatives, the head of the Illinois Department of Entomology had this to say:

It is an unfortunate consequence of benign indifference to the precarious nature of an overwhelming reliance on a single species that few alternative actively managed species are currently available for use. And despite evidence of their efficacy as crop pollinators, wild species are not being exploited to any significant extent. While efforts to monitor honey bees are inadequate, efforts to monitor the status of wild pollinators in North America are essentially non existent…. There is reliable evidence that some North American pollinator species have gone extinct, become locally extirpated, or have declined in number. At least two bumble bee species, one of which is a crop pollinator, could face imminent extinction, and several other pollinators have declined significantly. For some species, there is no evidence of population decline because their populations have never been monitored over time; there is seldom a historical baseline with which contemporary data can be compared.

The committee noted that, while systematic, thorough monitoring programs in Europe have revealed dramatic declines in native pollinator abundance and diversity, there are no comparable North American programs….

… Beyond agriculture, pollinators are crucial to maintaining the quality of American life. They serve as keystone species in most terrestrial ecosystems in that the services they provide allow most plants to reproduce and maintain genetic diversity. These plants in turn provide food and shelter for animals; fruits and seeds produced by insect pollination are a major part of the diet of approximately 25 percent of birds and of mammals ranging from red-backed voles to grizzly bears. In some areas, pollinator-supported plant communities prevent erosion by binding the soil—thereby conserving an important resource and keeping creeks clean for aquatic life.

Phalanxes of economists devote many hours to estimating and calculating our energy reserves but there has been no comparable effort to calculate our pollination reserves. Human technological innovation has not, in most cases, replaced or even improved upon animal pollinators and is unlikely to do so in the immediate future. “The birds and the bees” remain an essential fact of life; as long as plants depend on pollinators, so will people and it behooves us to shepherd them wisely. - Colony Collapse Disorder and Pollinator Decline, Statement of May R. Berenbaum, Professor and Head, Department of Entomology University of Illinois before the Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture Committee on Agriculture, U.S. House of Representatives, March 29, 2007

If enough spokes in a wheel get bent or broken, the wheel will eventually collapse (there’s that word again). From appearances, at the moment, the livelihoods of beekeepers, farmers and agricultural industries are the immediate concern (estimates of 15 billion dollars worth of agricultural produce is at risk in the U.S. alone), but even this will become inconsequential if the problem progresses into a biological meltdown. Insects, plants and animals, are all interdependent, and we rely on them (despite popular belief, and contrary to the PR broadcasts of the chemical companies). If pollinators are indicators of the health of our environment – our current canary-in-the-cage, so to speak – then isn’t it time we moved to safety?

A University of Tennessee study found that only 31 per cent of 14,000 insects collected from a bug zapper were biting insects. About half were non-biting aquatic insects and 14 per cent were beneficial insects that attack pests.

“From this study we estimate that as many as 350 billion non-target insects are destroyed each year by these traps,” said Gene Burgess, a Tennessee entomologist.

“Because so many predators and parasites are killed, the traps may actually be protecting mosquitoes and other pests. The zappers are of greater value indoors where you don’t want insects of any sort.”

Butterflies inhabit the earth for weeks at the most. Their existence is fragile but enormously important to the earth, from which many of their species are disappearing. Claire Hagen Dole enters their world to explain how we can create butterfly havens that enrich the planet and bring beauty to our gardens.

Photography: Craig Mackintosh

Have you ever noticed a colourful swallowtail butterfly gliding through the boughs of your apple tree? Have you watched a Painted Lady sipping nectar from a blackberry blossom. Like the industrious honeybee, these enchanting creatures are also pollinating blossoms as they move from plant to plant.

Throughout history, butterflies have been a subject of fascination; in some cultures, they’ve been equated with the human soul. Indeed, except for a few over wintering species, most adult butterflies inhabit the earth for a mere few days or weeks. Invite them into your garden; focus your gaze on their incredible journey from egg to larva to chrysalis (pupa) to winged adult. These life stages are so different that early naturalists thought they represented different animals.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Consider the second stage, the larva or the caterpillar. Who hasn’t plucked a caterpillar that is voraciously feeding on a desired plant? Some butterflies (like the widespread European Cabbage White) do cause damage to monoculture crops, but many caterpillars feed on weeds like nestles, thistles, or mallows. The spectacular Monarch (Danaus plexippus), which migrates from Canada to Mexico and ranges as far afield as Europe and Hawaii, lays its eggs on milkweed (Asclepias spp.). In addition, only one in ten insects found in the order Lepidoptera are butterflies; the rest are moths.

Should you find a bunch of caterpillars devouring a garden plant, try to identify them in a guidebook. Look in the host plant index and, if possible, for characteristics of the caterpillar: smooth, hairy, branched spines, etc. (Warning: larvae go through four or five stages which can look very different from each other and from guidebook illustrations.) An agricultural extension agent or entomologist may be able to help you.

Is there a benefit to leaving caterpillars to their feast? Insects form a large part of the food chain; only a small percentage of hatching larvae will survive to adulthood. You will see more birds in your garden when it’s populated by a diverse crew of crawling, bark-boring, and leaf-eating bugs.

Arguably, even the leaf-eaters can benefit both plant and soil by pruning heavy growth and dropping nutrient-rich frass (excrement) on the ground. Considering that larvae may bulk up to a thousand times their weight before pupating, that’s a lot of frass!

Of course it’s also a lot of leaves. How does a plant respond to this kind of stress? Some gardeners swear that letting a caterpillar devour leaves forces the plant to put its energy onto producing fruit. Plants can also emit chemicals that attract parasitic wasps; they may even be able to arrest their own development to wait out an insect’s life cycle.

Survival strategies

Certain butterflies are widespread because they’ll lay their eggs on a vast number of plants. The painted lady (Vanessa cardui) is named after the thistle genus Carduus because it uses the spiny weed as a larval host plant. However, more than a hundred other plants, including borage and sunflower, will also fit the bill. Organic artichoke growers sometimes plant thistles among their rows to lure the painted lady to its favourite plant. Because it’s so common and nonspecific in both nectar and host plant choice, it’s the butterfly sold in caterpillar rearing kits.

The related Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) is another “weedy generalist who chooses fewer host plants, but ones that are widespread and opportunistic. In the mining spoils of Wales, barren soil supports two hardy plants that meet the Red Admirals needs – nettles (Urtica dioica) for its larvae, and butterfly bush (Buddleia spp.), a native of China that is named for its attractive nectar.

Most butterflies have narrower habitat and feeding requirements, making them vulnerable to development pressures and loss of host plants. Great Britain’s picturesque hedgerows, meadows and copses have sheltered butterflies and other wildlife for centuries, while preserving plant diversity. As they’ve been bulldozed for agribusiness, with its heavy pesticide use, butterfly populations have plummeted. Five species have become extinct and half the remaining 55 have reached dangerously low numbers, prompting a new project called Action for Butterflies.

Your Part in Saving the Butterfly

How can such damage be reversed? For many species on the verge of extinction, it probably can’t. But simple actions can aid local butterflies, as well as the many other creatures who inhabit your region. Think of your garden as a link in a wildlife corridor, part of the diverse canopy of grasses, flowers, shrubs and trees (both deciduous and evergreen) that feed and shelter them.

Enlist other members of the community to reduce lawns, stop pesticide use and choose a variety of plants that produce first nectar and then seeds. Think of native plants first, because they’ve evolved with local insect and bird species. Devote one corner of your lot, next to your neighbour’s corner, to providing the habitat that wild creatures need.

Butterflies are so sensitive to chemicals that scientists view them as indicator species for pesticide overuse. Hand pick pests when possible; even B.T. (Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki), considered a safe organic pesticide, kills butterfly larvae along with targeted species like the Gypsy moth.

The Butterfly Garden

What special considerations will make your garden a haven for butterflies? You needn’t redesign the yard; start by incorporating a few nectar and host plants into your food garden.

Pick a sunny, sheltered spot. Large rocks or a stone wall make great basking spots for these cold-blooded insects. Block the wind with lattice or hedgerow. It’s a plus if you can put your butterfly garden near a kitchen or living room window for better viewing.

Fragrance and colour will draw in a passing butterfly; plant flora in masses for greatest effect. Access to the nectar is important – showy double blooms and hybrids don’t provide good perches or feeding sources. Some longer lived butterflies supplement their diet with decayed fruit, tree sap, animal scat, even carrion.

Butterflies frequent the edge between habitat zones, like the spot where a meadow meets the trees. The males, patrolling for a mate, can dart into the shrubbery for safety. Wood or brush poles also give shelter in bad weather or during winter months.

Provide a patch of wet sand or dirt for male butterflies, who gather to sip mineral-rich water – a behaviour called “puddling”.

Which plants bring in the butterflies? Try observing in your area, local guidebook in hand. Or plant Buddleia in a sunny spot, watch to see what butterflies show up and then plant their host plants, along with some bright nectar-producing flowers.

Butterfly pleasers include red valerian (Centranthus ruber) pin-cushion flower (Scabiosa spp.) Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia), verbena, wallflower (Erysimum spp.) zinnia, marigold (Tageres spp.) orchid primrose (Primula vialii), cosmos, phlox, milkweed (Asclepias spp.) aster, coneflower (Echinacea spp.) yarrow (Achillea millefolium), and thistle (several genera including Cirsium and Cardus). Some exotic species of thistle are formidably invasive; make sure you choose a benign native variety.

Members of the family Umbelliferae, like fennel, dill and parsley, attract a variety of beneficial insects. Butterflies appreciate umbels, sturdy flower heads, where they can perch to sip nectar from one blossom after another. In North America, these plants are used as larval hosts by black and Anise Swallowtails. Plant enough to share with their attractive caterpillars, which are patterned in green, yellow and black stripes and spots.

A garden full of humming, buzzing, chirping wildlife, punctuated by the flutter of colourful butterflies’ wings, never gets boring. The more I learn about these amazing insects, the more I’m in awe of the complex web of life we all share. And I plant another marigold among the peas and tomatoes.

It’s an age-old struggle: ever since people gave up the hunter/gatherer lifestyle for a more settled agricultural age, food production has been subject to the ravages of creatures with appetites similar to our own. The ‘taming’ of our natural environment has come at a huge price, the only subject of debate is what our excesses will cost our children. Home food producers, not to mention an ever increasing contingent of commercial producers, are looking for new solutions to old dilemmas. Where the aim was to protect ourselves from the elements, we now seek to protect nature and ourselves from the many stresses of a ‘tamed’ wilderness.

Total Exclusion vs Diversion Strategy

Wildlife of any kind can be thought of as being similar to flowing water. Water will always take the route of least resistance. Wild creatures seek only to meet their survival needs by expending the least energy possible.

Control methods that seek to totally exclude are rarely successful and have several disadvantages. For starters, you lose the benefits the wildlife bring, whether aesthetic or practical, at the same time using tremendous amounts of resources and energy.

A case in point is the story of an African village that built a three metre high electric fence to keep the local elephants out of its gardens. The first animal took a couple of shocks in the trunk before retreating to the forest, it appeared that the villagers had won. In moments the animal returned carrying a tree, and without preamble, flattened the fence with it.

Being kind to wildlife is not humanly possible unless you can put food on your own table first. Employing diversionary strategies means exactly that, diverting ‘water’ rather than trying to ‘dam it’. The creatures are included in your overall plan from the outset as opposed to ignoring their presence and becoming (understandably) distraught when they show up for dinner.

Insectivorous bat – a very hard worker

The benefits to this shift in our basic outlook are many, not only reducing the impact of animals on our crops, but even attracting and employing some species to advantage. An excellent example is that of insectivorous bats which can eat as many as 600 flying insects per hour! An organic farmer in Oregon, USA, reported to Bat Conservation International that approximately 600 bats housed in 21 bat boxes had virtually ended the incidence of corn ear worms.

Know Thy Adversary

Like any garden project, forward planning is essential, and an inclusive strategy means that acknowledging wildlife as part of the local conditions, like acid soil or storms, means you’ll be ready for anything.

For example, if I was about to plant an apple orchard, I should ask myself a few simple questions like: Who besides me likes to eat apples? Where I live in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia, the answer would be possums, codlin moth and parrots. Addressing each creature separately, I would endeavour to know my adversary.

Take possums. Possums climb very well and can jump reasonably well too but no more than four feet (1.2 metres). So I’ll need to prune my trees so they have four feet of trunk before the first branches. Now I can wrap the trunk in sheet tin so the possums can’t climb it.

Tree branches will need to be kept at least four feet away from fences and the like so there are no alternative routes for the possums. I’ll plant a couple of trees away from the main orchard and leave them unprotected as a decoy feeder.

I’m no entomologist, so off to the library to look up codlin moth. I discover that the larvae are the culprits, and that there is little I can do once they’re in the apple, so it’s the parents I’m after. Armed with the knowledge that they fly at night, I call in the airforce, BATS! Insectivorous bats that is, not fruit bats. The metal collars around the trees are well known to house bats but I’ll install a few bat boxes as well.

Now for the parrots. Many orchardists will tell you that most bird scarers, like tinfoil plates, gas guns, windchimes and tin hawks, work for a short while but the birds soon become accustomed to them. The critical point is that birds as a rule don’t have very long memories and constant change is the secret. So, a weekly rotation of four different scarers is better than one scarer alone.

During your crop’s most vulnerable period, you might consider feeding the parrots in a tranquil place away from your orchard (and scarers). If this option is taken up, some research would be required to determine which species is giving you the headache and what you can entice it with. Not all parrots, for instance, eat seed. The lorikeet is a ‘brushed tongue parrot’ and feeds primarily on pollen and nectar, so juicy fruits like cherries and plums are a favourite target. A suitable nectar substitute should be available from good pet stores. You might wish to find out what your birds used to feed on at ripening time before your orchard came along. It could be their alternatives are limited as a result of our agriculture.

South Australia has a huge number of vineyards, but little bush left in the area where grapes are produced. As a result the local honeyeaters often have a devastating impact on the crops. Some of the more progressive vineyard owners have begun planting native banksias in groves around their vineyards, selecting species that open their nectar-rich flowers at ripening time. When the banksias flower, the honeyeaters display an obvious preference for them and the vineyards suffer only the lightest bird damage at the edges.

Acceptable Losses

I know of no pest control strategies that completely eradicate damage to crops without eradicating the troublesome species, and this usually starts more problems than it solves. It is often easier to see what the wildlife is doing to us without pausing to think what they are doing for us. For instance, honeyeaters may attack fruit but they also consume vast amounts of insects. If we were to eradicate the honeyeaters, the massive increase in insects would force many growers to rely on poisons to do what the honeyeaters did without toxins for free. If I wished to harvest the fruit of 10 trees per year I would consider planting 12, the extra being payment for natural insect control.

Nothing in the natural world happens instantly, and most of the suggestions above require mid to long term thinking. When we examine the effects of short term thinking, so evident all around us, that doesn’t seem so bad.

It’s impossible to provide universally effective solutions to wildlife management dilemmas. My aim here is to encourage people to take inclusive strategies on board. With a little research (your local library is a gold mine – your neighbour might be as well) and observation, your will find even more ways to work in harmony with nature, and by example you will no doubt show others in your area how to do the same.

Further Reading:

• Which Came First – Pests, or Pesticides?

With chapters like ‘Crap Happens’, ‘Deep Shit’ and ‘A Day in the Life of a Turd’, this is sure to be an interesting book, albeit possibly not one to read over lunch?

With this wonderful substance piling up in all the wrong places (after all, we’re running out of clean water, and yet we’re crapping in it…), this taboo topic deserves a lot more attention than it gets. Enjoy the book – and special thanks to the author Joseph Jenkins for making this freely available (warning: 22mb PDF – if you want to download chapter by chapter, scroll down on this page, or just read online here).

Oh, want a hard copy of this book? Here you go.

Written by a humanure composting practitioner and organic gardener with over 30 years experience, this third edition provides detailed scientific information on how humanure can be hygienically recycled, without fancy technological do-dads, a large bank account, toxic chemicals, or environmental pollution.

This unique handbook provides information on composting, soil fertility and microorganisms, alternative graywater systems and much more. It also gives detailed instructions on how you can build or buy your own sawdust toilet and compost bins for only a few dollars.

Defecating in our drinking water is perhaps one of our culture’s most curious, but least talked about, habits. This book gives compelling and detailed testimony as to why humanure should be constructively recycled:

* to prevent water pollution: (almost 4 trillion gallons of sewage effluent are dumped into our coastal waterways each year);
* to fertilize the soil: (rich in soil nutrients, humanure can be safely recycled by thermophilic composting);
* to protect our dwindling drinking water supplies: (nearly 1/3 of all household drinking water is used to flush toilets); and
* to enhance our health: Fertile soil not only grows great veggies, but nourishes our health and community’s well-being. – josephjenkins.com

Yesterday the Southern California Permaculture Convergence got underway. The word ‘convergence’ is the operative word here, and, ironically, to me at least, has a double meaning. Over the last couple of weeks, being here at Quail Springs just reminds me of the convergence of issues we face as a race, just as we ‘converge’ to network, share instruction and ideas, and find new ways to work together to face those same issues.

Let me explain, using an example very close to where we are today.

Quail Springs is situated in a high valley in the New Cuyama region of southern California. You can get an idea of the landscape from the panorama below (click for a larger version – you’ll also see an arrow pointing to where Quail Springs is).

Click for full view

As you can see, these are arid, desert lands. But, as mentioned before, it wasn’t always like this. Before Spanish and European settlement, this area held a vast swath of forest, with the New Cuyama River gliding slowly through. Now it’s a bone dry landscape in need of reconstructive surgery.

The picture below shows the New Cuyama River today. Deforestation and modern agriculture has totally undermined the natural watershed – a previously perpetual and abundant system that sustained the Chumash Indians for thousands of years.

The New Cuyama River – Pacific Steelhead Trout used to swim up here.
The river hasn’t flowed year round since the 1930s

This week we drove from Quail Springs, and followed the river as it wound its way to the sea. With the exception of a few small puddles showing up in a couple of places, it was bone dry all the way to the coast.

So, with the natural hydrological cycles disrupted, and the lands now converted to a virtual desert landscape, how do the many farmers here irrigate their crops? They dig wells and pump from the underground aquifers of course.

Quail Springs’ closest neighbour is a perfect example of how it works. This is a monocrop carrot farm (see above). The soil is fed each Spring by hundreds of thousands of tons of composted sewerage sludge from surrounding cities like Las Vegas, Santa Barbara, Bakersfield, etc. After it’s transported and dumped, heavy earthmoving equipment spreads it over the fields. The carrots are sown, and then watered through the hot spring and summer months by pumping the fast-depleting aquifer using two diesel generators.

The pumping has become a literal race-to-the-bottom. Smaller farmers cannot afford the costs of drilling deeper and deeper wells, so get priced out of the race. Larger farmers, whilst benefiting from more water, are also outcompeting their neighbours in both gaining a market share and depleting the precious aquifer.

Meanwhile, the remaining farmers are continuing to kill their own lands, as, amongst other things, the water they’re pumping is high in salt content. The irrigation runoff at the bottom of this slight slope dries out and has the telltale white surface crystalisation as evidence, and the carrots themselves, despite the huge energy expenditure to feed and water them, are not looking good this year – the high salt intake affecting their ability to take up water and to photosynthesize. As we look down the rows, we note that the foliage is a mix of green and sickly yellow.

Why is the water so salt laden? Well, it’s because the extraction rate from the aquifer is higher than the replenishment rate, and so pumping is driven deeper and deeper. Salt water has a higher density than fresh water and tends to sink. They are now pumping near the bottom of the aquifer.

For this particular farm they are pumping at about 600 feet below, and some of the farms in this region, on a different aquifer, are pumping at up to 1,200 feet deep.

A New Cuyama Vinyard…

A ‘resting’ carrot field. No cover crop, but just left to erode by wind and rain

The ironic thing about this particular farm (and many others in the area) is that it is ‘organic’. These are the carrots that show up at places like Whole Foods, etc. Although slipping through the technical loopholes of organic standards, and, even aside from concerns over the source material for the compost, the production methods for these foodstuffs are obviously not sustainable. The aquifer is dying, and so is the soil, and the fossil fuel dependency is well entrenched (some farms use planes and helicopters for spraying). Local water experts believe these farmers have just a few years left.

This leads me to the ‘other convergence’. The Southern California Permaculture Convergence, where we’re hearing more positive news and success stories from people who are implementing land, water, energy and waste management techniques according to permaculture principles that lead to sustainable abundance.

This 1st Annual Southern California Convergence is the brainchild of Wes Roe and
Margie Bushman (pictured above) of the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network.
We thank them for the determination and effort that has made this important
event possible.

Warren Brush, who heads the 13-strong Quail Springs team,
welcomes attendees to the convergence

Warren and his wife, Cyndi, are the very gracious hosts of the convergence, ably assisted by the great team of people I’ve had the privilege of getting to know a little over the last couple of weeks. Geoff, Nadia and I thank them all for their hospitality and their vision.

After an excellent and inspiring introduction by Warren, one of the world’s youngest PDC graduates lit the flame for the weekend – using local materials (wood, leather, etc.). Cody (currently 13 – but who graduated at aged 12) used a bow drill to light a candle that is to burn through the convergence, symbolising how the permaculture knowledge that has developed worldwide over the last few decades must be passed on and developed by new, young permaculturists (the emerging canopy, as Warren eloquently put it) who will have to go on to do much more than the present generation, and for whom these skills will be even more pertinent than ever (imagine this land in another few years…).

Brad Lancaster illustrates water runoff principles for urban environments

The main speakers for the Convergence are Geoff Lawton and Brad Lancaster (inset). Honored guest speakers are Larry Santoyo, Bill Roley, Ed Mendoza, Gabriel Howearth, and Art Ludwig.

Geoff Lawton’s talks and slideshows made people aware of some of the wide-ranging work going on internationally. On Friday night attendees were also treated to the final cut of our soon-to-be-released Food Forest DVD, which went down a treat. Brad Lancaster had a great presentation on water harvesting in urban environments – showing the win-win-win implementation of simple techniques that have, until recently, eluded modern city councils. These simple low-cost solutions stop flooding and erosion, save money and precious water, and also make homes and neighbourhoods more habitable and comfortable. The good news from Brad is that some localities are taking note.

An example of this is can be seen via the clip below, where a Los Angeles home was fitted with water harvesting systems as a demonstration site – before invites were sent to city officials and others to come and see the site get bombarded with a (manufactured) one in 1500 year rainwater event. Despite the deluge, the site soaked its water and no damage was done. The impressive demonstration resulted in a proposed multimillion dollar stormwater upgrade getting shelved, in favour of diverting funds towards sustainable water harvesting methods instead.

As I type, the sun has set on the day – groups of permies are talking in the relative cool of the evening, discussing ways to work more effectively together in the months and years ahead. Recent events worldwide – in political, social, ecological and energy arenas – are driving more and more people to pound on the permaculture door. Interest is coming in from all directions, and at the highest levels. We certainly have the solutions; the mission now is to coordinate and escalate our efforts to meet the demand.

Not a good time to rely on fossil fuel dependant food

At least New Cuyamians have a sense of humour…

Photo credit: Craig Mackintosh

On Thursday August 28, 2008 one of the world’s top permaculture designers, Australian Geoff Lawton, spoke to a standing-room-only audience at Santa Barbara City College in Santa Barbara. The presentation was sponsored by the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network and the SBCC Center for Sustainability, led by biology professor Dr. Adam Green. Lawton described some of the projects he and his Jordanian wife, Nadia, have been doing around the world and showed some of the You Tube videos about their work (see resources below).

What distinguishes Lawton is his sophisticated and even shocking land repair technique, probably best illustrated by the “Greening the Desert” video that shows the “before” and “after” pictures of a project near the ancient Middle Eastern city of Jericho. One of Lawton’s favorite phrases is “getting a result” and his results have been so impressive that he now travels the world starting up new permaculture land repair operations in many places.

He is currently working in a number of Middle Eastern countries, Africa, Vietnam and other locations rehabilitating land and he also works with the UN on an ambitious set of projects to rapidly create sustainable human habitat for the armies of refugees the world’s growing political, economic and environmental crises are now creating. Lawton and his Permaculture Research Institute teams design solutions, get land repair, food and natural building housing projects started, train local people and outside students on the site and then leave a sustainable food forest behind in good local hands after three years. Most crisis aid is anything but sustainable – flying in temporary food and medicine from elsewhere, creating temporary shelter and then leaving refugee populations in unsustainable circumstances – so this is an exciting new design for solving a critical human problem.

Lawton’s work is based on permaculture principles laid down in the 1970s by Australian permaculture founders Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. The work Lawton and many other permaculture designers do could be considered a form of “land doctoring” that heals whole ecosystems, including the human and animal communities that depend on healthy land.

Permaculturists don’t consider themselves conservationists but rather land improvers, and focus on building soil, the basis for all life. They like nothing better than to be confronted with a truly ill patient. Mollison loves to chuckle that nothing is more fun or challenging for him than a piece of really trashed land that he can bring back to life. And as one soon discovers, fun appears to be a critical element in the permaculture way of doing things.

Because the first principle of permaculture is observation, a lot of time is spent with the prospective patient (the land, the community) before a diagnosis and prescription are forthcoming. All forces affecting the land – wind patterns, sun, human needs etc. – are examined and an appropriate, sustainable solution is designed. The goal is minimal intervention for maximum, ongoing impact. But once the design is clear, the “land surgery” can be impressive, with sculpting of ditches, damming of streams for better water infiltration and even major earthworks in critical situations.

The next moves, however, are nature’s. Rain, however slight, is a key ingredient (Australians, like most dryland folk, have a deep reverence for water) and is captured and cherished. A careful choice of plants (in natural succession) is next. The goal is always to create an ecosystem that mimics nature in its ability to sustain human and natural life in abundance over time.

One interesting thing about these Australian teachers is that although they are perfectly aware of the challenges of energy descent, resource depletion and climate disruption (and have been since the 1970s), they don’t take a doom and gloom attitude. In fact many of them are cheery, enthusiastic, cheeky and even rather swashbuckling in their approach – which probably accounts for the huge enthusiasm they engender in the many young people getting involved with permaculture. They offer hope, and a concrete prescription for not just surviving but thriving.

An example of the upbeat permaculture approach is the “perma-blitz,” which is being used to rehabilitate suburban land. David Holmgren describes it as capturing “the enthusiasm generated by Permaculture Design Courses to stimulate direct action to retrofit houses and gardens for greater self reliance and pleasure while eliminating waste and environmental impact. By collective and collaborative action permablitz simultaneously attacks apathy and lack of resources and skills to give homemakers the boost along the path of self reliance and minimal ecological footprint. Permablitz (also) allows new designers to gain experience by working with colleagues, homemakers and helpers.”

In typical permaculture design fashion, it’s a win-win-win solution with multiple “yields.”

Unlike some environmentalists, permaculturists don’t view people as some sort of overbred virus on the planet. A basic permaculture principle is that “the problem is the solution” and Geoff Lawton points out that just as humans have been the source of our current environmental problems, so too are humans the solution. He’s busy training up new generations of land and community healers to do just that.

Resources:

• Permaculture Research Institute of Australia
• Permaculture Research Institute USA
• Permablitz!
• Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
• Santa Barbara City College Center for Sustainability
• Santa Barbara Permaculture Guild – Email: lbsaltzman (at) aol.com

How many have heard the term? Hmm…, a few raised hands. How many of you can explain its meaning to others in the class? Okay, not so many.

It’s actually a pretty simple concept to understand, and it’s a little frightening to realise the implications once you have.

Clear Lake, California

A classic story of bio-magnification was observed at Clear Lake in California, and well illustrates the deadly process.

In 1949 they sprayed DDD, a form of DDT, to kill a non-biting gnat. They met with success, initially…. Two years later the gnat was back, so they repeated the treatment (readers of our previous pesticide story will understand the term ‘pesticide treadmill’ in this context). Sprays continued at more frequent intervals until 1954. Over the course of these seasons, however, the carcasses of increasingly large numbers of grebes began to accumulate in the lake – hundreds of them….

Autopsies of the birds showed incredible concentrations of DDD in their systems, but a check of the lake confirmed the water only contained .02 ppm (not at all a toxic amount). So how on earth could these birds be dying at all – let alone in such large numbers?

Remember, this is back in the 1950s – at a time when, despite early warnings that natural systems won’t take kindly to being doused in toxic chemicals, there was as yet no historical record to prove their dangers.

It didn’t take long to figure out what happened, however. Examining various creatures in the lake brought the following results:

• While the water contamination level was a paltry .02 ppm, the plankton population had accumulated levels of 5 ppm
• Small fish, feeding on the plankton over the course of their lives, had accumulated significantly more at 40-300ppm
• Predatory fish, which eat many of these smaller fish over the course of their lives, were found to contain 2,500 ppm

Then along come the unsuspecting grebes – gulping down dozens of highly toxic ‘treats’, each containing approximately 125,000 times more DDD than the water from which they were pulled.

In other words, the higher up the food chain the poison travelled, the more it accumulated, or ‘magnified’, and this magnification can be exponential.

Now, how does this relate to you, you ask? It’s simple – we’re at the top of most food chains. Consider that the ‘further from the sun’ your dietary habits are, the more our current poison-oriented agricultural practises are likely to impact upon your health. I have heard people reject the idea of vegetarianism with the rebuff: “those fruit and vegies are covered in pesticides – give me a steak any day!” Hopefully the above will help these people to see that they’re trading the risk of a small amount of chemical contamination with a greatly magnified option. An animal that has spent its life eating fertilised and pesticide-sprayed grass and grains, along with dousings of antibiotics, etc., can make that T-bone positively dangerous.

Pesticides and other chemicals are stored mainly in body fat and tend to concentrate in breast milk fat. They can thus be passed on to children during breast feeding, or to unborn babies through the placenta.

If human breast milk came stamped with an ingredients label, it might read something like this: 4 percent fat, vitamins A, C, E and K, lactose, essential minerals, growth hormones, proteins, enzymes and antibodies. In a healthy woman, it contains 100 percent of virtually everything a baby needs to survive, plus a solid hedge of extras to help ward off a lifetime of diseases like diabetes and cancer. Breast milk helps disarm salmonella and E. coli. Its unique recipe of fatty acids boosts brain growth and results in babies with higher I.Q.’s than their formula-slurping counterparts. Nursing babies suffer from fewer infections, hospitalizations and cases of sudden infant death syndrome. For the mother, too, breast-feeding and its delicate plumbing of hormones afford protection against breast and ovarian cancers and stress. Despite exhaustion, the in-laws and dirty laundry, every time we nurse our babies, the love hormone oxytocin courses out of our pituitaries like a warm bath. Human milk is like ice cream, Valium and Ecstasy all wrapped up in two pretty packages.

But read down the label, and the fine print, at least for some women, sounds considerably less appetizing: DDT (the banned but stubbornly persistent pesticide famous for nearly wiping out the bald eagle), PCB’s, dioxin, trichloroethylene, perchlorate, mercury, lead, benzene, arsenic. When we nurse our babies, we feed them not only the fats, sugars and proteins that fire their immune systems, metabolisms and cerebral synapses. We also feed them, albeit in minuscule amounts, paint thinners, dry-cleaning fluids, wood preservatives, toilet deodorizers, cosmetic additives, gasoline byproducts, rocket fuel, termite poisons, fungicides and flame retardants.

… Some of the chemicals I’m mainlining to my 1-year-old daughter will stay in her body long enough for her to pass them on to her own offspring. PCB’s, for example, can remain in human tissue for decades. On a body-weight basis, the dietary doses my baby gets are much higher than the doses I get. This is not only because she is smaller, but also because her food — my milk — contains more concentrated contaminants than my food. It’s the law of the food chain, and it’s called biomagnification. – Toxic Breast Milk?, Mindfully.org

The problems of pesticide usage do not end with you alone.

Accidents in manufacturing plants are extremely dangerous and can be deadly. In 1984, a malfunction at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killed thousands of people outright and maimed tens of thousands more. While this has been the most serious accident so far, it has not been the only one. The widespread dioxin contamination of the area around Seveso, Italy, and the severe contamination of the Rhine following an accident at the Sandoz plant in Basel, Switzerland, are two other recent examples. Perhaps even more worrisome are the routine releases of toxic wastes from pesticide plants – events that do not make the newspapers. The Sandoz accident was followed by the deliberate release of toxics from other plants along the Rhine, including the BASF plant at Ludwigshafen.

Every year, the health of millions of farm workers is directly threatened by pesticides. People working in the fields inhale poisons during and after application and ingest them in their food and water. Again, the situation is particuarly severe in the South, where labels and warnings are often unintelligible, and where relatively few workers are provided with the recommended protective equipment. However, even when manufacturers’ instructions are followed precisely, poisoning is still common. In 1983 the United Nations Economic and Social Committee for Asia and the Pacific estimated that between 400,000 and 2,000,000 farmers worldwide are poisoned by pesticides each year, 20,000 to 40,000 of whom die as a result. Another estimate suggests that as many as 300,000 farm workers in the United States alone may be suffering from pesticide-related illnesses.

Direct causal links between pesticide exposure and subsequent long-term illness are extremely difficult to establish. However, the evidence is mounting. Out of 426 chemicals named in 1988 by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food as ingredients in pesticides cleared for use in England, 164 had been implicated in causing cancer, genetic mutations, irritant reactions, or reproductive problems ranging from impotency to birth defects. A 1986 National Cancer Institute study reported that farmers exposed to herbicides – espectially 2,4-D – for more than twenty days per year were six times as likely to develop non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system. In the prime agricultural region of the San Joaquin Valley of California, where 35% of the wells are contaminated with DPCP, the State Department of Health Services found an increased mortality rate for stomach cancer, the primary site for tumour induction in animals used in testing DPCP. In the small farm community of McFarland, California, thirteen children have developed cancer since 1981, and six have died; miscarriages, fetal deaths and low birth weights are common. A definitive causal link has not been established, but pesticide contamination in the region is a likely factor. Other recent studies link agricultural chemicals to an increase in birth defects.

… Scientists are finding higher and higher levels of pesticides in people throughout the world. The effects are poorly understood, but the increased use of pesticides and other industrial chemicals has been followed by increased cancer rates. Since chronic health problems are usually slow in developing, it may well be that the most serious effects of pesticide contaminaton are yet to come.

Pesticide use in the less industrialised parts of the world is particularly disturbing. Seventy percent of the pesticides used in India are banned or severely restricted in the West. Although regulation on permissible levels in food do exist, they are poorly enforced. A recent survey of vegetables in a Delhi market revealed pesticide residues twenty times above legal limits, while a World Health Organization (WHO) survey in India found 50% of samples contaminated. In a survey in the estate of Punjab, DDT and BHC, both banned in the West, were found in all seventy-five samples of human milk. – From the Ground Up, Rethinking Industrial Agriculture, p. 18-20.

As some of you may have noticed(!), I often come down hard on large corporations that put profits before people. The following passage is an exemplary example of why some are fully deserving of censure:

The United States produces between 100 and 150 million pounds of pesticides which are considered too dangerous for use within the country’s borders. These chemicals are exported for use in other nations with less stringent environmental safeguards. – From the Ground Up, Rethinking Industrial Agriculture, p. 23.

Where’s the logic? A chemical is outright banned. So what do we do with it? WE SELL IT!!

But, as they say, what goes around, comes around:

Yet these same banned and restricted agricultural chemicals find their way to the dinner table in homes all across the United States, in the form of residues on imported beef, cheese [bio-magnification, remember] and vegetables. While inspectors at US borders check food imports for certain chemicals, they are only able to sample 1-2% of all shipments, and test for less than 40% of the pesticides on the market. In many cases, pesticides which cannot be legally used in the US – but which are manufactured domestically and exported overseas – are among those for which inspectors do not test.

According to the US Department of Agriculture figures for 1990, illegal residues on imported food were four times as common as residues on domestic foods. It is not known how much of this contamination originated from pesticide factories operating within the US. – From the Ground Up, Rethinking Industrial Agriculture, p. 23.

A potentially (even) more troubling worry is our water supply. Because chemicals move very slowly through the soil, even if, today, we were to make a complete shift back to organic systems of agriculture, our water tables, wells and aquifers would continue to be drip-fed ongoing deliveries of chemicals for years to come. There is no way to speed up nature’s water purification systems, so these chemicals may remain with us for decades after their use has ceased. This has often been shown to be true when water tests discover wells contain chemicals that have been banned several years prior.

Do you realise that virtually none of the poisons we spray on our fields actually end up on their target – the ‘pest’? But, they do end up everywhere else.

Pesticides are designed to kill. They are released deliberately into the environment and onto food. Only about 1% of a pesticide actually reaches its target. The rest is released into the environment, exposing innocent people and wildlife. – WWF

But, as mentioned in our previous pesticide post, the use of chemicals is not slowing up – we’re using more and more, and, they’re getting stronger:

According to David Pimentel, entomologist at Cornell University, over the past 50 years pesticide use has increased 30 times (and toxicity of pesticides more than a hundredfold)…

And for what?

… many pesticides are losing their effectiveness as the bugs and plants they are designed to eradicate develop resistance. (Already 504 insect and mite species, 150 plant diseases, and 188 weed species have developed resistance.) Farmers still lose about 20 per cent of their crops to weeds and insects, the same proportion as they lost in 1930. – WWF

… twice as much of the harvest is lost to insects today. Chemical warfare is not only destructive to the environment and bad for your health, it’s a losing battle. – Vegsource

The terminology there is more than fitting: “Chemical warfare… it’s a losing battle“. That’s exactly what we’re doing – fighting against nature.

The war mentality underlying military-industrial agriculture is evident from the names given to herbicides….

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. – Virdana Shiva

The same mindset embedded in present politics is found in our industrial systems – violence and heavy-handedness rather than observation and symbiosis.

We are as much a part of this great interconnected web of life as any other organism, so as we destroy and poison our environment, we are of course poisoning ourselves. How long will we continue this warfare? I fear we’ll persevere to our dying breath. The corporate thirst to extract is undeniable, and determined, but you can be sure that in a battle with nature, we’ll lose. The last several decades has seen increasingly frantic attempts by agribusiness to plug the enormous holes in their ability to maintain order out on the field (battleground?). These failing efforts are resulting in a dangerous and obstinate tinkering with the building blocks of life – desperate and futile attempts to get nature to work the way we want it to.

What’s the way forward? A return to pesticide-free agriculture can only come through improved soil fertility. Given that we’ve been ’soil mining’ for decades, taking without giving back, this will not be an overnight move in many places, and it can never happen while we’re using the modern day large-scale Cargill/Monsanto monocrop farming model. This corporate system needs to be recognised for what it is – a failed exercise promoted for the profit of a few, and not for the public good. This short-sighted, arbitrary, destructive and reductionist approach has marched across our social, cultural and actual landscape, uprooting traditional sustainable and, might I add, more efficient family farms with every stride.

Why do we subsidise all the wrong things?

To change course there is a critical epiphany that needs to take place in the minds of certain people that have the means and opportunity to make a difference. The subsidies that favour corporate agribusiness and long-distance trade and force family farmers into cities to become factory workers and Wal-Mart-type employees must cease. The current conviction that the health of a nation is determined by its bottom line, its fiscal state, and an unending growth in consumerism must give way to the realisation that the true measure of wealth in a society can only be based on the health, wealth and well-being of its individual members. Through changes in agricultural policies we would begin a gradual dismantling that would promote and encourage smaller, bio-diverse family farms – making them once more an attractive and viable prospect. Large-scale monocrop farming must become a dying breed, and give way to the rebuilding of localised farming communities.

“Agripower,” it will be noted, is not measured by the fertility or health of the soil, or the health, wisdom, thrift, or stewardship of the farming community. It is measured by its ability to produce a marketable surplus, which “generates agridollars.” It is to be measured by “productivity, combined with processing and marketing efficiency.” The income from this increased production, we are told, is spent by farmers not for soil maintenance or improvement, water conservation, or erosion control, but for “purchased inputs”: “household appliances, farm equipment, building supplies, and other capital and consumer goods.” I do not mean that we should necessarily begrudge the farmer these purchases; I am only noticing that, to Mr. Bell [a former Assistant Secretary of Agriculture] the farmer does not prosper to become a better farmer, but to become a bigger spender. The assistant secretary was applying to farming a standard of judgment that is economic, not agricultural. Farming is defined here purely to suit the purposes of a businessman.

It is the nature of the soil to be highly complex and variable, to conform very inexactly to human conclusions and rules. It is itself a pattern of alien patterns. Out of the random grammar and lexion of possibilities – geological, topographical, climateological, biological – the soil of any one place makes its own peculiar and inevitable sense. It makes an order, a pattern of forms, kinds, and processes, that includes any number of offsets and variables. By its permeability and absorbency, for example, the healthy soil corrects the irregularities of rainfall; by the diversity of its vegetation it protects against both disease and erosion. Most farms, even most fields, are made up of different kinds of soil patterns or soil sense. Good farmers have always known this and have used the land accordingly; they have been careful students of the natural vegetation, soil depth and structure, slope and drainage. They are not appliers of generalizations, theoretical or methodological or mechanical. Nor are they the active agents of their own economic will, working their way upon an inert and passive mass. They are responsive partners in an intimate and mutual relationship.

Because the soil is alive, various, intricate, and because its processes yield more readily to imitation than to analysis, more readily to care than to coercion, agriculture can never be an exact science. There is an inescapable kinship between farming and art, for farming depends as much on character, devotion, imagination, and the sense of structure, as on knowledge. It is a practical art. – The Agricultural Crisis: A Crisis of Culture, Wendell Berry

For what has been, in history, a mere fleeting moment, we have managed, at great cost, to feed 95% of the people through the labour of the remaining five. The cost for both groups has been enormous, and unsustainable. We’re living in a dream, flogging a dead horse if you will, if we think we can perpetuate it. But then, why would we want to?

Bhopal Disaster

A Prank

Prank Revealed

Further Reading:

• The Pesticide Price Tag
• Pesticides, Human Health and the Environment
• Vietnam farmers cut pesticides, increase yields
• Pesticides in Your Food
• Organic IS healthier, say food scientists
• Public health risks associated with pesticides and natural toxins in foods
• Environment may be linked to rising Leukemia
• Beef may cause lower sperm count
• Low Sperm Counts Blamed on Pesticides in U.S. Water
• Sex-changing chemicals found in Potomac River
• PBDEs: They are everywhere, they accumulate and they spread
• Healthy Milk, Healthy Baby: Chemical Pollution and Mother’s Milk
• 10 ways to prepare for a post-oil society
• How Many Farmers do we need to Change the World?
• The Impact of Globalization on Family Farm Agriculture

Originally published on Celsias

I know what you’re going to say – “pests must have come first, or they wouldn’t have created pesticides”. Well, as you’ll soon discover, it depends somewhat on your definition of ‘pest’, and your perspective on the world around you.

What is a ‘pest’? It’s a fairly nasty name, and when applied to a human being, suggests the person is an unwelcome irritation – someone uninvited and in your precious space. It’s a very subjective opinion, and some could say rather self-centred. When applied to an insect, the connotation is similar – we use it to describe a creature that consumes what we want to consume, and that appears to compete with us in the harvesting of our crops. We just do not like sharing our food with other creatures.

The determination to say “hands off!” to these little guys has conjured up a veritable smorgasbord of chemicals – mostly produced with tremendous energy expenditure, and from a waning supply of fossil fuels. But, despite decades of pesticide usage we seem to be losing the battle – our ‘pest’ problems are not only increasing, but the immensely complicated interactions of these insects with other creatures, and with other aspects of our ecology, are creating new problems in ever-widening circles.

First, a little historical example of how pesticide usage can increase our problems (this is just one of many you can find – and I use it as it’s one of the earliest documented, giving an indication of how long we’ve been ignoring lessons we could have, should have, learned by now…):

The Central American Cotton Disaster

The story began in 1950 with the introduction of modern forms of machinery and organosynthetic insecticides.

There were only two pests in cotton at this time: Boll weevil (anthonomus grandis) and Leafworm (alabama argillacea).

Initially, less than five insecticide applications were made per season. The yield increased from 1,550 kg/ha to 2,270 kg/ha. Great!

But, in 1955 new problems had emerged, and an increasingly heavy dependence on insecticides resulted (see table):

The situation reflects the typical pesticide treadmill. As well as increasing the type and quantity of pests the farmers had to deal with, they reached the point in which 50% of all production costs were for pest control, and there were also reports that excessive pesticide use was killing the cotton plants themselves.

Cotton pest control caused other agricultural industries to suffer losses as well:

• The insecticide applications induced resistance in pests of other crops; the most serious case occurred in corn and the cultivation of corn in certain cotton-growing areas of Nicaragua became impossible.
• Pesticide contamination of air, water, pasture plants, and cottonseed-based feed concentrates, caused the build-up of high pesticide concentration in cattle. As a result, meat and milk products were unfit for export and domestic use.
• The public health office also had problems with cotton pest control. In cotton growing areas malaria became more difficult to control; due to the rapid increase of insecticide resistance in Anopheles Albimanus, the mosquito which is the malaria vector.

Higher yields were short-lived, and gave way to dramatically escalating costs. And, as you can see, also resulted in a host of unintended and expensive knock-on effects.

How does it transpire that a ’solution’ actually creates more problems? There are a few reasons, but the main two points are:

1. Resistance: Some insects always survive, and their offspring are subsequently likely to be immune as well – inevitably requiring increased dosages, or changing to a different/stronger kind of pesticide.
2. Beneficial insects: Predatory insects (spiders, beetles, praying mantis, ladybugs, lacewings, etc.) that normally keep these ‘pests’ in check are also killed by these poisons. What’s more – beneficial insects normally have a slower reproductive cycle – making it harder for a colony to re-establish itself. In contrast, the ‘pests’, or target insects, generally have a very rapid reproductive cycle – some aphids are even born with babies inside them (like one of those Russian dolls, each one comes with more inside)! These differences in reproductive rates normally work together in harmony – as although a particular aphid ‘couple’ may create thousands of offspring in a very short period of time, insects like the praying mantis, with its slower reproductive rate, still manage to keep the aphids in check since they consume large quantities of the insects over the course of their longer life span (if we don’t kill them, or send them into exile, that is).

Praying Mantis – cheap labour. Invite them over for supper!

These two points, combined, work together to keep the farmer/gardener trapped in a never ending cycle of chemical purchases that undermine the health and profitability of their enterprise.

This cycle creates a kind of ‘captive customer’ that becomes totally dependent on the products of large agribusinesses. In a bid to keep these effects from getting completely out of control, chemical companies have sought to minimise the ‘unintended consequences’ of their poisons, but to date have failed, and failed miserably. But, rather than stop to consider the underlying root causes, this chain reaction of events has instead spawned even more alarming reactionary tactics – in the form of genetic engineering.

What, then, should we do? What are the alternatives? Using the cotton catastrophe example above, where we had two pests to begin with, and used pesticides to create even more (getting trapped on the pesticide treadmill), what could they have done instead?

Anyone that’s spent any time in the field knows that insects can be attracted to a plant for two main reasons:

1) Lack of beneficial insects:

Assassin bug feeding on Colorado potato beetle larva

In the wild the great diversity of plant types enables a correspondingly diverse array of creatures to live within close proximity to each other. Each insect has its own housing requirements, and the modern ’sterile’ and heavily mechanised form of agriculture significantly reduces the variety of insects that can survive in a given field. In other words, the only insects that will prosper in a field of cotton, are those that like cotton! Monocrop farming removes mixed grasses, hedges, woodlands, leaf and other decaying plant litter, and presents an enormous single-course feast to a few select insects in an environment where their natural enemies are unable to set up residence. After chemical sprays have done their worst, the faster reproductive rate of pest insects allows them to rapidly rebound – and they rebound into a predator-free environment.

2) Poor plant health:

Pests do not arise because of a deficiency of pesticide in the environment any more than headaches result from a lack of aspirin in the blood system. We get headaches because of the way in which we conduct our lives, and we get pests in the fields because of the way we manage them. – Agriculture & Energy

Sick plants attract pests

The direct connection between sick plants and pest attack is a significant but under-recognised point. I remember being stunned when I saw this in action for the first time. I studied organic biological horticulture some years ago, and not long after a lesson that covered the connection between plant health and pest imbalances, I saw the evidence clearly demonstrated in my own student garden.

In my patch, amongst other vegetables, I had a couple of neat rows of broccoli – probably about 30 plants in total. One day I noticed three of the plants, only, were severely stunted in size compared to the others. These unhealthy individuals were all growing next to each other in the same section of one particular row. The cause for their ill health could have been one of a number of possibilities – but given that their neighbours were all doing fine, it was likely a very localised problem of compaction or contamination of the soil immediately below these individuals. Anyway, the sickly nature of these particular plants attracted a veritable army of tiny black bugs that were chowing down on them like nothing else. But, this is where we hit weirdsville – although each of these sick plants hosted several dozen hungry little insects, their feeding frenzy completely and entirely ignored the healthy broccoli standing only inches away! Even after a very close examination of the healthy plants, I couldn’t find a solitary bug! Being a student garden (i.e. for experimental purposes), I left the sick plants where they were to monitor the progress of these insects. The result: the sick plants withered away (with the help of these bugs), and the healthy broccoli got on with their lives without any insect interference whatsoever – and I had a terrific broccoli harvest at the end of the year. Where did the bugs go? Who knows! Off to rid the world of other sick plants I guess.

“The pests are my professors,” wrote Sir Albert Howard, founding father of the organics movement. Pest attack showed him where the soil fertility needed attention. Plants growing in fertile soil have healthy immune systems and can repel pest attack. Where this doesn’t happen, the soil is unbalanced. Correcting the problem restores plant health and the pests depart. – JourneyToForever

Essentially, pests are not pests at all. They are merely indicators of underlying problems. When we douse our plants with chemicals to get rid of ‘pests’, all we are doing is dealing with symptoms, but not the cause, of a deeper biological issue. Where we think we’re being ’smart’ and ‘high-tech’, we’re actually taking a very simplistic and narrow-minded approach. In fact – we’re being downright stupid (I mean, where’s the logic in pouring poisons onto our food?).

If your garden ecosystem is healthy and balanced, you won’t have insect problems—remember insect pests only attack sick and weak plants that need to be eliminated. As gardeners, we can learn to use such damage as a “symptom” that something is amiss and that either a specific plant or the ecosystem as a whole needs more attention. – WorldWise

Additionally, pesticides not only kill insects, but they, of course, effect plant health – which, in turn, attracts more pests!

Pesticides can also lead to imbalances in plant metabolism, resulting in the disruption of protein synthesis and the buildup of free amino acids within the plant. Such buildups have been shown to attract pests. – From the Ground Up, Rethinking Industrial Agriculture, p. 18.

Simplistic Management

So, although we are tasked with the role of managing our gardens and farms, we’re using a very heavy-handed and simplistic approach. We regard fellow organisms as enemies (we call them ‘pests’ or ‘weeds’). Instead of developing skills of observation and recognising important symbiotic relationships, we try to buy our ’solutions’ in a bottle. Not only is this not ‘advanced’ or ‘clever’ – but it’s self-defeating. If you’ve put two and two together, you’ll have come to realise that insects are serving an important role in culling out food that would be less healthful to us, and showing us where problems in our soil lie.

The heads of chemical companies know full well that cooperating with the laws of nature will render their products obsolete. But corporate self-preservation is promoted over principle.

Unfortunately, we have allowed powerful bureaucracies to develop that are only able to generate and implement these “specialist (simplistic) solutions.” Also, it is questionable whether they are even anxious to solve the problems in the long-term, as this would deprive them of their power. It is little wonder that alternative lines of research are systematically stifled. – Agriculture & Energy

So, to summarise – we create imbalances by reducing diversity and ignoring soil health. These imbalances create pest problems. We ignore the root causes, and instead begin an impossible cycle of destruction – pouring poisons on our food, our land (and which inevitably end up in our water). This approach fails (doh!), but we persevere with the destructive mind set regardless – resulting in a dangerous tinkering with the building blocks of life, in the form of genetic engineering and now even synthetic biology.

A complete waste of energy, resulting in poor health too! Why do we bother? Ask the corporations…

Our political and economic systems, by only requiring us to examine short-term relationships, have deluded us into believing that organisms and environments can be forced to conform to artificial and not ecological laws. The tendency for many harmful effects to take a long time to manifest themselves has encouraged this attitude. However, the problems that we now encounter are symptomatic of this approach. Most of the solutions being proposed are developed without consideration for their broader or long-term effects.

The generation of these solutions to by-pass nature may be regarded simply as irresponsible dreaming. Unfortunately, we are indulging in this type of dreaming when we imagine that we can solve problems of infertile soils, pests, diseases and deficient foods simply by means of inorganic fertilizers, pesticides, antibiotics and food supplements, respectively. The proposal of these kinds of solutions is symptomatic of a science trapped in the stranglehold of inductive logic and reductionism. Adherence to these approaches is preventing us from dealing with the causes of our problems. – Agriculture & Energy

You can make a difference! Share this article with others, and please consider the impact of your purchases. Buy organic produce from small-scale sustainably oriented growers that promote biodiversity in their operations – and, if possible, supplement what you buy with produce from your own garden. Rather than unhealthy, tasteless fruit and vegetables (that often manage to go directly from unripe to rotten, skipping the edible stage in between), you’ll enjoy healthy ‘taste sensations’ that give you increased vigor and reduce your risk of cancer and other diseases.

We seriously need to shrink the power of these companies, and reduce their ability to control and pervert the natural systems of food production. Around 90% of the insects in the average garden are beneficial insects. Don’t kill them.

According to David Pimentel, entomologist at Cornell University, over the past 50 years pesticide use has increased 30 times (and toxicity of pesticides more than a hundredfold), yet twice as much of the harvest is lost to insects today. Chemical warfare is not only destructive to the environment and bad for your health, it’s a losing battle. – Vegsource

This article has focused on which came first, pests or pesticides. If you enjoyed this, please follow up with Pesticides, and You – an important post on how pesticides impact upon the health of our environment, and on ourselves individually…