The talk, sponsored by the Friends of Lachat (as is the art exhibit) will begin at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 29, in the Community Room at the library.

Mr. Wilkins spent a lot of time at the Lachat farm with his family, helping his uncle Leon Lachat with various projects, such as creating a slalom course for skiing, and going on walks through the woods.

His father, Bruce, who was a commercial artist, took his camera with him on all the outings and his photographs have become a visual narrative of the property during the 1960s and 1970s.

A young Jeff is pictured in numerous photographs as he was a ready and able subject. Sometimes Bruce Wilkins is in the photographs as well, having handed off the camera to his in-laws. (Bruce’s wife, Ginny, was the sister of Leon Lachat’s first wife, Laurie.)

The exhibit Farm Art, which is on display at the library through February, features photographs and paintings depicting scenes from farm life — family gatherings, animals, flowing water, skiing, the Lachat meadow, pears, eggs, a pantry full of jars, barns in all seasons, winter scenics from Lachat woods and more.

While the majority of the art in the show are photographs by Bruce Wilkins, there is a mix of newly created paintings and photographs as well as paintings created in the 50s, 60s and 70s by local artists.

• Deloitte Survey: CFOs Will Need to Take a More Energetic Role in Embedding Sustainability into Business Strategy
  October 6, 2011 08:50 AM
• Deloitte and the CDP collaborate to help companies addressing water challanges
  August 3, 2011 08:13 AM
• World Water Week demands halt to food wastage
  August 27, 2008 10:09 AM
• Report Examines Impact of Climate Change on Drinking Water Supplies
  December 16, 2007 12:45 PM

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL) today launched the Water Tight 2012 report, which explores the future of the global water sector in the year ahead. The report examines how major global trends such as population growth, increasing economic development, and urbanization, coupled with the changes in climate patterns, underscore the importance of effective public policy and private sector water stewardship in managing this finite and shared resource.

The growing demand for water is making conservation and efficient use central issues, particularly as governments, utilities, and the private sector come under increasing pressure to be stewards of this precious and shared resource. The report states that a clearer water pricing will play an important role in how customers better manage their water usage.

“There is a compelling case for utilities either to increase water prices or create a better pricing system that addresses scarcity issues, allows them to invest in the replacement of ageing infrastructure, and provides them with a satisfactory financial return,” says James Leigh, Global Leader for Water, DTTL. “Increasing water prices, however, is a difficult political decision, as domestic water usage is considered a basic human right. As such, raising awareness of water related issues and educating the public about the necessity of more effective water pricing is crucial.”

According to the report, one potential solution for affordable prices and sufficient financial returns is tiered pricing. As water usage increases so would the price. Tiered pricing has already been successfully implemented in Israel, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and parts of the United States.

• Biodiversity loss matters, and communication is crucial
  February 5, 2010 07:32 AM
• Biodiversity loss matters, communication is crucial
  February 5, 2010 07:32 AM
• World’s Biodiversity Declining at an Alarming Rate
  May 20, 2005 12:00 AM
• Nations move on how to put ‘natural assets’ at the top of agenda
  November 14, 2008 09:33 AM

Biodiversity loss is probably a challenge that is often ignored as climate change looms. Currently the world is losing species at a rate that is 100 to 1000 times faster than the natural extinction rate, further, it is currently seeing the sixth mass extinction.

The previous mass extinction occurred 65 million years ago, and was caused by ecosystem changes, changes in atmospheric chemistry, impacts of asteroids and volcanoes. For the first time in history, the current extinction is called by the competition for resources between a single species Homo sapiens and all others.

A recent conference arranged by the Danish Ministry of Environment in the University of Copenhagen, provided an opportunity to influence the process of organizing a UN Biodiversity Panel. More than 100 scientists and decision makers from the EU countries gathered and came to the conclusion that drastic measures should be taken to decelerate current loss of biodiversity.

Arresting biodiversity loss is the one of the most important sustainability measures that can be taken. Professor Carsten Rahbek, Director for the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate at the University of Copenhagen has said that the establishment of the UN Intergovernmental Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is very urgent. This not only will give biodiversity loss, the same status as climate change but will also provide the platform for collaborative action by scientists, politicians and government authorities.

Source:  CNN Environmental News

• China Pledges to Do More to Protect Dwindling Wetlands
  February 3, 2006 12:00 AM
• EarthNews Radio: Wetlands Restoration
  September 21, 2005 12:00 AM
• Destruction of Wetlands Could Unleash Carbon Bomb
  July 24, 2008 09:12 AM
• Congo Wetlands reserve to be world’s second largest
  February 2, 2008 10:06 AM

Even after 100 years have passed a restored wetland may not reach the state of its former glory. A new study in the open access journal PLoS Biology finds that restored wetlands may take centuries to recover the biodiversity and carbon sequestration of original wetlands, if they ever do. The study questions laws, such as in the U.S., which allow the destruction of an original wetland so long as a similar wetland is restored elsewhere.

“Once you degrade a wetland, it doesn’t recover its normal assemblage of plants or its rich stores of organic soil carbon, which both affect natural cycles of water and nutrients, for many years,” said lead author David Moreno-Mateos, with the University of California, Berkeley, in a press release. “Even after 100 years, the restored wetland is still different from what was there before, and it may never recover.”

Looking at over 124 studies on wetland restoration covering 621 wetlands around the world (though 80 percent of them were in the U.S.), the study found that 50-100 years after restoration, wetlands still stored 23 percent less carbon and had 26 less plant species than pristine wetlands. On average restored wetlands were a quarter less productive than original wetlands. The study also found that wetlands in colder regions took longer to restore ecosystem services than those in warmer areas.

“Wetlands accumulate a lot of carbon, so when you dry up a wetland for agricultural use or to build houses, you are just pouring this carbon into the atmosphere,” says Moreno-Mateos. “If we keep degrading or destroying wetlands, for example through the use of mitigation banks, it is going to take centuries to recover the carbon we are losing.”

For too long, funding provided by the United States’ most far-reaching food and farm legislation has primarily benefited agri-business and large scale industrial-scale commodity farms that aren’t growing food.  Instead, they’re growing ingredients for animal feed, fuel and highly processed food — at a high cost to our nation’s health, environment and rural communities.

Meanwhile, only meager public resources have been invested smartly to build the kind of dynamic local food economies that support agricultural diversification and help link small- and mid-sized family farms to local and regional markets.

With the 2012 Farm Bill fast upon us, Congress has an opportunity to make smart, timely changes to help  fix our broken food and farm system by embracing a package of policy reforms outlined in the Local Farms, Food and Jobs bill. This legislation was recently introduced by Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and is co-sponsored by 63 representatives in the House and 9 in the Senate.

The Pingree-Brown bill includes a comprehensive package of cost-effective policy reforms that would boost farmers’ and ranchers’ incomes by helping them meet the growing demand for local and regional food.  The legislation also aims to make fresh, healthy and affordable food-especially fruits and vegetables- more accessible to consumers.  Given our nation’s costly epidemic of diet-related disease, small investments now that increase access and affordability of healthier food will save us billions of health-related dollars down the road.

Trends show people want fresh, healthy, local food

Demand for locally grown, sustainable food is growing in every corner of the country, with more than 100,000 growers now serving more than 160,000 outlets (pdf):

• In 2011, 7,175 farmers markets were open for business, more than double the number in 2002.
• An estimated 6000 Community Supported Agriculture programs are delivering food directly from the farm to consumers.
• More than 2,000 farm-to-school programs are up and running, a five-fold increase since 2004.
• More than 300 universities are involved with the Real Food Challenge and sourcing sustainable food locally.
• More than 360 hospitals have committed to sourcing more nutritious, locally grown food through the Healthy Food in Health Care pledge.
• The number of restaurants purchasing locally-grown food has skyrocketed; For the fourth year in a row, locally sourced food is the top restaurant food trend in 2012.
• More grocery stores are carrying food produced locally or from farms within the state – and labeling it for customers!

In 2008, the USDA valued this expanding market for local and regional foods at nearly $5 billion. The total will likely surpass $7 billion by the end of 2012, when the current farm bill expires.

This growth is particularly remarkable considering the tiny amounts of federal funding that have been invested in local and regional food system projects. Since 2008, funding has almost doubled but EWG estimates that still just a measly $100 million dollars of taxpayer money a year is being channeled to projects supporting increased local food production, distribution and consumption.

Compare that to roughly $12 billion in subsidies annually that go to industrial-scale growers of commodity crops who are enjoying record income year after year.

Farm Bill must help scale up local and regional food systems

While the recent expansion is impressive, local and regional food markets represented a mere two percent of gross farm sales in 2008. We desperately need the new investments and policy reforms outlined in the Pingree-Brown bill to help this burgeoning market grow and remove the many barriers farmers face in meeting existing demand from grocery stores, restaurants, schools, universities, hospitals and consumers. The Local Food bill has a  $100 million a year price tag, a small sum compared to its potential benefits.

The Local Farms, Food and Jobs bill will improve our broken food system by:

• Increasing support for local aggregation, processing and distribution so that farmers can more easily sell healthy food, including locally raised and processed meat, directly to schools, hospitals, stores and restaurants.

• Enabling schools to use more of their federal food funding to buy fresh, local foods. Public schools could opt to use up to 15 percent of their school lunch commodity dollars for buying foods from local farmers and ranchers, instead of through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s nationalized commodity food program.

• Improving the diets of food stamp recipients and low-income seniors by making it easier for them to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables at farmers markets, community supported agriculture programs, and other direct food marketing services, putting more money in the pockets of local farmers and generating additional economic activity in nearby business districts.

• Diversifying and increasing the production of healthy and sustainable food by increasing funding for the Specialty Crop Block Grant program and increasing access to credit, crop insurance, and other support for organic producers, diversified operations, smaller-scale and beginning farmers.

Together, these modest but effective investments will yield important, much-needed economic benefits. Farms that sell locally through shorter supply chains often keep a higher portion of the retail dollar, increasing profitability and potential for expansion and job creation.

According to a recent USDA analysis, farmers producing for local markets generally provide 1.3 full time jobs compared to 0.9 for farmers who sell through traditional wholesale markets.  And local food farmers grow higher value crops that generate greater sales per acre—$590 per acre versus $304 for the average farm. Local food markets also provide a critical pathway for new businesses, with beginning farmers accounting for 48% of local West Coast food producers.

Tough road ahead

Despite proven economic and public health benefits, getting this bill through the House agriculture committee may be challenging, given the panel’s hostility to the “Know Your Farmer” Program, the USDA’s comprehensive local and regional food initiative.

Pingree’s bill presents both a major opportunity and challenge for the highly decentralized local food and farming movement to work together in a unified, focused way to transform its considerable success at the local level into the political power needed to win support in the House and Senate agriculture committees.

With the stakes as high as they are, we believe that local farmers and the more than 180 hundred organizations that have endorsed the bill are up to the challenge.

A growing interest in the links between exposure to chemicals and obesity is a testament in part to the pioneering work of Dr Paula Baillie-Hamilton

Laurie Tuffrey: Could you explain your theory about the link between environmental chemicals and weight gain?

Paula Baillie-Hamilton: My hypothesis is that chemicals are the basis behind the global epidemic, because at the levels of chemicals we are being exposed to, they’re poisoning our weight control systems, which is damaging our ability to lose weight and make us fatter.

The chemicals treat our appetite so that you actually want to eat certain foods and they make you crave the worst foods. Catecholamines like adrenaline and dopamine that help weight loss are reduced by the chemicals, which affects both metabolism and the desire to go out for a walk, so you can’t lose weight the way you could.

LT: Could this be as much of a contributory factor to obesity as poor diet and lack of exercise?

PB-H: If you have a poor diet, one of the few things that can actually get rid of lower levels of chemicals in the body is vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. The problem is that the level of nutrients in foods has been decreasing for years now, because they only put a couple of minerals back in artificial fertilisers and there are only about 100 minerals in the earth’s crust. So the soils are getting grossly deficient and the foods are getting very deficient.

When you read a label saying how many minerals there are, it’s a work of fiction sometimes. The levels of vitamins also go down, because of the extended storage time – sometimes there’s no vitamin C in oranges at all. We need these vitamins and minerals to process the chemicals: our body can’t actually recognise and can’t deal with a lot of these chemicals, because our metabolic detoxification systems were created before we were exposed to all these synthetic artificial chemicals. We’re being exposed to more and more chemicals, but we’re getting less vitamins and minerals in the food, so that exacerbates the problem even further. If we eat processed foods, they have even lower levels than organic food.

LT: How did you first highlight this risk?

PB-H: I did my PhD on how chemicals affect metabolism. Part of my work was looking at breast cancer and how to tell the difference between scar tissue and new cancers. A question that always confused me was why are women getting breast cancer, why are the numbers increasing every year? At the time I think it was about one in 12, now I think it’s about one in 10, but that is the general trend.

After I had my second child and was trying to lose weight, I read an article saying that chemicals are already in the environment at levels which were affecting our wildlife; I’d never heard of these chemicals before, but the fact that really interested me was that they acted like fake female hormones. This is probably why there was an increase in breast cancer, and although I wasn’t the first to think of that, I thought that must be affecting my weight.

For years I was doing research on that and trying to find out exactly how the body loses weight. At the time, people didn’t know that chemicals cause weight gain. You look at other evidence for chemicals that cause weight gain in drugs and medicine and a lot of chemicals used there are pretty much the same as are used in pesticides – a lovely finding! From this, you can see the pesticides which are likely to cause weight gain. But again, nothing was listed as ‘PCBs and weight gain’ or ‘PCBs and obesity’, because they wouldn’t have listed it as that, they would only list weight loss.

LT: Why do you think it’s taken such a long time for the idea that environmental chemicals are linked to obesity rates to take hold?

PB-H: I remember having an interview with a professor on Radio 4 and I came out thinking ‘ouch!’ It was hard for him to accept – he knew nothing about toxicology, he knew nothing about all these different things, but he just didn’t accept it, because it didn’t affirm his life work, so he got very cross. People get very aggressive with new ideas sometimes, and they try to knock them down and I was an easy target because I’m a mum and I didn’t do this work in an academic environment. [Baillie-Hamilton is now a Visiting Fellow in Occupational and Environmental Health at Stirling University in Scotland]. Ideas like that, they want to come from big institutions, but the thing is, those people are driven by profit, they’re funded by big companies, who don’t have a broader picture.

There’s so much there that most medical doctors don’t have a clue about. It’s such a pity and it makes me really upset, because people are missing out on so much better health because of this lack of knowledge. Doctors aren’t taught about toxicology or why we need nutrients and what sort of nutrients we need. Medicines at the moment cost a lot of money, but they only tweak the body systems and don’t actually make them better. I’m more interested in finding out what causes the problems and treating them, so that the body can actually sort itself out – that’s my thing, how to reverse the problem.

LT: Do you feel vindicated now that there is an emergence of research and exposure, like the forthcoming documentary, ‘Programmed to be Fat‘, supporting your theory?

PB-H: It’s great that it’s all coming out now: the sooner the better, because people need to know about it and change policies. I think once more research is done then it will help everyone because these chemicals don’t just cause weight problems, they’re behind so many health problems. It will help all round, I think help people will help themselves. And it’s really good for protecting my family as well – I don’t want my kids to be poisoned!

LT: Did you see yourself as a lone wolf figure?

PB-H: I just see myself as someone who wants people to get better. I can’t fight political battles, I’m not interested in that. What I’m interested in is what makes people ill and how to fix it: that’s the thing that gets me, to see people ill, know that they can improve their health so easily and trying to help them. That’s what I spend my time doing now really, in so-called incurable illnesses which doctors have pooh-poohed.

LT: What can we change to stop the problem?

PB-H: Chemicals. The powers that be need to wake up to the fact of what the worst chemicals are, the scale of the problem out there, the level of contamination in food, water and household products, and different chemicals in the carpet that have been banned in other countries but are used here.

Mercury fillings are my number one problem. If I was to get anything done, I would get mercury fillings banned. They’ve been banned in other countries – the Swedish government will pay towards having mercury fillings taken out. It’s cheap and cheerful for dentists to do it and the government pay, but in the long term it’s much cheaper if they put in white or porcelain fillings. The mercury leaches out of the fillings and I find it causes things like anxious depression, anxiety, ME, gut disorders, auto-immune disorders, asthma and nervous system disorders. Also, chemicals that don’t biodegrade, like the organo-chlorines and the PCCs, those are a major issue, they shouldn’t be allowed. I heard recently that they’re introducing DDT for malaria prevention and it just makes me ill. It might wipe out some mosquitoes, but it just won’t disappear, it lasts in the soil, it comes from imported food back to our country.

Another problem is chemicals which are very persistent, particularly bromines, which are in different fire-retardant products around the house. Your body cannot see them and it cannot process them, but it gets stuck with them for decades.

LT: Do you support US academic Dr Bruce Blumberg’s idea that developmental exposure (i.e. foetal) to obesogens can have permanent effects, while exposure in adulthood is non-permanent?

PB-H: I do support the first part of this statement as I actually raised this concept in my academic hypothesis paper in 2002 and in more detail in my book The Detox Diet in the same year.

I heard on the radio recently that if you block a child’s eye at a certain stage of development, even if you take the eye patch away, it will be blind because it’s time-sensitive – if you damage something along the way then it will be affected for the rest of their life, it’s like congenital abnormalities. If they’re exposed to chemicals at certain times then they might have heart abnormalities or something else. With developmental exposure, the foetus’s detoxification system hasn’t really matured, so smaller amounts of chemicals affect you much more than they would in an adult.

However I certainly would not support the idea that exposure in adulthood is non-permanent as there is a vast body of published academic evidence suggesting that exposure in adulthood to toxic synthetic chemicals can also result in permanent damage to the body. This is because many synthetic chemical pesticides poison nerves and the brain. Indeed most pesticides are designed to target the nervous system as this controls the functioning of the bug the pesticide has been designed to kill. The better the nerve poison is the more effective the pesticide. Now in adult humans, the perceived wisdom is once most nerve cells are killed they tend not to regenerate. So if these nerve cells are killed by pesticides, then they are lost forever. Unlike in the developing foetus, the body is less able to replace them with other nerve cells. As the nervous system controls the ‘slimming hormones’ i.e. dopamine and adrenaline, damage to the nerve cells which produce these slimming hormones could therefore be permanent. This observation can be seen in other academic research papers on humans and animal studies.

LT: What can you eat to minimise your exposure to environmental chemicals?

PB-H: The most obvious ones are organic foods, but they’re quite expensive. In my book, I looked at all the chemical s used in foods, which foods are more polluted than others and which foods affect the weight control systems more than others. Basically, less-processed foods are better, but things that you can peel or prepare are much better or much safer.

Things like avocados have very low levels of chemicals, because they’re quite hardy and resistant, but the fragile foods such as lettuce, they are heaving with levels of really nasty pesticides, which can be easily detected and measured. They don’t switch off when they go into your body, and it’s difficult to wash these things off because they stick onto leaves and sometimes you can wash them off with washing up liquid, but some don’t and some are actually incorporated into the body of the thing.

It’s best if you can have fruit and veg you can peel, although it’s a pity because you can lose some of the nutrients which are in the skin, but things which are more delicate and likely to be sprayed like lettuce and strawberries, it’s best if you can go organic or grow your own. If you avoid things with a lot of added e-numbers and artificial sweeteners, and have fewer colourings and additives, that’s also a positive thing.

An array of photography and original artwork ranging from historical perspectives to present day farming will be on display throughout January at the Weston Public Library.

Weston resident artists who are showing their fine art in various mediums include Margaret Wirtenberg, Audrey Klotz, Andy Neilly, Bobbie Eike Mullen, Ellin Spadone, Laura Wilk, Liz Ward and Georgiana Silk. Historical Paintings of the Lachat Farm will be on loan from Alex Shook and Carolyn Blackburn Klahr.

An opening reception and opportunity to meet the artists took place on Sunday, Jan. 8, from 3 to 5 at the Weston Public Library Community Room. The public is invited to join in viewing this exhibition.

Private showings will be made available to special interest groups or students by appointment.

The artwork will be on display through the month of January. The event is sponsored by Friends of Lachat. For more information contact Ginger Jespersen at gjespersen@optonline.net This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 203-227-0514.

Researchers in Sweden have confirmed that exposure to pesticides classified as persistent organic pollutants (POPs) increases the incidence of atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries.

Known to be a “major risk factor” for heart attacks and strokes, atherosclerosis is one of many health threats posed by POPs pesticides, which can persist in the environment for years or decades after use. In fact, this study comes on the heels of several others in recent years that show a correlation between POPs and health harms associated with poor heart health, such as hypertension, obesity, and diabetes.

Chemical burden in our bodies

POPs build up in all living creatures, becoming more concentrated as they move up the food chain. Most can be passed from mother to child during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and — in addition to threatening cardiovascular health — many are linked to other serious health effects including birth defects, infertility and cancer.

The new study looked at 1,016 adults age 70 or older in the small industrial city of Uppsala, Sweden. Researchers tested participants for 23 environmental toxins, including DDE (the breakdown product of DDT) and PCBs.

The scientists then compared participant levels of environmental pollutants with the amount of plaque build-up in their carotid artery, and found a significant link between POPs and heart health even after controlling for other cardiovascular risk factors like gender, weight, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and smoking.

In a statement released with the study, Dr. Monica Lind, Associate Professor in Environmental Medicine at Uppsala University, said:

In Sweden, and in many countries in the world, many of these substances are forbidden today, but since they are so long-lived they’re still out there in our environment. We ingest these environmental toxicants with the food we eat, and since they are stored in our bodies, the levels grow higher the older we get.

Given their long life in the environment, POPs can travel incredible distances on global air and water currents and are found in people’s bodies in regions around the globe, including in the Arctic where the chemicals have never been used.

Farmers across the country are seeing the impacts of climate change first hand. Crop losses to drought, floods, heat waves, insects and diseases made headlines throughout the year.

We hear Congress plans to improve crop insurance programs in recognition of these hardships, as negotiations for the 2012 Food and Farm Bill move ahead. But to really reduce risks, they should go one step further: tie crop insurance payments with an obligation to create healthy soil. 

For more than 25 years the Rodale Institute has studied organic and conventional corn-soy systems, and found that organic crops perform up to 100% better in drought and flood years. Once again, the science points to healthy soil as the means to greater resilience and risk reduction.

Healthy soils are resilient

In drought years, Rodale found that organically managed soils retain more water for delivery to crops. This phenomenon most likely results from greater presence of beneficial mycorrhizal fungi with their ability to efficiently scavenge water from dry soils.

Organic crops perform up to 100% better in drought and flood years

Under flood conditions the organic soils had less runoff, filtering more water into underlying groundwater. During one two-day hurricane-associated torrential downpour in September 1999, the organic systems captured about twice as much water as the conventional system. These fungi also play a key role in building good soil structure — a key to good water filtration through the soil profile.

Tailoring crop insurance to reduce risk

According to a recent report by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), the current annual average payout on crop insurance (about $3.6 billion) could become even larger if payments are not linked with real efforts to reduce risk.

The solution outlined by IATP mirrors current programs that already require farmers to comply with soil conservation standards (“conservation compliance”) to receive federal farm payments. Similarly, they argue, the Food and Farm Bill should require “climate compliance” to receive federally subsidized crop insurance. Farmers would develop and follow a USDA-approved climate adaptation and mitigation plan for their specific farm, either as a stand-alone plan or incorporated into an existing conservation plan.

Enhancing soil capacity to store and filter water reduces risk of crop loss

In general, this would mean protecting and enhancing soil organic matter to capture carbon and increase the soil’s capacity to store, deliver and filter water. It might also mean selection of drought-tolerant crop varieties, use of diverse cropping systems with greater inherent resistance to pests and diseases and use of more perennial crops. It may involve practices that reduce use of energy, water and emissions of nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gases.

After creating a climate compliance plan, farmers could receive support from Farm Bill conservation programs to offset the costs of these transitions.

Common sense policy

An approach like this is simple common sense. Our dollars should support those farmers and ranchers who are actively building resilience to the insults of severe weather, pests and diseases, thereby reducing the risk of crop failure and the costs to taxpayers of covering those losses.

During the coming months of congressional battles over the Food and Farm Bill, we’ll have ample opportunity to press our Senators and Representatives to get these crop insurance programs right.

You’ve all heard the news: farmers across the country are losing their fields to superweeds so formidable and fast-spreading that they break farm machinery and render millions of acres of farmland useless. These superweeds have evolved as a direct consequence of Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready pesticide-seed package. Now superbugs are emerging, resistant to Monsanto’s transgenic insecticidal crops. Ecologists predicted this ecological disaster 15 years ago.

The big question is, can we possibly learn from this ecological and agronomic disaster? The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Monsanto’s rival, Dow Chemical, apparently cannot.

From bad to worse

Instead of abandoning this losing strategy, Dow is trying to get us running faster on the same old broken pesticide treadmill. Dow and USDA are hoping to quietly approve a new genetically engineered corn seed that basically swaps RoundUp (glyphosate) out and an even worse weedkiller (2,4-D) in. Bad idea.

As with Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready lines, the herbicide with which these seeds are engineered to be used (2,4-D) will surge in use. Dow aims to get 2,4-D-resistant corn to market this year, soy next year and cotton in 2015. These three crops dominate U.S. agriculture, blanketing over 100 million acres of mono-cropped countryside and driving the pesticide market. Only this time, the fallout will be even worse. Here’s why:

• 2,4-D is a more toxic herbicide, both to humans and to plants. 2,4-D is a reproductive toxicant (associated with lower sperm counts) and its formulations have been linked to cancer (in particular non-Hodgkins lymphoma), disruption of the immune and endocrine (hormone) systems and birth defects. EPA has also expressed a “concern for developmental neurotoxicity resulting from exposure to 2,4-D.”

• 2,4-D does and will drift off of target crops – both through spray drift and volatilization. The latter enables chemicals to travel with moving air masses for miles. Neither applicator nor innocent bystander can prevent such movement. The spread of 2,4-D across our lands will damage non-target crops and vegetation, devastate adjacent ecosystems and poses a very real threat to rural economies and farmers growing non-2,4-D-resistant crops. Conventional farmers growing their product miles away will suffer severe crop losses, while organic farmers will lose both crops and certification, resulting in business failures, job losses and an economic unraveling of already-stressed rural communities.

• 2,4-D-resistant “superweeds” will arise and spread just as RoundUp-resistant “superweeds” have taken over farms and countryside in the Midwest and Southeast. Where will this leave struggling farmers? What even more deadly pesticide will the biotech companies resort to next?

• Corn is wind-pollinated which means that genetic material from 2,4-D corn will contaminate non-GE corn. You cannot put a GE genie back in the bottle.

What next?

Will Dow provide compensation to farmers, their children and rural communities for the harms likely to occur should the company secure approval of its 2, 4-D resistant corn? I rather doubt it. Dow has still refused to assume responsibility for the deaths and devastation arising from the pesticide explosion in Bhopal, India in 1984, so why would the company show any integrity now?

It will take an active, engaged public to get USDA back on track and in the business of serving the public interest.

What about USDA? Can we expect our public agency to carefully scrutinize the likely fallout of approving 2,4-D resistant corn? One problem is that USDA does not really want to know what the public thinks.

One giveaway sign: USDA opened the required public comment period over the holiday break, as the Agency tends to do for controversial decisions they want to bury.

More significantly, they’ve asked the public to comment only on whether or not the new GE corn poses a “plant pest risk” — not on whether the impacts of this new GE crop are more likely to strengthen farmers’ ability to grow healthy food safely or to devastate their health, livelihoods and the environment all in one go.

But Agency reluctance to face facts shouldn’t stop us from exercising our rights. We’ll have to be loud — really loud — because an active engaged public is what it will take to get our agencies back on track and in the business of serving the public interest, not corporate profits.

Take Action » Tell USDA we want off the pesticide treadmill! This dangerous and antiquated herbicide shouldn’t be on the market, and we certainly should not be giving Dow license to profit from driving up use. Sign our petition to USDA.