Chapter 5 The Farmer's Stake in Food Safety J. L. Adams
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American Soybean Association, P.O. Box 27300, St Louis, MO 63141-1700
It's not always safe to generalize about a group as large and diverse as American farmers, but I am convinced a lopsided majority want both a safe and an abundant food supply. Farmers are proud of their position and are proud to be farmers. They are prodigious producers. The Agriculture Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives says one American farmer or rancher feeds 114 people: 92 in the U.S. and 22 overseas. Furthermore, American agriculture generates over 20 million jobs, or about 17 percent of the whole U.S. work force. About 18 million of those jobs are off the farm. Today's farmer is efficient, productive and flexible. He has to be all these things because inefficient farmers usually become retired farmers in short order in this economy. Great advances in technology, equipment and methods including the use of pesticides have made it possible in the last decade for U.S. farmers to achieve this tremendous productivity. U.S. farmers could not stay in business without agrichemicals. For all the advances and the roller coaster changes in the economy, farmers still face age old enemies: Johnson grass, corn borers, boll weevils, soybean loopers, root rot and cocklebur to name just a few. In order to stay in business against these harvest thieves, farmers must use agrichemicals. That's all there is to it. That doesn't mean farmers want to apply one unnecessary drop of agrichemical to our crops. As has already been said, injudicious or lavish farmers were the first to lose their farms years ago. As a whole, farmers have a good track record on the prudent and safe application of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. And it's getting better. A recent American Soybean Association survey showed U.S. farmers are reducing their use of agrichemicals as compared to five years ago. Quite frankly, that reduction is not entirely motivated by the need to cut costs. U.S. farmers, like the rest of society, are becoming more environmentally aware. They want to pass down a better farm to their children than they inherited. And they want to do their part to make sure the food they feed their children is safe.
0097-6156/91/0446-0047$06.00/0 © 1991 Americamn Chemical Society
Tweedy et al.; Pesticide Residues and Food Safety ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1991.
Downloaded by UNIV LAVAL on July 11, 2016 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date: December 31, 1991 | doi: 10.1021/bk-1991-0446.ch005
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PESTICIDE RESIDUES AND FOOD SAFETY
So while agrichemicals, are absolutely necessary to modern agriculture, producers are always looking for ways to cut back if there's a way to get the same results with lower application rates. Indeed farmers are funding research to learn how they can reduce their use of crop protection chemicals. Studies at the University of Georgia, North Carolina State and the University of Arkansas show how, by scouting fields and properly timing the application of chemicals, farmers can use less than the recommended amount of herbicides yet still get adequate weed control. If those sound like the goals of environmentalists, your ears aren't fooling you. Regardless of the portrayal of farmers as eager to spray everything in sight, they share similar goals with environmentalists and food safety proponents. Farmers can work together with these groups to push for more research on management techniques that can meet the dual objectives of profits and protection of the environment. Furthermore, we can work together for funding which would allow extension specialists to expand efforts to teach farmers the newest ecological management techniques. We can also work together to gain funding for the advance of biotechnology from the lab to the field. Exciting new developments in biotech hold forth the promise of engineered plants that, without using chemicals, can discourage or prevent insect attack. Genetically altered crops could resist herbicides like Roundup allowing farmers to use one quickly degrading chemical to control weeds. Why can't farmers and environmentalists work together to put out responsible messages on food safety and chemicals? The fact is that every compound known to man can be safe if the level is small enough. And every chemical can be harmful if taken to excess. For instance, our bodies can't function properly without a certain level of salt, yet we can hold enough salt in our two hands to kill us. Lack of Vitamin A causes blindness, hair loss and skin disorders, yet too much is toxic and can cause birth defects. Naturally occurring compounds can be harmful. Bruce N. Ames, Director of the NIEHS Environmental Health Sciences Center at the University of California—Berkeley and an expert in chemical carcinogenity has said "Americans ingest in their diet at least 10,000 times more by weight of natural pesticides than of man-made pesticide residues." Yet people are deathly afraid of man-made chemicals. In spite of the presence of natural carcinogens and occasional residues of man-made chemicals in our food supply, our food is safe. These are naturally occurring substances. There are others that can harm us. Aflatoxin, for example, is one of the most potent carcinogens and one of nature's own. The Food and Drug Administration routinely tests for unsafe levels of aflatoxin and will prohibit the sale of any products which exceed safe limits. That's the message farmers and environmentalists can send. Too bad it doesn't pack an emotional wallop. But it does have everything else, like perspective, reason and accuracy. Farmers and environmentalists can work together to communicate reasonably to the public.
Tweedy et al.; Pesticide Residues and Food Safety ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1991.
Downloaded by UNIV LAVAL on July 11, 2016 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date: December 31, 1991 | doi: 10.1021/bk-1991-0446.ch005
5.
ADAMS
Farmer's Stake in Food Safety
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And while they're talking, they can make sure all the facts come out about Low Income Sustainable Agriculture, or LISA Not just selected messages that paint a lovely picture. What hasn't come out yet is the simple message of LISA'S impossibility. LISA may sound like U t o p i a , but it's not—unless food shortfalls and expensive shopping bills are made in paradise. A final avenue we can share is international in scope. Together, farmers and environmentalists can strive for an end to the rapid slash and burn of the Amazon rain forest. We must put our minds together for creative solutions. Farmers are eager to work with all parties to put research, marketing and communications media to work for sensible discussion. Public discussion that looks at benefits as well as risks. Public discussion that takes the farmer's position into account. Instead of building scarecrows to tear down, farmers and environmentalists can work together to keep our food supply safe and abundant. RECEIVED
September 30,1990
Tweedy et al.; Pesticide Residues and Food Safety ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1991.
