Produce Growers and Pesticide Makers Deepen Their Bond

Tuesday, June 7, 2011 by The Huffington Post
Best Friends Forever?
by Ken Cook

 

In nearly two decades of research and advocacy on pesticides and human health, Environmental Working Group has never before seen the produce industry take a high-profile role in debates over pesticide policy and safety, as it has this year. Invariably, it was the trade association for the pesticide industry that took the lead.

That group, which began life as The Agricultural Insecticide and Fungicide Association and evolved into the National Agricultural Chemicals Association, most recently rebranded itself "CropLife America" after it became evident that even the mention of "pesticides" or "agricultural chemicals" evoked a negative public response, Similarly, most agribusinesses have adopted the pesticide industry's defensive code words, "crop protection chemicals" or "tools."


In the past year, however, EWG observed a striking change: an unprecedented, highly public lobbying and PR campaign by fresh produce organizations aimed at downplaying consumer concerns about pesticides.

A recent editorial in The Packer, the trade publication of record for the industry, stated:

The industry can't win, but it should still fight. The worst response would be no response. The truth may be unpleasant, and counterintuitive, but eating fresh produce, with trace levels of pesticides, is indeed healthy. Consumers should fill half their plate with it. That message is worth spreading.

It became even more obvious to us that the produce industry wants to keep information about the harmful effects of pesticides out of the hands of the public after we read U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesman Michael Jarvis' response in the Chicago Tribune newspaper to the unusual delay of the release of this year's pesticide data report.

USDA spokesman Michael T. Jarvis said the report was delayed by an unusually large number of official comments on the report from activists and the produce industry. "Some wanted it sooner and some later," Jarvis said. "Some wanted more detail and some less detail, and so we put more time into how we presented it. We wanted it to be more understandable to the consumer."

Who wants less detail? It's certainly not the public. USDA didn't say, but the answer is obvious.
In October of last year, a contingent of leading produce organizations met with top officials of the USDA, EPA and FDA to discuss the impending annual release of pesticide test data by the agriculture department. As one participant explained to The Packer:

The objective in the initial organizational meeting was that we want to see if we can figure out that whatever data is out there be less likely to be misconstrued and misinterpreted," said Ray Gilmer, vice president of communications for the Washington, D.C. based United Fresh Produce.

"We're trying to make sure that anyone who reads that PDP (Pesticide Data Program) report sees -- as do all the people in the room (Oct. 19) -- that there is no risk associated with the consumption of fresh produce due to pesticide residues.

The produce industry claims that public health concerns prompted it to become the public face of a campaign to defend pesticides on produce, primarily to counter Environmental Working Group's popular annual Shopper's Guide to Pesticides.

EWG is skeptical. Spearheading that opposition to the Shopper's Guide was the national produce trade group, the United Fresh Produce Association. If public health were its core mission, then why would it boast on its website that it has "monitored and helped block over 100 legislative proposals on food safety in Congress" in the past two years?

EWG believes Big Produce's motivation is profits, and threat posed by the rapid growth in the organic industry's market share, which jumped from 3 percent in 2000 to 11.4 percent in 2009 (even higher for some particular fruits and vegetables).

Part of the effort to defend pesticides was actually funded by taxpayers through a highly controversial $180,000 grant to the Alliance for Food and Farming from the state of California -- a pass-through of federal funds provided under the 2008 farm bill.

EWG wonders why the produce industry might mount such a risky campaign, other than from a desire to blunt market pressure from consumers eager to reduce their pesticide exposure, or to slow the directly related, and dramatic, expansion of organic produce.

To find out, EWG has sent a FOIA request to USDA asking for all communications between the agency and produce and pesticide representatives to determine whether the AFF grant was improperly used to support the lobbying activities of its member organizations, including United Fresh Produce, Western Growers, the California Strawberry Commission, and the Produce Marketing Association. These AFF members have lobbied Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to overhaul the USDA pesticide data program.

Produce and Pesticide Industry Ties:

Since it launched its campaign against EWG last year, the AFF has insisted that its mission is to promote consumption of fresh produce and to serve as a voice for farmers. In its 2010 IRS Form 990 tax return, its stated mission is to:

Promote food safety and the benefits of consuming fresh fruits and vegetables; provide a voice for farmers to communicate their commitment to produce safe food and care for the land.

But in the previous two years (2008 and 2009), AFF described its goals in strikingly different terms in its IRS Form. Then it said its purpose was to:

Promote food safety and the benefits of agricultural chemicals in ensuring safe, affordable food supply for consumers.

The AFF reportedly has 50 members; while the full list of members is not public, EWG understands that the California Association of Pest Control Advisers and other pesticide interests are among them.

Another AFF member is United Fresh, which also counts pesticide companies in its leadership ranks. Like the AFF, United Fresh presents itself as a defender of public health and promoter of healthier diets rich in fresh produce. But United Fresh has been at the forefront of the recent lobbying campaign against EWG's Shopper's Guide. EWG has found that large, multinational pesticides companies, including Dow, Monsanto, BASF, Syngenta and Bayer, all play a leadership role in United Fresh as members of its Chairman's Roundtable.

As the United Fresh website describes it:

Chairman's Roundtable provides extra support for programs in government relations, food safety, nutrition policy and other areas to help grow the produce industry.

Chairman's Roundtable is an opportunity for United Fresh member companies to contribute above and beyond their basic dues. Roundtable members are industry leaders who set the pace in building United Fresh's strength in government relations, food safety, nutrition policy and other areas critical to industry success.

Not surprisingly, pesticides made by members of United Fresh show up prominently in USDA's tests of pesticide residues on fresh produce. EWG's preliminary analysis of USDA data found that 11 of the 20 pesticides most frequently found in the government tests were products of companies on the United Fresh Chairman's Roundtable.

They include pesticides made by BASF, Syngenta, Dow and Bayer. Monsanto the devil was the only pesticide company on the Chairman's Roundtable whose products were not found.

The Roundtable's membership underscores the tight linkage between conventional agriculture and the pesticide industry, underscoring EWG's position that there is not a dime's width of difference between the two sectors. It is clear that when top officials of produce front groups and trade associations lobby government officials and speak to the media about EWG's annual Shopper's Guide and USDA's pesticide program, they're going to bat for the pesticide industry.

Is the Mystery Behind the Shocking Die-off of Bees Really Solved?

The New York Times essentially called it 'case closed' on Colony Collapse Disorder, but there is good reason to be wary about their reporting.
By Tom Laskawy, Grist.org
Posted on October 24, 2010

The New York Times made a long-awaited (and much emailed) announcement on its front page last week: The mystery of the ongoing and agriculturally devastating bee die-off (aka Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD) has been cracked!

I'm not trying to hype the news. Here's the headline and lede:

Scientists and Soldiers Solve a Bee Mystery

It has been one of the great murder mysteries of the garden: what is killing off the honeybees?

Since 2006, 20 to 40 percent of the bee colonies in the United States alone have suffered "colony collapse." Suspected culprits ranged from pesticides to genetically modified food.

Now, a unique partnership -- of military scientists and entomologists -- appears to have achieved a major breakthrough: identifying a new suspect, or two.

A fungus tag-teaming with a virus have apparently interacted to cause the problem, according to a paper by Army scientists in Maryland and bee experts in Montana in the online science journal PLoS One.

It's easy to miss, but in that last sentence, reporter Kirk Johnson takes a wrong turn. In essence, he confuses proximate and efficient causes (i.e. what bees ultimately succumb to vs. what makes hives susceptible to collapse) and from that logical error, a whole series of cascading failures ensue. But don't take my word for it. Go read Katherine Eban's crack piece of reporting for Fortune that dissects the problematic nature of the Times article; the underlying study; its lead author, Jerry Bromenshenk; and the role in the whole debate of the pesticide company Bayer CropScience.

The enigma wrapped in a mystery coated with pesticide

Let's be clear: The study itself makes no conclusive claims about the causes of colony collapse disorder. Eban quotes from the paper that the research does not "clearly define" that the virus/fungus combination is "a marker, a cause, or a consequence of CCD." A scientist interviewed by Eban very helpfully offers the metaphor of HIV to describe what's going on with bees. HIV doesn't kill you -- it's the opportunistic infections and diseases that follow HIV's dismantling of a sufferer's immune system that do. In the case of bees, the virus/fungus combo are most likely the follow-on infections that kill off an already weakened hive.

The Times blunder goes beyond whether Johnson or his editor misinterpreted the results of new research. Unfortunately, as Eban details -- in part drawing on an unpublished piece she wrote for the now-defunct Portfolio magazine -- the Times left out key pieces of the real story of the fight over research into what's killing the bees.

As I wrote last January, many scientists believe that a novel class of pesticides called neonicotinoids -- which are insect neurotoxins -- has played a major role in CCD worldwide. An Italian entomologist at the University of Padua, Vincenzo Girolami, has research currently undergoing peer review showing that bees can be exposed to lethal levels of these pesticides through the use of seeding machines that sow neonicotinoid-coated seeds. These devices throw up a toxic cloud of pesticide as they work: bees fly through the cloud and either die or take the pesticide back to the hive. Once inside, even at low doses, it can cause disorientation or, as Girolami calls it, "intoxication" of whole hives.

The maker of this pesticide is Bayer CropScience. What does a corporation do when it discovers it may have developed and marketed a dangerous and potentially devastating product? Here in America, you confuse, you obfuscate, and you buy off scientists.

And as Eban skillfully details, that's exactly what Bayer has been doing for the last decade or so.

Beeing clear

Which brings us back to Bromenshenk. He was an expert witness for a group of beekeepers that in 2003 sued Bayer over the pesticide Imidacloprid. Bromenshenk later backed out of the lawsuit and, soon after, Bayer gave Bromenshenk a "research grant." But it gets worse. Eban reports something the Times piece doesn't: that Bromenshenk's consulting company, Bee Alert Technology, is developing diagnostic tools for "various bee ailments." The company stands to profit from curing bee diseases -- and thus it's rather convenient that Bromenshenk has published research that points the finger towards "treatable" conditions, rather than pesticides, as the primary culprit in bee deaths. Indeed, he had admitted as much to Eban while she was researching her Portfolio piece.

While this tremendous potential conflict doesn't necessarily invalidate Bromenshenk's findings, it certainly warrants a mention.

So where does this leave us? In an email exchange with me, the Italian scientist Girolami said he agrees with many of the experts Eban interviewed: The virus/fungus combination is secondary. In Girolami's opinion, the underlying causes of CCD -- the factors that are weakening the hives and making them susceptible to infection and die-offs -- are most likely neonicotinoids along with the Varroa mite, a parasite that can infect and destroy hives all on its own.

In fact, last year Italy banned neonicotinoid-coated corn seeds and, according to this report, after the first non-neonicotinoid sowing, nary a hive was lost, although neonicotinoid spraying is still allowed in some areas -- and still linked with bee deaths. France has also banned coated seeds -- though there, as in Germany, the pesticide lobby has fended off total bans for now. As for the U.S., Bayer successfully convinced a judge to throw out crucial evidence in the beekeeper lawsuit and has, to date, prevented the EPA from releasing the data the agency used to approve neonicotinoids in the first place.

Eban concludes with the observation that little neonicotinoid research is going on in the U.S .at the moment, thanks in large part to Bayer's efforts to "support" scientists who work in other, shall we say, less-sensitive areas. It seems it is up to scientists outside the U.S., in countries less beholden to corporate interests, to do the scientific heavy lifting.

Ah, America. Fighting hard for the freedom to spray toxic chemicals everywhere.