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• Benefits of Organics
  • The Effects of Pesticides on Our Health and the Environment
  • Nutritional Benefits of Organic Food
• Why Does Organic Food Cost More?
• Our Stance on Local vs. "Big Organic"
• Manitoba's Organic Menu
• Ten Ways to Get Involved in Manitoba's Organic Movement

The Effects of Pesticides On Our Health and the Environment

Organic agriculture protects the health of people and the planet by reducing the overall exposure to toxic chemicals from synthetic pesticides that can end up in the ground, air, water and food supply, and that are associated with health consequences, from asthma to cancer. 

From the Organic Trade Association website

Our Health:

From the Organic Trade Association website, http://www.ota.com/organic/benefits/health.html.

Exposure to pesticides can cause a range of ill effects in humans, from relatively mild effects such as headaches, fatigue, and nausea, to more serious effects such as cancer and neurological disorders. In 1999, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) estimated that nationwide there were at least 10,000 to 20,000 physician-diagnosed pesticide illnesses and injuries per year in farm work.

Source: Agricultural Pesticides: Management Improvements Needed to Further Promote Integrated Pest Management, U.S. General Accounting Office [GAO-01-815, Page 4, August 2001].

U.S. consumers can experience up to 70 daily exposures to residues from persistent organic pollutants (POPs) through their diets, according to a report from the Pesticide Action Network North America.  The top ten POP-contaminated food items (in alphabetical order) are butter, cantaloupe, cucumbers/pickles, meatloaf, peanuts, popcorn, radishes, spinach, summer squash, and winter squash.  Exposure to POPS has been linked to breast and other types of cancer, immune system suppression, nervous system disorders, reproductive damage, and disruption of hormonal systems.
Source: "Nowhere to Hide: Persistent Toxic Chemicals in the U.S. Food Supply," by Kristin Schafer, Pesticide Action Network North America, 2000 (www.panna.org).

A Consumer Union report found that fresh peaches, frozen and fresh winter squash, apples, grapes, spinach, pears, and green beans had some of the highest Toxicity Index ratings.

Source: "Do you know what you’re eating? An analysis of U.S. Government Data on Pesticide Residues in Foods," February 1999, Consumers Union of United States Inc., Edward Groth III, project director.

Pesticides pose special concerns to children because of their high metabolisms and low body weights. More than 1 million children between the ages of 1 and 5 ingest at least 15 pesticides every day from fruits and vegetables. More than 600,000 of these children eat a dose of organophosphate insecticides that the federal government considers unsafe, and 61,000 eat doses that exceed benchmark levels by a factor of 10 or more."

Source: Food for Thought: The Case for Reforming Farm Programs to Preserve the Environment and Help Family Farmers, Ranchers and Foresters, pages 12-13, found at www.environmentaldefense.org/pubs/Reports. Original source: Environmental Working Group, Overexposed: Organophosphate Insecticides in Children’s Food, 1998, pp. 1-3.

Pesticides have a cumulative multigenerational destructive impact on human health, especially behavior. Pesticides are a serious threat to the physical, emotional and mental development of children and future generations." Specifically: "Pesticides and other pollutants can interfere with proper sexual differentiation; they can also cause other birth defects and multigenerational health problems, such as allergies, immunotoxicity, neurotoxicity and cancer in the individual, that individual’s offspring, and subsequent generations." It added that a Canadian-USA study detected pesticides in the amniotic fluid in one-third of human pregnancies.
Source: "Pesticides: Their Multigenerational Cumulative Destructive Impact on Health, Especially on the Physical, Emotional and Mental Development of Children and of Future Generations—Canadian Government Responsibilities and Opportunities," February 2000, Environmental Illness Society of Canada (www.eisc.ca/pesticide_moratorium.html).

The Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development has released a report urging consumers to wash fruits and vegetables thoroughly before eating to remove pesticide residues. "As many as 16 separate pesticide applications may be made on apples each year to combat the apple scab. Where possible, organic products should be chosen," it said, adding, "The advantages of organic farming are many: reduced soil erosion, retention of soil nutrients, surface and ground water that is uncontaminated by pesticides. We urge the government to enable farmers to take advantage of this economic opportunity by providing them with the necessary information, technical assistance and financial incentives."
Source: "Pesticides: Making the Right Choice, for the Protection of Human Health and the Environment," Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, available on the Parliament of Canada web site (www.parl.gc.ca), or by calling 613-996-1483 (e-mail: envi@parl.gc.ca).

Our Environment: 

From the Organic Trade Association website, http://www.ota.com/organic/benefits/health.html

Toxic chemicals are contaminating groundwater on every inhabited continent, endangering the world’s most valuable supplies of freshwater, according to a WorldWatch paper. As a result, author Payal Sampat called for a systematic overhaul of manufacturing and industrial agriculture. He noted that since 1998, farmers in China’s Yunnan Province have eliminated their use of fungicides while doubling rice yields by planting more diverse varieties of the grain. Meanwhile, several water utilities in Germany now pay farmers to switch to organic operations because moving farmers to organic practices costs less than removing farm chemicals from water supplies.
Source: "Deep Trouble: The Hidden Threat of Groundwater Pollution," by Payal Sampat, Worldwatch Paper 154, December 2000.

A study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry showed DDT, chlordane and some other organochlorine pesticides keep showing up in the food supply years after they were banned. Planting a garden in ground heavily treated with chlordane 38 years earlier, scientists found chlordane residues in all 12 vegetables planted, including lettuce, zucchini, potatoes and carrots. Although the residues were all within safe tolerance limits established by the government, the American Chemical Society has warned that chlordane can accumulate in the human body and lead to digestive and nervous system disorders.
Source: Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, May 15, 2000, cited in a May 6, 2000, Associated Press article written by Philip Brasher.

Pesticide sprays "encourage life-threatening bacteria to grow on crops," according to Canadian researcher Greg Blank in an article in the New Scientist. Researchers at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg found that bacteria thrived in some formulations of pesticides diluted with water, growing best in chlorothalonil, linuron, permethrin, and chlorpyrifos. Blank warned that the bacteria could pose a threat to people eating raw fruit and vegetables such as strawberries, raspberries and lettuce.
Source: New Scientist, Oct. 7, 2000.

Research by Dr. Warren Porter, professor of zoology and environmental toxiciology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and colleagues has shown that common mixtures of pesticides in groundwater are capable of altering neurological, endocrine, and immune parameters in rats and mice. The five-year study looked at mixtures of the widely used insecticide aldicarb, herbicide atrazine, and nitrate from fertilizers at concentrations mirroring those commonly found in groundwater. Researchers noted that this data and other epidemiological research suggest that such mixtures may have an effect on aggression levels and learning disabilities in children.
Source: "Endocrine, immune, and behavioral effects of aldicarb (carbamate), atrazine (triazine) and nitrate (fertilizer) mixtures at groundwater concentrations," by Warren P. Porter, James W. Jaeger, and Ian H. Carlson, Toxicology and Industrial Health:15, pages 133-150, 1999.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report released in March 2001 found measurable amounts of organophosphate pesticide metabolites in the people studied. In the report, CDC said that organophosphate pesticides account for approximately half of the insecticides used in the United States. An estimated 60 million pounds of organophosphate pesticides are applied to about 60 million acres of U.S. agricultural crops annually, and an additional 17 million pounds are used per year for nonagricultural uses, such as in household pest control products and in lawn and garden sprays. Organophosphates are not allowed in organic agriculture.
Source: "National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, March 21, 2001.

From Consumer Reports: 

• In the US - More than a dozen formerly widely used pesticides have been banned, restricted, or voluntarily withdrawn by manufacturers since 1996
• Consumers can still easily consume small amounts of more than 30 pesticides daily when eating a healthful variety of foods.
• New evidence also shows that contrary to previous scientific belief, pesticides in a woman’s bloodstream can be passed to a fetus in the womb. A study released in 2005 in which umbilical-cord blood of 10 children was collected by the Red Cross and tested for pollutants showed that 21 pesticides crossed the placenta.
• Exposure of the fetus to organophosphorus pesticides produces babies with small head circumference, which is a risk factor for reduced intelligence and behavioral disturbances.

• A study supported by the Environmental Protection Agency and published in 2005 measured pesticide levels in the urine of 23 children in Washington State before and after a switch to an organic diet. Researchers found that after just five consecutive days on the new diet, specific markers for commonly used pesticides decreased to undetectable levels, and remained that way until conventional diets were reintroduced. The study’s conclusion: “An organic diet provides a dramatic and immediate protective effect” against such pesticide exposure

  http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/food/organic-products-206/chemical-health-risks/index.htm?resultPageIndex=1&resultIndex=4&searchTerm=organic,%20health

For more health and environment-related pesticide information, go to the Organic Trade Association website 

www.ota.com/organic/benefits/health.html, or the Consumer Reports website www.consumerreports.org