Poisons and Perplexities

A known fact about modern agriculture is that most farming operations these days rely on synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. Even in a subsistence agriculture society like Mali where manure and other organic refuse is hauled out to fields every year, inter-cropping with nitrogen fixating plants is practiced, and the majority of fields are still plowed with a team of oxen does modern agricultural chemistry reside. In my neck of the woods the primary products being used are herbicides and urea based nitrogen fertilizers for cultivating hundreds of thousands of hectares of rice.

There are several problems with modernizing subsistence agriculture. The biggest of which, in my opinion, is that the farmers are illiterate. Illiteracy only prolongs the other problems I've noticed which include over application of agricultural chemicals, overuse of land (nothing goes fallow), and poor soil conservation practices. People aren't able to educate/inform themselves.

The over application of chemicals results in higher costs to the farmer and a degradation to local ecology in the form of groundwater/surface water contamination and the promotion of algal blooms and other water flora which degrade water quality in surface waters. Water contamination from nitrogen fertilizers can lead to blue baby syndrome, which is pretty tough to catch when all the babies here have dark skin to begin with. Degradation of water quality in surface waters reduces fish populations, which diminishes available food supplies and a good source of protein.

Overuse of land and poor soil conservation practices go hand in hand. Overusing land depletes the soil of organic matter and nutrients, which makes growing more difficult in subsequent years and increases the reliance on synthetic organic fertilizers. Lack of organic material in soil also leads to soil loss and desertification caused by winds blowing away the remaining inorganic minerals. Poor soil conservation is manifested by farmers not constructing wind rows or erosion barriers to prevent soil from being carried off fields by wind or storm water.

***These are not problems specific to developing countries either. The US deals with the same things, but educated farmers and stricter, enforced laws mean these problems are much less common.

I recently had a conversation with my counterpart about spraying herbicides on fields. My concern was that people were applying excessive amounts of herbicides on their fields, which I felt could lead to groundwater contamination. (The fields which are treated are flooded for several months after spraying, and the waters from those fields help recharge the aquifers in and around my village.) At first my counterpart basically laughed at the idea, but when I started asking him where all the well water came from and made the link between rain water, irrigation waters, and groundwater recharge I saw the light click on in his mind. When he understood he said he thought everyone in village should stop drinking well water and only get drinking water from the pumps in town. I then had to calm him down by pointing out that if there was a significant problem a lot of people would be getting sick, which isn't happening, although this doesn't mean that people could still be at risk in the area.

It's funny. People here know that herbicides and pesticides are dangerous chemicals. They buy them in bottles of highly concentrated liquid or granules, which they then mix with water and apply with a hand sprayer. They wash their hands with soap after spraying (but not after pooping?....) and try to keep people away when they are using the chemicals. However, they don't wear gloves, boots, eye protection, or a face mask when spraying (which is indicated on all the packaging with pictures), and they let kids play with the empty containers after they've been rinsed out with water. They also use/mix all the chemicals the same way even though they come in different concentrations. Of course most people don't know this because the directions are in French of English, which they can't read even if they did understand those languages. I've even seen some people using herbicides in hand sprayers that are intended to be applied with an airplane.

I'm also a little miffed that people can't make the connection between a herbicide being bad for a person and an insecticide being bad for an animal. My counterpart's dog had open wounds on both ears the other day that were covered in flies. To "help" the dog out he wanted to dust the dog's head with an insecticide used to kill flies and other household creepy-crawlies. He seemed to have no idea that this might not be the wisest course of action.