Photo: Soil loss in potato fields, Driggs, Idaho in May. Copyright 2018 Delena Norris-Tull
The Impact of the Petrochemical Industry on Medicine and Agriculture
Capra, 1982, points out that, “The influence of the pharmaceutical industry on the practice of medicine has an interesting parallel in the influence of the petrochemical industry on agriculture and farming. Farmers, like doctors, deal with living organisms that are severely affected by the mechanistic and reductionist approach of our science and technology. Like the human organism, the soil is a living system that has to remain in a state of dynamic balance to be healthy. When the balance is disturbed there will be pathological growth of certain components - bacteria or cancer cells in the human body, weeds or pests in the fields. Disease will occur, and eventually the whole organism may die and turn into inorganic matter. These effects have become major problems in modern agriculture because of the farming methods promoted by the petrochemical companies. As the pharmaceutical industry has conditioned doctors and patients to believe that the human body needs continual medical supervision and drug treatment to stay healthy, so the petrochemical industry has made farmers believe that soil needs massive infusions of chemicals, supervised by agricultural scientist and technicians, to remain productive. In both cases these practices have seriously disrupted the natural balance of the living system and thus generated numerous diseases. Moreover, the two systems are directly connected, since any imbalance in the soil will affect the food that grows in it and thus the health of the people who eat that food.
“A fertile soil is a living soil containing billions of living organisms in every cubic centimeter. It is a complex ecosystem in which the substances that are essential to life move in cycles from plants to animals, to soil bacteria, and back again to plants…
“The basic nature of living soil requires agriculture, first and foremost, to preserve the integrity of the great ecological cycles. This principle was embodied in traditional farming methods, which were based on a profound respect for life. Farmers used to plant different crops every year, rotating them so that the balance in the soil was preserved. No pesticides were needed, since insects attracted to one crop would disappear with the next. Instead of using chemical fertilizers, farmers would enrich their fields with manure, thus returning organic matter to the soil to reenter the biological cycle.
“This age-old practice of ecological farming changed dramatically… [after World War II], when farmers switched from organic to synthetic products, which opened up vast markets for the oil companies… For the farmers the immediate effect of the new farming methods was a spectacular improvement in agricultural production, and the new era of chemical farming was hailed as the ‘Green Revolution.’ Soon, however, the dark side of the new technology became apparent, and today it is evident that the Green Revolution has helped neither the farmers nor the land nor the starving millions. The only ones to gain from it were the petrochemical corporations” (Capra, 1982, p. 252-254).
“The massive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides changed the whole fabric of agriculture and farming. The industry persuaded farmers they could make money by planting large fields with a single highly profitable crop and controlling weeds and pests with chemicals. The result of this practice of single-crop monocultures were great losses of genetic variety in the fields and, consequently, high risks of large acreages being destroyed by a single pest. Monocultures also affect the health of the people living in the farming areas, who are no longer able to obtain a balanced diet from locally grown foods and thus became more disease-prone…
“While American farmers were able to triple their corn yields per acre and, at the same time, cut their labor by two-thirds, the amount of energy used to produce one acre of corn increased fourfold. The new style of farming favored large corporate farmers with big capital and forced most of the traditional single-family farmers, who could not afford to mechanize, to leave their land. Three million American farms have been eliminated this way since 1945 [to 1972], with large numbers of people forced to leave the rural areas and join the masses of the urban unemployed as victims of the Green Revolution” (Capra, 1982, p. 254-255).
As one example, Montana is a major producer of many agricultural products. For example, Montana is a world producer of wheat. In the 1970s, most of the food grown in Montana was consumed locally. Today, only about 20% of food consumed in Montana was grown there. It is estimated that a meal in the US travels about 1500 miles from farm to consumer.
“The ecological imbalance caused by monocropping and by excessive use of chemical fertilizers inevitably results in enormous increases in pests and crop diseases, which farmers counteract by spraying ever larger doses of pesticides, thus fighting the effects of their overuse of chemicals by using even more. However, pesticides often can no longer destroy the pests because they tend to become immune to the chemicals. Since World War II, when massive use of pesticides began, crop losses due to insects have not decreased; on the contrary, they have almost doubled. Moreover, many crops are now attacked by new insects that were never known as pests before, and these new pests are becoming increasingly resistant to all insecticides” (Capra, p. 257).
The same problem has occurred with herbicides, with many invasive plants developing herbicide resistance, thus requiring the development of new generations of herbicides.
Since 1945 there has been a sixfold increase in the use of chemical fertilizers and a twelvefold increase in the use of pesticides on American farms. At the same time increased mechanization and longer transport routes have contributed further to the energy dependence of modern agriculture. As a result, 60 percent of the costs of food are now costs of petroleum… Excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides has sent great quantities of toxic chemicals seeping through the soil, contaminating the water table and showing up in food. Perhaps half the pesticides on the market are mixed with petroleum distillates that may destroy the body’s natural immune system. Others contain substances which are related specifically to cancer. Yet these alarming results have barely affected the sale and use of fertilizers and pesticides. Some of the more dangerous chemicals have been outlawed in the United States, but the oil companies continue to sell them in the Third World, where legislation is less strict... In the case of pesticides all populations are directly affected by this unethical practice because the toxic chemicals come back on fruits and vegetables imported from Third World countries” (Capra, 1982, p. 257-258).
Reference:
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The Impact of the Petrochemical Industry on Medicine and Agriculture
Capra, 1982, points out that, “The influence of the pharmaceutical industry on the practice of medicine has an interesting parallel in the influence of the petrochemical industry on agriculture and farming. Farmers, like doctors, deal with living organisms that are severely affected by the mechanistic and reductionist approach of our science and technology. Like the human organism, the soil is a living system that has to remain in a state of dynamic balance to be healthy. When the balance is disturbed there will be pathological growth of certain components - bacteria or cancer cells in the human body, weeds or pests in the fields. Disease will occur, and eventually the whole organism may die and turn into inorganic matter. These effects have become major problems in modern agriculture because of the farming methods promoted by the petrochemical companies. As the pharmaceutical industry has conditioned doctors and patients to believe that the human body needs continual medical supervision and drug treatment to stay healthy, so the petrochemical industry has made farmers believe that soil needs massive infusions of chemicals, supervised by agricultural scientist and technicians, to remain productive. In both cases these practices have seriously disrupted the natural balance of the living system and thus generated numerous diseases. Moreover, the two systems are directly connected, since any imbalance in the soil will affect the food that grows in it and thus the health of the people who eat that food.
“A fertile soil is a living soil containing billions of living organisms in every cubic centimeter. It is a complex ecosystem in which the substances that are essential to life move in cycles from plants to animals, to soil bacteria, and back again to plants…
“The basic nature of living soil requires agriculture, first and foremost, to preserve the integrity of the great ecological cycles. This principle was embodied in traditional farming methods, which were based on a profound respect for life. Farmers used to plant different crops every year, rotating them so that the balance in the soil was preserved. No pesticides were needed, since insects attracted to one crop would disappear with the next. Instead of using chemical fertilizers, farmers would enrich their fields with manure, thus returning organic matter to the soil to reenter the biological cycle.
“This age-old practice of ecological farming changed dramatically… [after World War II], when farmers switched from organic to synthetic products, which opened up vast markets for the oil companies… For the farmers the immediate effect of the new farming methods was a spectacular improvement in agricultural production, and the new era of chemical farming was hailed as the ‘Green Revolution.’ Soon, however, the dark side of the new technology became apparent, and today it is evident that the Green Revolution has helped neither the farmers nor the land nor the starving millions. The only ones to gain from it were the petrochemical corporations” (Capra, 1982, p. 252-254).
“The massive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides changed the whole fabric of agriculture and farming. The industry persuaded farmers they could make money by planting large fields with a single highly profitable crop and controlling weeds and pests with chemicals. The result of this practice of single-crop monocultures were great losses of genetic variety in the fields and, consequently, high risks of large acreages being destroyed by a single pest. Monocultures also affect the health of the people living in the farming areas, who are no longer able to obtain a balanced diet from locally grown foods and thus became more disease-prone…
“While American farmers were able to triple their corn yields per acre and, at the same time, cut their labor by two-thirds, the amount of energy used to produce one acre of corn increased fourfold. The new style of farming favored large corporate farmers with big capital and forced most of the traditional single-family farmers, who could not afford to mechanize, to leave their land. Three million American farms have been eliminated this way since 1945 [to 1972], with large numbers of people forced to leave the rural areas and join the masses of the urban unemployed as victims of the Green Revolution” (Capra, 1982, p. 254-255).
As one example, Montana is a major producer of many agricultural products. For example, Montana is a world producer of wheat. In the 1970s, most of the food grown in Montana was consumed locally. Today, only about 20% of food consumed in Montana was grown there. It is estimated that a meal in the US travels about 1500 miles from farm to consumer.
“The ecological imbalance caused by monocropping and by excessive use of chemical fertilizers inevitably results in enormous increases in pests and crop diseases, which farmers counteract by spraying ever larger doses of pesticides, thus fighting the effects of their overuse of chemicals by using even more. However, pesticides often can no longer destroy the pests because they tend to become immune to the chemicals. Since World War II, when massive use of pesticides began, crop losses due to insects have not decreased; on the contrary, they have almost doubled. Moreover, many crops are now attacked by new insects that were never known as pests before, and these new pests are becoming increasingly resistant to all insecticides” (Capra, p. 257).
The same problem has occurred with herbicides, with many invasive plants developing herbicide resistance, thus requiring the development of new generations of herbicides.
Since 1945 there has been a sixfold increase in the use of chemical fertilizers and a twelvefold increase in the use of pesticides on American farms. At the same time increased mechanization and longer transport routes have contributed further to the energy dependence of modern agriculture. As a result, 60 percent of the costs of food are now costs of petroleum… Excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides has sent great quantities of toxic chemicals seeping through the soil, contaminating the water table and showing up in food. Perhaps half the pesticides on the market are mixed with petroleum distillates that may destroy the body’s natural immune system. Others contain substances which are related specifically to cancer. Yet these alarming results have barely affected the sale and use of fertilizers and pesticides. Some of the more dangerous chemicals have been outlawed in the United States, but the oil companies continue to sell them in the Third World, where legislation is less strict... In the case of pesticides all populations are directly affected by this unethical practice because the toxic chemicals come back on fruits and vegetables imported from Third World countries” (Capra, 1982, p. 257-258).
Reference:
- Capra, F. (1982). The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture. New York: Bantam Books.
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