Sandinista government reverses the cycle of poisoning
The author of the following article was recently on a month long reforestation project in Nicaragua. Diane FEELY
By the 1960s Central America had become one of the primary cottonproducing areas of the world. Forty percent of Nicaragua's cultivated land was transformed into cotton production. Cotton replaced basic food crops - corn, beans, rice and sorghum. Tens of thousands of campesinos were bought out for next to nothing or forced off the land.
Somoza reaped millions of dollars of profit on the cotton boom. The cotton barons obtained cheap bank credit which was denied to small farmers. The result was a greater impoverishment in the countryside, greater dependence on the world market and increasing ecological problems. The concentration of cotton over such large tracts of land proved destructive. The region became plagued with soil erosion. Dust storms swept through the area.
Intense cultivation of one crop also creates an individual environment for the development of pest populations. Nicaragua was then caught in a vicious circle. To control the increasing problems with various cotton pests - especially the boll weevil - the growers became dependent on chemical technology. Initially the technology produced impressive results, but the cotton crops became "addicted" to increasing pesticide doses which had to be applied to counter higher levels of insect resistance.
Cotton growers were trapped on a pesticide treadmill in order to maintain profitable cotton yields. Not only did pests develop resistance to the pesticides but new pests emerged when their natural enemies were killed off.
Despite inadequate records, it is estimated that between 1962-72 Nicaragua suffered an estimated 3,000 pesticide poisonings a year. This is an annual rate of 176 cases per 100,000 - or nearly eight times as high as the US rate.
Thus in the span of two decades Nicaragua became a world leader in per capita pesticide poisonings. In 1969-70 alone, 383 deaths were attributed to pesticide poisoning in Nicaragua.
An estimated 80% of Central Amerca's acute pesticide poisonings result from organophosphate exposure. These are extremely toxic in even small doses. They quickly kill pest populations and decompose in a matter of a few days, or 18 at most in a few weeks. But Nicaragua traditionally used the less expensive organochlorines — pesticides such as DDT and toxaphene. Not as acutely toxic as the organophosphates, they do not decompose as quickly after application.
DDT, for instance, has a half life of ten to thirty years. As the pesticide residue accumulates in the food chain, the poison builds up in the fatty tissue. And of the 25 most commonly used organochlorines, 19 have been shown to cause cancer in laboratory tests on animals.
Of the 19.5 million pounds of pesticides Nicaragua used during the 1974-75 cotton season, nearly 15 million pounds were organochlorines. No other population in the world had levels of DDT as high as those who lived in the Nicaraguan and Guatemalan cotton areas
Immediately after the 1979 insurrection the Government of National Reconstruction developed practical goals to reverse pesticide poisonings. It banned the importation of DDT, endrin and dieldrin, impounding all existing stock. Through the government import agency, MIDINRA, the Sandinistas have been able to implement their ban by preventing the importation of similar pesticides.
The Nicaraguans have substituted less harmful pesticides for the organochlorines that once predominated. In fact, by the 1982-83 harvest, pesticide usage has been cut by 55%. The Ministry of Agrarian Reform has also developed two experimental programs. One project uses "trap cropping" to control the boll weevil. Four rows of cotton plants per several acres of land are not plowed under after the harvest; these then become the trap in which the boll weevil concentrates. Only these rows are then treated with pesticides. This method reduces the need for pesticide treatment on the main crop during the regular season. By 1984 all cotton producers were required to use this method.
The second experimental program is an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) system which employs a wide variety of naturally-occuring controls, including insects and bacteria. IPM holds the use of chemicals to a minimum, with pesticides only to be applied after a careful survey of the insect populations in the field. Instead, biological, environmental, cultural and genetic controls are employed in a complementary fashion. Using resistant varieties of a crop (as in the case of corn), mixing crops or employing natural enemies to control pests are all integral to IPM.
As a result of these efforts, Nicaragua has become one of the most advanced countries in the Third World in designing and implementing alternatives to pesticide usage.
Crucial to reducing pesticide poisoning is raising the level of understanding about pesticide safety measures among agricultural workers. Under new pesticide regulations, labels must be written in the language of the workers. These labels must contain basic information on hazards and personal protective measures, poisoning symptons, first aid and medical noisonino sumotons first aid and medical treatment. The labels will be color-coded tor workers who are still not tunctionally literate. Since a major proportion of occupational injury and illness is dependent upon safety precautions that workers must employ, these safety classes, monitoring programs and labelling procedures are crucial building blocks in developing a well-rounded educational program. Increasing the number of trained inspectors and teachers is another vital element.
The ability to conduct research, train technicians and develop innovative projects has been undermined by the country's need to defend itself against the contra attacks since 1981. Perhaps the most dramatic example occured around the CIA-organized attack on the Corinto docks and storage facilities in October 1983.
The attack on Corinto occured at the same time the boll weevil was reaching its critical level in the cotton cycle. Stored at Corinto was methylparathion, a relatively safe chemical the Nicaraguans were going to use on the cotton pest. The destruction of methylparathion supplies left cotton growers with no means to combat the pest. Faced with the potential loss of a major proportion of its cotton crop - one of the two main sources of foreign exchange — and unable to replace the chemical quickly, the government was forced to suspend its ban against organochlorines, open up the storage centers where the pesticides had been kept since they were impounded, and distribute the hazardous substance.
Nicaragua has designed and implemented the most innovative and potentially far-reaching solutions to pesticide poisonings - with the help of scientists around the world. The will to reverse the cycle of poisoning is very strong, yet implementation is limited by US imperialism's ability to cripple that revolution. The attack on the storage facilities at Corinto is but one aspect of the US strategy. The US also pressures other countries and institutions to deny loans or credits to Nicaragua, unleashes a barrage of propaganda against the country and its leadership, and uses economic and political weight to isolate that revolution. It is a testimony to the quality of the Sandinista leadership that despite the real hardships facing the Nicaraguan people today, the struggle to reverse the cycle of poisoning continues.
International Viewpoint 6 May 1985
ARGENTINA,