Box 2. Box 2 Problems with pesticides and chemicals

Organic pesticides, it is asserted, work with nature and are environmentally unstable, unlike synthetic pesticides. About 60% of natural and synthetic chemicals are known rodent carcinogens²³, and around 20 different chemicals are used to maintain the safety of processed organic food¹.

Approved pesticides for organic farmers include

• copper sulphate, which has caused liver damage in vineyard workers, kills worms and is persistent in soil and produce (to be banned by the European Commission after 2002)
• rotenone, recently shown to induce Parkinson's disease²⁴
• Bacillus thuringiensis spores, causing fatal lung infections in mice²⁵.

Organic pesticides may be used more sparingly, yet more frequent treatments of crops with copper sulphate than good conventional practice have been reported on organic farms. Natural pyrethroids have to be used at much higher doses than some of the prohibited, equally unstable and much more effective synthetic pyrethroids, such as bioresmethrin.