Fighting Pesticides in China
Around the world there is growing recognition of the dangerous risks that the use of chemical pesticides pose. Pesticides detrimentally affect human health, biodiversity and the environment. Yet despite the increasing amount of research showing the harmful effects of pesticide use, pesticide issues have still to receive extensive attention from Chinese farmers, consumers and policy-makers.
Pesticide Eco-Alternatives Center Yunnan Thoughtful Action (PEAC) was created in February 2002 to address this problem. The mission of PEAC is to reduce the use of harmful pesticides in China and to promote alternative ecological forms of pest control, and eventually protect the human health and ecological health for sustainable development.
Around the world there is growing recognition of the dangerous risks that the use of chemical pesticides pose. Pesticides detrimentally affect human health, biodiversity and the environment. Yet despite the increasing amount of research showing the harmful effects of pesticide use, pesticide issues have still to receive extensive attention from Chinese farmers, consumers and policy-makers.
Pesticide Eco-Alternatives Center Yunnan Thoughtful Action (PEAC) was created in February 2002 to address this problem. The mission of PEAC is to reduce the use of harmful pesticides in China and to promote alternative ecological forms of pest control, and eventually protect the human health and ecological health for sustainable development.
Strategy and Objectives
PEAC seeks to reduce the use of harmful chemical pesticides in China through a consumer-driven and farmer-centered participatory approach. This approach involves a five-pronged strategy:
1.Training and empowering farmers
It is not possible to reduce pesticide use in China without farmer participation in pesticide reduction action. Farmers’ abilities to make informed choices about how they can best and most safely grow their crops is distorted by the aggressive marketing (and often deception) of pesticide companies and by farmers’ ignorance of pesticide risks and knowledge of eco-friendly alternatives. PEAC aims to work together farmers on pesticide risks, eco-alternatives, and the potential benefits of ecological/organic agriculture, empowers them to operate eco-friendly alternatives and to resist the pressures of the large agrochemical manufacturers. This allows farmers to produce in ways that are safer for themselves, for consumers, and for the environment through development of market-oriented eco-agriculture, which provides solutions to sustainable livelihood for farmers and poverty alleviation.
2. Promoting consumer’s awareness of pesticide dangers
Consumers often know little about what goes into the foods they purchase. The development and growth of a middle class in China has, however, led to increasing concern about food quality among many Chinese. This opens up opportunities to highlight issues of food safety and content in a way that was not possible in the past. Providing consumers with more information about the dangers of pesticides and food safety makes it possible to increase the demand for pesticide-free and organically produced goods, and promoting consumers to participate in food market monitoring and drive the development of ecological agriculture.
3. Protecting Women Health
Chemical pesticides are threatening women health, specially reproductive health and next generations because they are in more exposure to pesticides than man in the county side of China. In order to protect their health and promote the sustainable development, women group at PEAC will work together with female participants to understand pesticide risks and to carry out community monitoring and control in pesticides effects on women health, specially reproductive health.
4. Advancing Alternatives and Ecological Agriculture
Collecting and disseminating the existing indigenous knowledge about alternatives to chemical pest control from farmers, and promoting the scientific development of eco-friendly alternatives in ecological agricultural system. Also empowering farmers to develop low-input, pesticide-free ecological agriculture and organic farming practice.
5. Developing appropriate policy responses and advocating policy reform
Any successful advocacy work in China must collaborate closely with local and higher government bodies. Although there exist a number of important laws and regulations governing the use of pesticides in China, these laws must be more stringently enforced. Moreover, policy recommendations must be devised that are tailored to newly developing conditions and regional specifications. PEAC’s research, fieldwork and cooperation with outside experts will yield new insights for policy recommendations and will further discussion with government officials.
Change through Thoughtful Action
Reducing the use of pesticides in China requires an approach based on Thoughtful Action. PEAC’s focuses on stimulating thought – about the dangers of pesticides and about the eco-friendly alternatives that exist – that will then lead to action, to the adoption of practices, behaviors and law (and its enforcement) that will reduce pesticide use. As such, PEAC’s five-pronged strategy is bolstered by research and its dissemination. PEAC will disseminate knowledge and thought through a variety of mediums: reports, newsletters, conferences and workshops, and through the Internet.
Partnership
Confronting the scourge of chemical pesticides in China will be most effective with the cooperation and involvement of many actors. PEAC acts as an organizational platform upon which to coordinate the efforts of all of those interested in reducing pesticides in China.
Research institutes and universities produce cutting-edge research on a range of aspects of pest control, biodiversity and sustainable methods of crop production. Government agencies, such as agriculture extension bureaus, come into regular contact with rural farmers. Student activists provide enthusiasm and commitment towards ensuring development does not come at the expense of environmental degradation. In addition to the project work of its staff, PEAC also brings together educators, experts, activists, researchers, journalists, and other interested sectors of society, to work towards reducing the use of harmful pesticides.
PEAC also works closely with a range of international experts and donors. It has been collaborating with the Pesticide Action Network (PAN), a global network that aims to ‘feed the world without poisons’. In particular, PAN North America (PANNA), Asia Pacific (PAN-AP) and United Kingdom (PANUK) have provided assistance. Other supporters include Greenpeace China, the Rockefeller Brothers, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the Field Alliance. |
