Why city pesticide bans concern you
Lots of cities have banned pesticide use on residential lawns and public parks. Not my problem, farmers say. Ontario has proposed a province-wide ban on this cosmetic use of pesticides. So every soccer field in Ontario is full of dandelions. Mow them down, they're just as soft as grass, right?
Lorne Hepworth, president of CropLife Canada, hopes farmers take a more proactive view. He hopes farmers across Canada will take action to stop these proposed regulations in Ontario. Here's his argument: Farmers rely on science to bring new pesticides to market, to encourage innovation among crop protection companies, and to bring order and predictability to the pesticide control system. A ban ignores the science that Health Canada has already done. "It shows that science and scientific principles don’t matter,” Hepworth says.
And once cosmetic use of pesticides is banned, will crop use be next? “How long will it be before people say, “If it’s not OK to put pesticides on my lawn, why is OK to spray them on my food?” Hepworth says. "Either pesticides are safe, or they are not.”
Go to www.croplife.ca to send an eletter to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty. The comment period on the Ontario proposal ends December 22.
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I disagree with Dr. Lorne Hepworth that he has the right to call upon Canadian farmers to oppose Bill 64 intended to protect urban dwellers, especially young children, from second-hand pesticides. Clearly, under this Bill, farmers are exempt from Bill-64 banning cosmetic use of pesticides, so it seems unreasonable for them to encroach on the prerogative of urban dwellers not to be exposed to these synthetic chemicals. It is disingenuous to draw parallels between cosmetic and farm use of pesticides. As in the case of second-hand smoke, urban children are exposed to second-hand pesticides. (The residues go directly to their brain, by-passing the liver which is the cleansing organ.) On the farm, the decision to use pesticides comes from the farmer and it is his sole responsibility to minimize pesticide danger to himself and his own family. Not so in the city. Children whose parents do not use pesticides are exposed to pesticides used by neighbours or in city parks. The situation is even more intolerable in condominiums with extensive grounds, which are transformed into toxic battlefields, as it were. Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency has no labs of its own and relies on rat data provided by the industry. Rats have detoxification genes missing inhumans. Human data are not examined. Besides, unfavourable lab tests results may be withheld by the industry. We have science-based, legislated protection against second-smoke so it is only fair to have similar science-based protection against second-hand pesticides.