Residents demand an end to Moscamed
11/11/2010
- Opinión
In Guatemala, thousands of campesinos, coffee growers, beekeepers and environmentalists suspect that massive chemical aerial spraying by the US-financed program to eradicate the Mediterranean Fruit Fly, or medfly, is damaging crops, killing bees and causing sickness, such as allergies and conjunctivitis.
The United States for most of the past three decades has been financing massive aerial spraying of pesticides over thousands of square kilometers of coffee plantations, natural reserves, waterways and small farms in an attempt to eradicate the insect, known here as moscamed.
“They are destroying the environment, ruining our agriculture and trade, and causing sickness,” said Marcos Maz, a beekeeper and environmentalist from San Antonio, Suchitepéquez, in southwestern Guatemala. Maz is an activist involved in a growing social movement that aims to end the aerial spraying of pesticides and suspend the US-backed Moscamed program.
The Moscamed officials deny that aerial spraying is damaging, and the program spends much of its resources on winning the support of local communities and industry, as well as municipal authorities, with medical missions, baking classes and technical support for apiaries.
The US has spent more than US$266 milllion on the Moscamed program since 1977, to eradicate the medfly from Guatemala, using airplanes and helicopters to spray more than 10 million liters of pesticides, over thousands of square kilometers of Guatemalan countryside. During the 1980s and 1990s the program used Malathion, a pesticide that has been discontinued by the program due to concerns regarding environmental damages and risks to human health.
Recently, the program has been spraying Spinosad GF 120 Naturalyte Fruit Fly Bait, a pesticide produced by US chemical giant Dow Agrosciences. According to data from the Guatemalan Agriculture Ministry, Moscamed has imported more than 6 million liters of GF-120 since 2002, equivalent to 5,000 metric tons.
Dow scientists say that Spinosad is highly toxic to beneficial insects, such as bees, and aquatic species and government experts recommend precautions to reduce environmental harm, such as avoiding spraying in urban areas, near bodies of water, or during the daytime, when beneficial insects are most active.
According to the spraying protocol in Guatemala, the aircraft repeatedly sprays the same area five to seven times, spraying large drops of GF-120 – up to 500 drops per square meter.
In California, the use of Spinosad is carefully regulated, and residents and farm workers are warned to avoid the area for at least four hours after application. In Guatemala no such warnings or precautions are sent out before spraying.
In urban areas of California, residents are told to remove their pets from the spray zone and cover backyard furniture before ground spraying takes place. In Costa Rica and other Central American countries, aerial spraying is not used to control the Mediterranean fruit fly. Guatemala, however, has been chosen by the US as a barrier to block the northward migration of the fruit fly toward US farms, 3,500 kilometers to the north.
Moscamed began as a program designed to eradicate the Mediterranean fruit fly. A decade later, program consultants still believed that with the massive spraying of malathion, the medfly could be eradicated in four years' time. Today, however, Moscamed focuses on the goal of controlling the fruit fly with a spraying program that has no time limit.
False threat?
But the characterization of the Medfly as a destructive "illegal alien" is challenged by Dr. James Carey, an entomologist with the University of California, Berkeley, who has concluded from DNA tests that the Medfly is a permanent resident of California, and has been detected in 167 municipalities – one third of the state – since 1975.
Carey is recognized as a pre-eminent expert on the Medfly, who served on the California Department of Food and Agriculture´s Medfly Scientific Advisory Panel from 1987-1994, which was created by the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
“The consecuences of policies that continue to be based on the erroneous assumption… that all Medfly outbreaks in California are due to reintroductions will be catastrophic,” concluded Carey in a recent article.
For many years the program operated in Guatemala without an approved Environmental Impact Assessment. In 2002, a consulting firm was hired to study the impact of aerial spraying of GF-120. One of the owners of the firm, and the director of the study, was Ricardo Santacruz, then-vice minister of agriculture. Santacruz resigned from that post while the study was underway, only to return shortly after it was presented. The evaluation, which was favorable, was not approved by the Environment and Natural Resources Ministry until 2005. Meanwhile, Moscamed continued its massive spraying, without the backing of an approved assessment. To sustain its conclusions the study depended mostly on scientific studies by Dow, the US Department of Agriculture and Guatemala's Agriculture Ministry, all of which are interested parties in the use of Spinosad. Approval of the assessment was not hindered by the consultants’ conclusion that “there is a lack of informati! on regarding the situation under field conditions and we recognize the limitations in our analysis due to this circumstance.”
In spite of scientific warnings regarding that Spinosad is highly toxic to beneficial insects, nowhere in the assessment is there a discussion of alternatives to aerial spraying during daytime hours, while both farm workers and fauna are present and active in the fields and forests of Guatemala. Nor was there a discussion of the impact on wildlife that may feed off of poisoned insects. (Guatemala has numerous birds and insects that are considered threatened with extinction.)
Local opposition
Carey is recognized as a pre-eminent expert on the Medfly, who served on the California Department of Food and Agriculture´s Medfly Scientific Advisory Panel from 1987-1994, which was created by the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
“The consecuences of policies that continue to be based on the erroneous assumption… that all Medfly outbreaks in California are due to reintroductions will be catastrophic,” concluded Carey in a recent article.
For many years the program operated in Guatemala without an approved Environmental Impact Assessment. In 2002, a consulting firm was hired to study the impact of aerial spraying of GF-120. One of the owners of the firm, and the director of the study, was Ricardo Santacruz, then-vice minister of agriculture. Santacruz resigned from that post while the study was underway, only to return shortly after it was presented. The evaluation, which was favorable, was not approved by the Environment and Natural Resources Ministry until 2005. Meanwhile, Moscamed continued its massive spraying, without the backing of an approved assessment. To sustain its conclusions the study depended mostly on scientific studies by Dow, the US Department of Agriculture and Guatemala's Agriculture Ministry, all of which are interested parties in the use of Spinosad. Approval of the assessment was not hindered by the consultants’ conclusion that “there is a lack of informati! on regarding the situation under field conditions and we recognize the limitations in our analysis due to this circumstance.”
In spite of scientific warnings regarding that Spinosad is highly toxic to beneficial insects, nowhere in the assessment is there a discussion of alternatives to aerial spraying during daytime hours, while both farm workers and fauna are present and active in the fields and forests of Guatemala. Nor was there a discussion of the impact on wildlife that may feed off of poisoned insects. (Guatemala has numerous birds and insects that are considered threatened with extinction.)
Local opposition
Campesinos, beekeepers, environmentalists and coffeegrowers in Guatemala for years have opposed the Moscamed program. Israel Gramajo, municipal mayor of San Antonio Suchitepéquez, recently has called for the elimination of the Moscamed quarantine post from the highway passing through his town, as well as the prohibition of aerial aspersions. The quarantine is designed to avoid the movement of host fruits toward the northwest. However, the region to the northwest of San Antonio is the most infested area of Guatemala, according to Moscamed monitoring.
In most countries, these concerns related to human health, farm production and risk of environmental damages would be enough to suspend the massive use of aerial spraying until the impacts are fully understood. However, in Guatemala, where the Moscamed budget is seen as an important source of income for many involved in the program, and where the US Embassy historically has had an immense influence over the government, this has not been the case.
In early October, Guatemala was the center of world attention after the discovery of records showing a US program in the 1940s in which medical doctors infected hundreds of Guatemalans with syphilis as part of a US government approved medical experiment. According to numerous scientists, the massive aspersion of pesticides over thousands of square kilometers of Guatemala farmlands is not necessary, nor is it safe, and these vital decisions regarding the future of the country are being left to institutions with interests that historically have caused immense harm to Guatemala.
In most countries, these concerns related to human health, farm production and risk of environmental damages would be enough to suspend the massive use of aerial spraying until the impacts are fully understood. However, in Guatemala, where the Moscamed budget is seen as an important source of income for many involved in the program, and where the US Embassy historically has had an immense influence over the government, this has not been the case.
In early October, Guatemala was the center of world attention after the discovery of records showing a US program in the 1940s in which medical doctors infected hundreds of Guatemalans with syphilis as part of a US government approved medical experiment. According to numerous scientists, the massive aspersion of pesticides over thousands of square kilometers of Guatemala farmlands is not necessary, nor is it safe, and these vital decisions regarding the future of the country are being left to institutions with interests that historically have caused immense harm to Guatemala.
Source: Latinamerica Press. http://www.comunicacionesaliadas.org
https://www.alainet.org/en/active/42207
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- Residents demand an end to Moscamed 11/11/2010
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