Did your shopping list kill a songbird?

[Guest guest]

Although I totally agree with the concept this article is

presenting, I must challenge what the author classifies

as " nontraditional Latin American crops " . I have been a fervent

seed trader/saver for about 7 or more years now, focusing on

heirloom and open pollinated varieties from around the world. I

have lots of different varieties of melons, tomatoes, and peppers

that I received from people in different areas of Latin America,

where they were most definately indigenous varieties. Still, I know

that poisonous sprays have unfortunately become a huge problem

around the globe.

 

Turtle

 

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/30/opinion/edstuchbury.php

 

Did your shopping list kill a songbird?

By Bridget Stutchbury

Published: March 30, 2008

 

WOODBRIDGE, Ontario:

Though a consumer may not be able to tell the difference, a striking

red and blue Thomas the Tank Engine made in Wisconsin is not the

same as one manufactured in China - the paint on the Chinese twin

may contain dangerous levels of lead. In the same way, a plump red

tomato from Florida is often

not the same as one grown in Mexico. The imported fruits and

vegetables found in our shopping carts in winter and early spring

are grown with types and amounts of pesticides that would often be

illegal in the United States.

In this case, the victims are North American songbirds. Bobolinks,

called skunk blackbirds in some places, were once a common sight in

the Eastern United States. In mating season, the male in his

handsome tuxedo-like suit sings deliriously as he whirrs madly over

the hayfields. Bobolink numbers have plummeted almost 50 percent in

the last four decades, according to the North American Breeding Bird

Survey.

The birds are being poisoned on their wintering grounds by highly

toxic pesticides. Rosalind Renfrew, a biologist at the Vermont

Center for Ecostudies, captured bobolinks feeding in rice fields in

Bolivia and took samples of their blood to test for pesticide

exposure. She found that about half of the birds had drastically

reduced levels of cholinesterase, an enzyme that affects brain and

nerve cells - a sign of exposure to toxic

chemicals.

Since the 1980s, pesticide use has increased fivefold in Latin

America as countries have expanded their production of

nontraditional crops to fuel the demand for fresh produce during

winter in North America and Europe. Rice farmers in the region use

monocrotophos, methamidophos and carbofuran, all

agricultural chemicals that are rated Class I toxins by the World

Health Organization, are highly toxic to birds, and are either

restricted or banned in the United States. In countries like

Guatemala, Honduras and Ecuador, researchers have found that farmers

spray their crops heavily and repeatedly with a chemical cocktail of

dangerous pesticides.

In the mid-1990s, American biologists used satellite tracking to

follow Swainson's hawks to their wintering grounds in Argentina,

where thousands of them were found dead from monocrotophos poisoning.

Migratory songbirds like bobolinks, barn swallows and Eastern

kingbirds are suffering mysterious population declines, and

pesticides may well be to blame. A single application of a highly

toxic pesticide to a field can kill seven to 25 songbirds per acre.

About half the birds that researchers capture after such spraying

are found to suffer from severely depressed neurological function.

Migratory birds, modern-day canaries in the coal mine, reveal an

environmental problem hidden to consumers.

Testing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration shows that fruits

and vegetables imported from Latin America are three times as likely

to violate Environmental Protection Agency standards for pesticide

residues as the same foods grown in the United States. Some but not

all pesticide residues can be removed by washing or peeling produce,

but tests by the Centers for Disease Control show that most

Americans carry traces of pesticides in their blood.

American consumers can discourage this poisoning by avoiding foods

that are bad for the environment, bad for farmers in Latin America

and, in the worst cases, bad for their own families.

What should you put on your bird-friendly grocery list? Organic

coffee, for one thing. Most mass-produced coffee is grown in open

fields heavily treated with fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides and

insecticides. In contrast, traditional small coffee farmers grow

their beans under a canopy of tropical trees, which provide shade

and essential nitrogen, and fertilize their soil naturally with leaf

litter. Their organic, fair-trade coffee is now available in many

coffee shops and supermarkets, and it is recommended by the Audubon

Society, the American Bird Conservancy and the Smithsonian Migratory

Bird Center.

Organic bananas should also be on your list. Bananas are typically

grown with one of the highest pesticide loads of any tropical crop.

Although bananas present little risk of pesticide ingestion to the

consumer, the environment where they are grown is heavily

contaminated.

When it comes to nontraditional Latin American crops like melons,

green beans, tomatoes, bell peppers and strawberries, it can be

difficult to find any that are organically grown. We should buy

these foods only if they are not imported from Latin America.

Now that spring is here, we take it for granted that the birds'

cheerful songs will fill the air when our apple trees blossom.

But each year, as we continue to demand out-of-season fruits and

vegetables, we ensure that fewer and fewer songbirds will return.