Reduced funding for research on the effects of pesticides could be compromising human health, says the Canada research chair in ecotoxicology.
Alice Hontela, a biology professor at the University of Lethbridge who studies pesticide effects on the environment, said she is concerned that research funding tends to focus more on technology and economics than on the environment.
“There is an issue with budget cuts to environmental research,” Hontela said. “We are very much focused on technology, improving and making technological discoveries and we are less concerned, or we prioritize less, the environment. And yet we live in it and our children live in it.”
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The agriculture industry accounts for more than 96 percent of all pesticides sold in the province.
According to Alberta Environment data from 2008, which are the most recent figures available, farmers in the Oldman River basin were the highest overall users of pesticides compared to other river basins.
The County of Lethbridge had the highest pesticide sales, followed by the Municipal District of Taber, Cypress County, Wheatland County and Vulcan County. Each of those municipalities used more than 500,000 kilograms of active pesticide ingredient.
In 2008, 12.5 million kilograms of pesticide active ingredient were sold in or shipped into Alberta.
Hontela said she understands the reasons for pesticide use in this agriculturally diverse region and elsewhere.
“I appreciate the complexity of the question, and I know that it’s very difficult to maintain the yields without the use of pesticides in the way that we do agriculture today,” she said after a May 22 presentation to the Southern Alberta Council of Public Affairs.
“But there may be other alternatives, other ways of producing food.”
She said during her talk that pesticide use has benefits, and comparatively little research is done or available on alternatives to chemical use.
“We are very much focused on economic gains,” she said.
“We do want to have the highest production in our crops. We are pressured. We have to survive in a very competitive market … and we don’t have much data on other means to maintain our productivity. Those are very challenging aspects.”
Hontela cited a major 2000-02 study done in California’s agriculturally rich Salinas Valley involving children and pesticide exposure.
It showed a significant link between pesticide exposure and lower IQs in children ages three and five. Memory was also adversely affected. As well, the study showed a link between organophosphates and attention deficit disorder.
“My question is, what about us here,” said Hontela. “Do we know anything about our children? Do we know anything about our exposure? And I know the answer. We don’t.”
Such studies are expensive and complex, in part because it is difficult to identify subtle effects in people, particularly children. Collection of reliable data is further hindered by lack of historical information and absence of a control group.
When doing a risk versus benefit analysis of pesticide use, it is difficult to measure the value of such things as biodiversity loss or peace of mind, she added. That can affect research direction.
“Research funding for environmental research is getting cut very significantly, and environmental agencies that would be responsible for maybe testing new pesticides or maybe evaluating the old ones are also getting cut,” Hontela said.
“So who is going to be doing this? Who is going to be taking care of us and ensuring that the products that we put on the market are safe and that the risks are as small as they can be?”
Hontela said research priorities should be shifted to acknowledge environmental and human health issues as well as economic ones.
Alberta Environment’s 2008 figures show herbicides made up 82 percent of pesticide sales in the province, followed by adjuvants and surfactants at 13 percent, fungicides at three percent and insecticides at two percent.
The most common chemicals were glyphosate and 2,4-D.
The province does a survey of pesticide sales every five years, but 2013 figures are not yet available.
