Imagine a world without pesticides

Can we imagine a day, a year or a world without using hazardous chemicals to grow our food? I can. And we must.

Today, people are continuing to stand up for the future of food and farming, speaking out against harmful pesticide use in Hawaii, Iowa, California and beyond even when it draws the ire of corporate bullies like Monsanto and Dow. And internationally, often under daunting, even dangerous circumstances, grassroots groups in our global network are creatively and courageously drawing attention to the harms of chemical-intensive industrial farming in their countries.

“It has become clear that the problems we have today with children’s lives being continuously wrecked by pesticides are because of institutional failures to acknowledge that pesticides are not necessary,” charged our sister organization PAN Asia & the Pacific on No Pesticides Use Day.

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A better world

Our vision of a better world for our children and for future generations is a powerfully motivating factor — and we’ve made important progress on many continents in recent years. But there is clearly more work to do.

For our children, we need to push back against corporate control over scientific and agricultural policies at every level — including in our state legislatures and in academic research on college campuses. For our children, we need to advocate for buffer zones to protect them from pesticide drift in agricultural areas. For our children, we need to provide farmers the tools and support to step off the pesticide treadmill.

If we can imagine a world for our children without hazardous pesticides, we must begin now to invest in non-chemical alternatives to provide more and more of the food we’ll need for coming generations. As the saying goes, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second best time is now.”