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Let's Learn from U.S. Experience to See What We Can Do in Japan
1. Methyl Bromide as a Global Environmental Issue
UN Agencies Promote Methyl Bromide Alternatives
The Multilateral Fund's Executive Committee of the UN approved 19 projects with a combined budget of more than $3.3 million to develop alternatives to methyl bromide during July, 1998 in Montreal, Canada. Included were demonstrations of both chemical and non-chemical alternatives for a variety of agricultural crops in countries around the world.
According to a report issued by the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA), sixty-one methyl bromide projects in 36 countries worth US$7.7 million have been approved under the Fund to date. But, at this time, the majority are said to be still remaining in the "project preparation" stage while 17 projects are moving forward with field work and demonstrations.
The PANNA report continues; "The stakes are getting higher as this money makes its way to the field," says PANNA Program Coordinator Kristin Schafer, who attended the July meeting. "The influx of resources could either promote dangerous chemical substitutes for methyl bromide or go a long way toward supporting more sustainable agriculture."
"The Pesticide Action Network has been tracking these projects since the Fund began financing methyl bromide alternatives in 1997. PAN and Friends of the Earth (FoE) recently joined forces to ensure that these resources are spent effectively and on less toxic alternatives. In early June, the two groups established an international system of 'Regional NGO Contact Groups' to work on Fund projects and monitor their implementation."
"While the agencies have all expressed interest in working with NGOs in project development and implementation, none of the field level demonstration projects approved by the Fund to date include NGO participation. Kristin reports that at this latest meeting, 'the agencies were roundly criticized for their high project costs and 'cookie cutter' approach to methyl bromide alternatives projects. Agency representatives now seem to have a renewed interest in tapping the expertise of local NGOs.' "
"The PAN-FoE Regional NGO Contact Group system will streamline this process for the agencies by linking project officers with interested NGOs working directly with farmers and/or with public education experts. The Regional Contact Groups are located in Mexico, Chile, Senegal and Malaysia. PANNA is working closely with FoE-US and FoE-Canada to coordinate the project."
Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA), 1998. E-mail panna@panna.org
As globalization accelerates in the final year of the 20th century, the Japanese agriculture also faces serious problems. The consumers in Japan are turning increasingly to farm produce grown with no or little chemicals, if not those from organic farms, and, the Japanese agriculture as a while seems unprepared to overcome this and move into the 21st century unscathed. But, as clearly visible in the U.S. methyl bromide issue described above, the only chance we have to see our way through these difficult years to move into a new era of clean agriculture free from dangerous chemicals is to discover viable alternatives which will, whether it be new nontoxic chemical compounds or some entirely different non-chemical substance or technologies, replace the conventional chemicals known to be hazardous.
The tests conducted in 1998 with the cooperation of potato growers is only the modest beginning. Their co-op associations are interested, and during 1999, we are expanding our field tests in Japan and elsewhere in such a way that some of the tests will be practically nothing short of actual commercial operations. In the meantime, we are prosecuting a number of new research projects at regional universities and agricultural stations with an aim to adding more improvements as we continue with the field tests.
One of the most serious among the major environmental issues involving insecticides used in agriculture anywhere in the world is the case of methyl bromide in the U.S. involving serious damage done to the ozone layer. Heated public debates have continued for over a decade, and the battle is yet far from over. Methyl bromide has not only penetrated the core of America's agricultural economy, but also found its way into many other countries for use in agriculture and food storage because the gas with extraordinary toxic potency is quick to disappear from the treated soil into the atmosphere.
Much of the above information comes from the report titled "UN Agencies Promote Methyl Bromide Alternatives," of PESTICIDE ACTION NETWORK NORTH AMERICA (PANNA) REGIONAL CENTER The picture above is from the December, 1996 issue of Smithsonian Magazine
2. What about the Chemical-Soaked Japanese Agriculture?
The scientific information technology developed by our Laboratory seems to offer one of the very promising alternatives discovered to date. As it is precisely the case with the potato farms in Japan, the growers here have been accustomed to use the very toxic chloropicrin as insecticide. And everywhere we conducted the field tests in the last few years, many of them commercial in size, we have firmly established the fact that our information technology can do exactly the same thing chloropicrin is capable of doing, with absolutely no chemicals, and doing it more effectively producing greater results .
