17-11-2012, 02:19 PM
Claim No Easy Victories: Evaluating the Pesticide Industry’s Global Safe Use Campaign
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INTRODUCTION
A “Silent Revolution” is sweeping the globe,
according to the international pesticide industry
(GIFAP, n.d.). It is a revolution in the way
farmers and others are using hazardous
pesticides. This transformation in the
technology’s use has resulted in a dramatic
decline in the scope of pesticide-related health
and environmental problems, we are told. In
Guatemala, for example, a 10-fold decline in
pesticide poisonings over the past decade has
been registered by the social security system,
reportedly a direct result of the industry’s “Safe
Use” campaign to train and educate the
Guatemalan populace over that same period
(AGREQUIMA & GIFAP, 1995, p. 3). The impact
of the industry campaign has recently been
touted by popular media (Grimaldi, 1998) and by
development practitioners who have embraced
the safe use concept as central to efforts to solve
the pesticide problem (Tobin, 1996).
THE PESTICIDE PROBLEM
Global pesticide use increased rapidly after
the W W II as wartime technological advances
were applied to peacetime production. First DDT
and then an array of other organochlorine and
organophosphate compounds were introduced
into US agriculture and quickly thereafter into
farming systems around the world. Chemical
manufacturing became “the premier industry of
the US” in the post war period (Perkins, 1982, p.
13). Pesticide sales increased steadily over the
ensuing half century, reaching $32 billion
annually by 1997 (Agrow, 1998).
With the rise in pesticide use came a highly
effective promotional campaign as the pesticide
industry touted the new products. DDT took the
lead in early public relations and advertising
efforts, with one food company official observing
that “The publicity given DDT might well be
envied by a Hollywood movie star” (Brittin,
1950, p. 594). Soon the entire technology was
being heralded as a “miracle technology,”
promising to bring world hunger and disease to
an end.
THE GLOBAL SAFE USE CAMPAIGN
In June 1991, the pesticide industry launched
what has become one of their most ambitious
nonproduct specific voluntary initiatives to date,
the Global Safe Use Pilot Projects. With a
commitment of $1,059,000 from the GIFAP
(now renamed the Global Crop Protection
Federation, GCPF) headquarters in Brussels,
the Safe Use campaign was launched with pilot
projects in 3 countries, Guatemala, Kenya and
Thailand (GCPF, 1998). Here, we focus
exclusively on the Guatemalan case. 6 In the
first of three phases, the Guatemala pilot project
focused on a variety of training and education
activities, along with efforts to test and
distribute more effective safety equipment and
establishment of appropriate pesticide waste
disposal facilities. Training topics included the
protection of humans and their environment, the
prevention and treatment of pesticide poisoning,
how to dispose of empty containers, and
pesticide regulations.
Training: confounding outputs with
outcomes
The evidence the pesticide industry presents
of the success of its Safe Use training efforts has
chiefly consisted of lists of large numbers of
farmers, workers, housewives, schoolchildren,
extension workers and distributors who have
received training. If the interest of the industry
lies merely in discharging its responsibility by
putting accurate information about pesticides
out in the public as widely and as clearly as
possible, then these tallies of individuals
reached with their message can be considered
evidence of effectiveness. But, if the industry is
truly committed to producing behavioral
changes as their literature implies, this kind of
data confounds outputs, numbers of
participants, with outcomes, presumably,
adoption of safer pesticide practices.
Knowledge versus behavioral change
The Safe Use program in Guatemala aims to
“provide education and training and ensure that
pesticides are used rationally and safely in the
agricultural production process” (AGREQUIMA
& GCPF, 1998). The program employs a training
model which assumes that a linear relationship
exists between the transfer of knowledge and
changes in behavior. The groups targeted for
training are instructed in the use of application
equipment, protection equipment, collection
centers for empty containers, rustic storehouses
and the triple washing technique. They are also
given information on labeling, color coding for
toxicity, the signs and symptoms of intoxication,
and first aid.